Daviess County girls cross country continued its dominant run by placing first and qualifying for state, while Apollo boys narrowly defeated the Panthers to grab first in the Region 1 Class AAA meet.
Daviess County, Apollo, Owensboro girls meet
The Lady Panthers stole the show on Friday, as their top-five scorers all finished in the top-ten overall and secured their spot in the state meet.
Daviess County finished with an average time of 20:29.27, while Lucy Spaw led the way in first individually with a time of 19:03.54.
Ellington Crabtree finished fifth overall (20:39.05), Kayley Payne finished eighth (20:49.44), Sally Tidwell finished 9th (20:54.02) and Blakely Greer finished 10th (21:00.28).
Head Coach Mark Fortney was pleased with how the girls competed, winning their 41st title in Lady Panthers history and 15th straight.
“We’ve won 41 out of 45 times,” Fortney said. “So they just buy into the program year after year and it’s become that tradition. Expectations are high and they come to perform and get the job done.”
The E-gals also had a successful day, finishing sixth overall with a time of 22:43.62 to qualify for the state meet.
Ava Falloway led Apollo, finishing at 16th overall with a time of 21:36.36. Ahmira Pickett was one spot behind with a time of 21:39.62, while Chloe Sandefur (22:29.09), Addyson Mattingly (23:10.09) and Sarah Rice (24:42.92) rounded out their top-five.
“I’m so thrilled with how the girls finished,” Shouta said. “Our place, we wanted it to be a little higher, but there were a lot of good teams this year… The girls are buying in and they’ve improved so much. The girls had a legit shot to come in top-two today. I’m excited to coach them and the future is bright.”
Owensboro fell just short of qualifying for state as a team, finishing eighth overall with a time of 22:53.78. However, Kiley Palmer (seventh) and Addison Edge (25th) were able to qualify individually, finishing with times of 20:48.68 and 22:41.29 respectively.
Daviess County, Apollo, Owensboro boys meet
Apollo finished with an average time just under 17 minutes to earn first place, while Daviess County fell right behind in second place.
The Eagles finished with a time of 16:55.28, while Thomas Ashby grabbed first individually with a time of 15:40.91.
Noah Gray was the second-leading scorer for Apollo with a time of 16:57.79 to grab ninth overall, while Emmit Brock finished 10th with a time of 16:59.84, Josh Thomas finished 13th with a time of 17:10.67 and Blake Mullins finished 25th with a time of 17:47.22 to round out its top-five.
Shouta said they knew the race would be close, but knew that if they could execute the gameplan correctly they could walk away with the region title.
“The plan was for Thomas Ashby who was obviously going to be up front to slow the race down a little bit to keep our numbers two-five in contention through the mile,” Shouta said. “We felt like if we hit the mile mark and we were in contention the boys would be confident and they would be able to finish the last two miles and it played out exactly like that. [It was] a full team effort [with] lots of PRs.”
Ashby’s time was nearly a minute ahead of the second-place finisher and Shouta said he could’ve blown away the competition had they not used their specific gameplan to find success as a team.
“That’s a testament to Thomas,” Shouta said. “Because he could’ve went out there and blown away the field, but he went through the mile a little bit slower than normal and it worked out perfectly.”
Shouta said that Ashby has reached the level of excellency running because of the work he puts in outside of practice, taking care of his body and mind.
“Thomas is getting to a new level because he focuses on the total thing,” Shouta said. “A lot of our younger athletes see that and they’re buying in too. Thomas brings a lot more to the team than just a low score.”
Shouta said that qualifying and competing in state is just one piece of the puzzle for the boys program, as the team is full of underclassmen and are prepared to succeed for years to come.
“We’ll use state as a learning experience,” Shouta said. “We’re going to go up there and we’re gonna be relaxed because everybody is coming back. So we’re going to get out there and we’re going to be aggressive because we know we’ll be back next year. We’re just going to go out there and toe the line, get after it and see what happens.”
Daviess County placed second overall with a time of 17:14.70, with Nolan Kurz leading the way with a second-place individual finish at a time of 16:36.36.
Bryson McGary followed closely behind in sixth with a time of 16:50.79, while Caleb Tidwell (17:04.99), Zach McCaslin (17:34.51) and Brayden Kaelin (18:06.84) rounded out their top-five.
“We’ve improved a little bit each week,” Fortney said. “So we hope to peak next week and I think we can. It’ll be a tough task without our really two good runners once you get at that level, but everybody else has stepped up and done a good job so we’ll ask that one more time of them.”
Owensboro was unable to qualify for state as a team with an eighth place finish, but Adrian Askin was able to qualify individually. He finished 23rd overall with a time of 17:40.74
