Rocky River’s girls cross country team starts off on the 3.1-mile course at the West Shore Conference championship Saturday. River placed four runners in the top 10 to repeat as champs. Read more on page 2B. (Photo by Larry Bennet)

River Girls repeat as West Shore champions
By Matt Pawlikowski
Sports
Published Oct. 11, 2006

They are ranked eighth in the state poll, and with good reason. When the going gets tough, Rocky River’s girl harriers get going. The West Shore Conference meet, which was held at Lorain County Community College on Saturday, was a prime example.

Although Bay’s Hannah Farver was the individual West Shore champ, with a course best time of 19:28, the Rockets didn’t have enough firepower to overcome the Pirates’ depth and talent.

Rocky River placed four runners in the top 10, and outscored Bay 35-50 to take the WSC for a second consecutive year.

“This really feels great,’’ said Rocky River girls coach Laura Brabant. “Bay is a great team, they brought a lot of strong runners with them, but we’re really excited that being defending champions, we can win again this year. The kids did what they needed to do.’’

Leading the way for the Pirates was senior Jade Braden, who was second and had a time of 19:45, which is a career PR for her. Brittney Towner placed third and ran a time of 19:48, which is only seconds off her best.

Not far behind was Paige Nagy, who was fifth and ran a 20:23, while Ellie Brandt ran a 20:54, which is seconds off her career PR, which she set as a freshman at the state meet.  Jenna Berg ran 21:46.  Elizabeth Opett ran a 22:07 and Emma Pavlik ran a 22:11.

“It was exciting to have three members of the varsity team earn first team all conference and two members earn second team all conference and all seven finish in the top 20!” said Brabant. “We do what we have to do in practice, and they do what I ask, then they perform when it is time to perform.”

Farver, who placed fourth last year, became Bay’s first conference champ since the downturn of disco when Sara Munroe won back-to-back titles in 1980-81.

“I’m really happy that I won,’’ said Farver. “I was going in to this race happy and excited, and thought in my mind that I could win this. This was always a goal of mine, and now I achieved it.”

Abby Sterele (6th, 20:33), Stephanie Black (9th, 20:48), Molly Gorie (12th, 21:37) also earned all-conference honors for Bay. Lisa Greible (23rd, 22:22) also had a nice meet for the Rockets.

Fairview’s girls finished fourth overall in the meet with 98 points, but got a great performance from Jessica Zangmeister, who was fourth.

“My first race here, I was leading and took a wrong turn,’’ said Zangmeister. “So this time I knew the course better, but River ran well and picked it up the last half of the race. I’m happy though. The weather out here is also deceiving. It doesn’t feel warm because of the wind, but when you start running, it was hot. I was really dehydrated during the race.”

Warrior coach Rich Friel was pleased with how his girls performed.

“The girls had Jessica Zangmeister earn First Team All-Conference and Ana Konovalov was Second Team All-Conference,” said Fairview coach Rick Freil. “We also had strong finishes from Amanda Shuttleworth, Vicky Diedrichs, Tory Johnson, Teresa Mills, and Maureen Rehor. The girls were hoping to challenge for second or third  but we fell short this week. We are hoping to continue to improve our performance as we move to the district meet in two weeks.”

Rocky River also fared extremely well in the open race. Freshman Sarah Morford won the girls open race with a time of 23:09, which was a career PR for her by 45 seconds. Junior Sarah Milkovich was seventh overall in the open division, and ran a time of 24:48, a career PR by 10 seconds. Junior Jasmine Corbin finished in 25:53, while Ali Balogh finished with a time of 26:06 a career PR.

Freshman Ashley Pantona-Price and Jackie Gates also had career PRs with 29:54 and 31:22 respectively

“This was the last race for all the open/JV runners on our team,” said Brabant. “I am really excited for how well they all ran, with so many career PRs, it was a great way to end their season!”