| Division II State Report: The end of an era. After claiming the last 3 state titles, Beaumont, the underdog this year, couldn't pull off the upset and Taylor won in dominating fashion by a whopping 88 points! 63 - 151 over CVCA. The individual race was close only until a bit after the mile and lacked any suspense once Taylor frosh Emily Thompson took control and pulled away from everybody. The top runners separated in the first 800 in the stadium as Maggie Infeld of Beaumont, Thompson, Sara Wiseman of Gallia, Katy Ankrom of Circleville, and Lisa Uible of Indian HIll headed to the front. The mile went in about 5:33 with Infeld in the lead and Thompson second, right on her shoulder. Wiseman was a step or two back and Uible, Ankrom, and Huron's Amy Renner chased from behind. Infeld was showing signs that this wasn't to be her's or Beaumont's day as she was visably straining in the first mile. By the time the race had exited the stadium the second time and headed out to the north loop, it was all Thompson. Thompson looked smooth and in control and continued to pull away on the north loop. Infeld had already begun to drop back to the mid teens and Wiseman had moved into second with Uible third and the pack chasing. Try as they might, nobody could catch Thompson and she ran to the biggest margin of victory of the day to win in 18:13. Wiseman was second in 18:48 and Uible third in 18:50. Infeld fell all the way back to 34th after leading at the mile. The team race was devoid of any suspense as Taylor ran away with it. Thompson was 1st, junior Carrie Crofford was 11th (19:24), soph Casey Lariccia was 37th (20:00), senior Cristy Doll 41st (20:05), soph Sara Schmidt 42nd (20:06), soph Jenifer Stanley 64th (20:28) and junior Sarah Eggleston 81st (20:45). Second place CVCA relied on a total team effort and was closely packed the entire race. With the exception of frosh Erin Rhodes (16th, 19:33), the rest of the top 5 was between 20:07 and 20:43. Huron had the strongest top 3 with Amy Renner going 19:16, senior Laura Lindsley 19:41, and senior Kristin Erne 19:42, but fell off to 20:42, and 21:32 after that. Van Wert got up for 4th and Perry for fifth. MicNicholas had a bad day as well and fell to 6th, just holding off Beaumont who finished seventh. NOTES: *Once again, there were only 4 frosh in the top 25. It's great to see the older girls starting to take over again. *The top two teams, Taylor and CVCA were both led by a frosh. Thompson and Rhodes. *The only time they met this year Thompson beat d1 champ Angela Bizzarri with a killer final kick. *Coming into this year, Beaumont had won 6 of the last 8 d2 titles. And in 93 they won the d1 title. That's 7 out of possible 25 state titles. They were also second in 88. Full Divison II results can be found here... |