Leah Emch leads Eagles to NBC championship

Leah Emch leads Eagles to NBC championship

GENOA — Eastwood took the top three spots, led by Leah Emch, to win the Northern Buckeye Conference girls cross country championship running through wind and rain at Genoa’s partly-wooded course on the school’s campus.

“Overall, I’m really proud of the toughness that our kids displayed,” Eastwood coach Nathan Howard said.

“The weather was terrible and the course was really rough in places, especially on the hills, but I think nearly every one of our kids embraced the challenge and really attacked the race the way we asked them to.”

Emch finished in 20:07.45, followed by teammates Haley Sponaugle (20:43.22) and Z Ramsey (20:46.85) in second and third.

Eastwood scored 25 points, followed by Genoa (39), Otsego (95), Oak Harbor (120), Maumee (123), and Lake (175). Fostoria and Rossford did not have enough runners for a team score.

“On the girls’ side, we knew we would be tough to beat because of our top three runners,” Howard said.

“Leah just continued to build upon a special season — she set a new school record last month, she’s now the NBC runner of the year, and we think she has even better races in front of her as the postseason begins.

“Haley and Z, who were second and third overall, are two senior leaders that have helped to change our whole program’s mindset, and their hard work and dedication has rubbed off on a lot of the younger runners,” Howard continued.

“After that, our girls just competed hard and picked up as many spots as they could, which is exactly what we asked them to do.”

Eastwood runner Emily Payne (21:53.04) was eighth, Reagan Russell (22:39.2) was 11th, Maggie Ramsey (22:41.94) was 13th, Emerson Sheets (22:56.69) finished in 14th place, Jadyn Lubash (23:23.48) was 19th, Savannah Stephens (23:45.35) was 21st, Caitlyn Stiner (23:54.53) was 22nd, and the Eagles had 12 more runners in the field.

“It’s a point of pride for us that our whole team competes hard regardless of their place in the race, and my favorite stat from the girls’ side is that our 17th runner would have been in the top five of every team except Genoa at this year’s NBC meet,” Howard said.

“Heading into the district meet, we think our boys have a legitimate shot at making it to the regional meet again, and our girls have a solid chance of making it to the state meet for their third year in a row, which would be a pretty special accomplishment.”

The Eastwood boys scored 85 points to finish behind champion Otsego (44), Genoa (74) and Lake (81). Fostoria (119) was fifth, followed by Maumee (155), OH (162), and Rossford (183).

Ben Buehler (18:24.32) was Eastwood’s top runner, placing seventh, John Stewart (18:57.91) was 13th, Henry Howard (19:00.41) was 15th, and Connor Carroll-Schramm (19:13.86) was 18th.

“The boys were only 11 points from second place, and I thought they competed really well from top to bottom,” Howard said.

“Ben Buehler getting first team as a freshman is a great accomplishment, and John, Henry, and Connor ran really hard as well to get all-league honors.

“This boys’ team is an unbelievably nice group of boys and they’re just great to be around, so I’m glad they’re starting to see more success.”