Pirates pillage their way to Regional title
“It’s a good anniversary,” said Garaway head coach Chuck Zobel, who watched his former protege advance to his second straight State meet as a coach, when Beachy helped lead West Holmes junior Cully Gordon to a 12th-place finish in the DII race at Pickerington. “It’s been 10 years running and the last one we won was when coach Beachy was on my team in ’01, so what a great feeling. It never gets old, trust me.
“We really focused all week on running how God would want us to run, and doing our best job, and not letting the event get bigger than it actually is.”
With 129 runners and 16 different schools participating, the event was already pretty big, but with Pirates sophomore Alex Schrock (24th place, 18:14), freshman Samuel Wentworth (26th, 18:26), freshman Caleb Morehart (31st, 18:37), freshman Blake Yoder (39th, 18:47), and senior Zeke Misko (72nd, 19:31) all finishing within 1:17 of one another and all finishing in the top one-third – except for Misko – Garaway easily racked up enough points to run away with the team title.
“It was a good race for us,” explained Brady Yoder in understated fashion. “Everybody stepped up and did what they needed to do. We needed to trust each other and know that we were each going to do our jobs, and just go out with a bang.
“Logan’s always out there, I’m usually about 30 seconds behind, and then that second group just always is packed up and that really helps us a lot. Bringing them up and getting them really close just takes away points from other teams and helps us score and do good. It’s pretty exciting.”
Or amazing, as in the case of Garaway freshman Makenzie Widder, who was the only Lady Pirates runner to advance out of Regionals, finishing fifth place (19:57), in a field of 133 runners in the girls DIII race, earning a trip to Hebron while the Garaway team finished one spot away from a trip to State with its fifth-place finish (198 points) – 43 points behind Gahanna Columbus Academy and Beverly Fort Frye (155), which tied for third behind Mount Gilead (85) and Lancaster Fisher Catholic (117).
“It’s not frustrating at all because my girls did everything they can do,” said Zobel, talking about the narrow miss by his Lady Pirates team, consisting of Widder, sophomore Anna Havranek (22nd place, 21:10), junior Alyssa Lower (73rd, 22:54), junior Sophie Feller (83rd, 23:07), freshman Amber Immel (87th, 23:22), junior Madison Widder (103rd, 24:07), and junior Kristina Hlinovsky (106th, 24:14). “At the end of the day, you do the best you can and if it’s good enough, it’s good enough, if it isn’t it isn’t. But if you give everything you have that’s all you can ask for.
“But Makenzie’s done that kind of stuff all year and we knew coming in that she had a really, really good shot. At this level it’s either you keep your head and you do what you’re supposed to do, or you don’t. She’s not the kind that cracks very easy, so she kept her head in the race and it worked out real well for her. I’m very proud of her.”
“It feels amazing,” said Widder, who first started running cross country as a raw talent in eighth grade, one year ago. “I didn’t think I could do that good but I was both surprised and happy at the same time.
“I owe it all to my coach because he helped me pace myself, he helped me work on my form, so all I know is from him.”
Talking about the team, Widder added, “It’s motivation for us for next year. Next year we’ll be better and stronger and hopefully make it to State then.”
Maybe they’ll even win a Regional title, instead of waiting another 10 years until Widder is possibly coaching somewhere else.
Published: October 29, 2011
