By TED SCHULTZ, for The Democrat
Three Brown County runners will get to compete on their home course at least one more week after they advanced to Saturday’s semistate.
Sophomore Emelia Koester finished 11th in the girls race, and seniors Jackson McPheeters and Marino Dolph were 16th and 19th in the boys race in Saturday’s Brown County Regional to qualify for semistate as individuals.
Koester finished in 20 minutes, 12.69 seconds for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles).
“I’m really excited,” Koester said. “Although I didn’t hit my (personal record), I still ran my season PR, so I’m really happy about that. Today, the weather was so nice I could actually breathe, unlike last week. Last week was really bad for me.”
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Koester ran about 1:17 faster than the previous week, when temperatures approached 90 degrees. Saturday, it was about 40 when the girls race began.
Two other Eagle girls competed. Anna Fleetwood finished 34th in 21:23.87, and Maris Wyman was 38th in 21:40.14.
“Eme did a very good job today,” Brown County coach Rob Abraham said. “She kind of bonked out last week, and it was one of those deals where she really got overheaded. This week, she ran 10 times better, and the cool weather was definitely an aid in that. I thought we would have had a shot with Anna, but she ran 8 seconds off.”
Brown County’s boys finished eighth as a team with 187 points. The top five teams qualified for semistate.
McPheeters, who finished 16th in 16:54.97, and Dolph, who was 19th in 16:58.14, made it as individuals.
“We just haven’t had great weather all season and a great course, and things came together on Saturday,” Abraham said.
Branden Leslie finished 45th in 17:52.64. Cameron Fox took 73rd in 19:08.27, while Josh Parry was 82nd (19:54.24) and Jason Stratton 83rd (19:58.22).
“We ended up doing, I thought, pretty good,” Abraham said. “We had the two up front, and then Branden missed going to semistate, but then everybody else PRed. They ended up with the best race they had for the year.”
Columbus North’s 11th-ranked boys and 16th-ranked girls cruised to the team titles.
The semistate will begin with the girls race at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Eagle Park. The boys race will follow at 11:15 a.m.
