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MHS cross country misses out on state

Sports reporter

Marion High School cross country teams ran well, but both the girls' and boys' teams failed to qualify for state competition Saturday at Halstead High School.

Sophomore Danielle Cope finished 13th with a two-mile time of 13:39. She just missed qualifying because of a tie-breaker issue.

The top three teams at regionals advance to state, but Southeast of Saline and Halstead both finished with 89 points. Southeast was allowed to advance by winning the tie-breaker.

The top five runners who were not on one of the top three teams were allowed to advance as individuals. Halstead had three runners right in front of Cope, forcing her to just miss qualifying. Had Halstead taken third, those runners would have qualified as a team and Cope would have advanced because she finished ahead of all Southeast of Saline runners.

"I couldn't have felt worse for Danielle," MHS coach Rex Ostmeyer said. "She really wanted to go, she was so dedicated to it."

The good news is Cope is only a sophomore and will be back better than ever according to Ostmeyer.

"She's pretty motivated now," he said. "She will come back next year and be one of the top runners in the area I think."

As a team the girls finished fifth in the 15-team regional. Senior Alissa Vogel was the second Marion finisher with a time of 14:28 and a 30th-place finish.

Sophomore Katie Hett and seniors Anika Wegner and Sabine Teichert finished 32nd, 38th, and 39th respectively.

Sophomore Luke Bowers led the boys' team with a 3.1-mile time of 18:47. He finished 20th, missing out on a trip to the state meet.

"He did well," Ostmeyer said of Bowers. "There were some great runners there."

Individual finishes for the boys other than Bowers were unavailable. Sophomore Daniel Goentzel finished next for Marion with a time of 19:13. Freshman Justin Heidebrecht finished third for Marion at 20:50, and sophomores Ben Leppke (20:57) and Jordan Timm (20:59) were right behind Goentzel.

Despite no one qualifying for state Ostmeyer was proud of his young team.

"Just about everybody medaled at some point," he said. "We were competitive every week."

He noticed during the season the team formed a camaraderie.

"They had routines they go through as a group they were very adamant about," Ostmeyer said. "It was a sense of belonging to something."

The team fought hard all year for Ostmeyer and that was all he had asked for.

"I take pride in the fact nobody quit," he said. "Everybody stuck with it."

Marion won't lose any boys to graduation but will say goodbye to five senior sgirls: Alissa and Briana Vogel, Wegner, Teichert, Sasha Mikheyeva, and Chelsea Arnhold.

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