Bulldog sports round-up

• By Megan Bachman
• Published: October 23, 2014

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CROSS COUNTRY
Brown qualifies for regionals
YSHS sophomore Levi Brown led the Bulldogs to a seventh-place finish out of nine teams at the OHSAA District Meet at the Miami Valley Career Technical Center on Saturday. With his 17:56 personal best run in the 5K race, Brown finished 13th out of 64 runners and earned a spot as an individual at next week’s regional meet. The top 16 district runners and top four teams move on to regionals. The boys did not move on as a team.

Senior Connor Gravley-Novello finished the race in 19:45, good for 37th place. Not far behind were freshmen Zach Brintlinger-Conn (41st place, 20:31), Donnie Isenbarger (44th place, 20:49), Sturm Myles (56th place, 25:06) and Eric Romohr (58th place, 30:58). Together, the YSHS boys earned 191 points to finish ahead of Tri-County North and Troy Christian at districts.

Brown will run against 134 runners from 32 schools at the OHSAA Regional Meet at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 25 at Troy High School.

Girls season ends at districts
No YSHS girls cross-country runners qualified for regionals at the district meet, held at the Miami Valley Career Technical Center on Saturday. However, several delivered strong performances.

YSHS runner Charlotte Walkey finished in 17th place, just one position shy of qualifying for regionals. The top 16 runners at districts move onto regionals. Walkey’s run of 22:01 for the 5K put her 22 seconds away from a regional berth. The junior will get another chance at qualifying next year.

Sophomore Olivia Brintlinger-Conn finished just behind Walkey in 22:26, good for 24th place and senior Emma Romohr came in 50th place with a time of 28:12. Sixty runners competed.

SOCCER
Boys bow out in district semis
The Yellow Springs High School boys soccer season ended on Monday, when the number five-ranked Bulldogs lost 2–0 to the top-seeded Franklin Monroe in the district semi-finals. YSHS fell behind early when Franklin Monroe took the ball down the left flank and an off-guard Bulldogs defense let in a goal. YSHS was down 2–0 at the half and despite eight or nine shots, including several close calls, couldn’t get back in the game.

Coach Ben Van Ausdal said Franklin Monroe came out better prepared while YSHS couldn’t capitalize on chances to score.

“We had opportunities to score we just didn’t finish,” Van Ausdal said. “It could have gone either way. They put their balls in the net and we didn’t.”
Van Ausdal said the defense nonetheless played well. Several YSHS star players were double-teamed, keeping them less effective. If the Bulldogs won, they would have advanced to the district finals for the seventh straight year. This year they bowed out one round earlier in a season that didn’t quite meet expectations.
“We had a roller coaster season,” Van Ausdal said. “But I’m so proud of our boys.”

Earlier in the week, YSHS defeated Xenia Christian 11–0 in the sectional tournament. Xenia Christian didn’t get a single shot off, while all the YSHS seniors were able to play in the contest.

“It was a good opportunity for our seniors in their last chance to play on their home field,” Van Ausdal said of the game.

Players receive copious awards
At the end of the season, several standout YSHS boys soccer players received conference and district honors. Senior Jared Scarfpin was selected the Metro Buckeye Conference player of the year for the second straight year and was also first team All-District and first team All-Conference. Nathan Miller was given the All-Conference Coaches Award.

Other All-District honors went to Ian Chick (first team), Fielding Lewis (second team), Liam Creighton (third team), Devon Perry (third team) and Joe Plumer (third team). Additional All-Conference honors were given to Chick (first team), Lewis (first team), Creighton (first team), Perry (second team), Plumer (second team) and Henry Potts-Rubin (second team).

VOLLEYBALL
Varsity fights hard in last game
The Yellow Springs High School volleyball team finished its season in tournament play against Fairlawn at Tippecanoe High School on Tuesday, Oct. 14. The Bulldogs put up a fight, especially in the first game of the match, meeting Fairlawn point for point for much of the game. But Fairlawn’s serving got the best of the Bulldogs with Fairlawn winning in three games, 25–17, 25–5, 25–5. Due to the great digging by the Bulldogs, Fairlawn had to resort to tipping the ball a lot. For the seniors, Modjeska Chavez and Mollye Malone, it was a tough ending, according to Coach Chris Linkhart.

“We took Fairlawn out of the system they were used to running — made them change things up,” Linkhart said. “I was so proud of how well this team played, especially the seniors. They’re playing their best volleyball right now. I could not have asked for any more out of them. It’s tough to lose a match that you fought so hard to win.”

During the match Elizabeth Smith had two points, one dig and one block, Kasey Linkhart contributed one point, one kill, seven assists and three blocks, Meredith Rowe had three kills and four digs, Chavez scored four kills and had one dig, Gracie Wilke contributed five digs, Madeline Neilsen had two points, one dig and one block, Malone contributed two assists and Elle Peifer had one kill and two digs.

7th graders are MBC champs
The McKinney seventh-grade volleyball team concluded its regular season with two wins, one against Emmanuel Christian (25–10, 21–25, 25–11) and another against Middletown Christian (25–7, 25–10). The team ended the season with a 7–2 record, making them the regular season conference champions and the number one seed in the conference tournament on Saturday, Oct. 11.

On tournament day, the seventh-grade squad added an exclamation point to the season, winning the conference tournament in straight sets against number four seed Troy Christian (25–11, 25–6) and number two seed Emmanuel Christian (25–4, 25–21). As has been the case all season, strong serving carried the team. Tyler Linkhart was on fire, serving 46 clean serves out of 47 attempts, securing 43 points on the day with 19 aces. Middle hitter Areli Erazo was 16 for 17, adding 12 points to the cause and one more block to her team-leading total. And Abby McAnearny was once again perfect from the service line at 10 for 10 and five points.

In order to accomplish “this impressive feat,” the team had to make some last minute adjustments since starting middle hitter Jane Meister had to miss the tournament due to illness, according to Coach Bubba Worsham. Zoey Williams stepped into the sizeable gap with her best performance of the season, serving seven for nine and scoring five points, Worsham added. Setter Riley Duncan was seven for eight both serving and setting, and Olivia Snoddy contributed two points and a block.

8th graders take 3rd in MBC
After starting the season 1–4, the ­McKinney eighth-grade volleyball team found traction and turned its season around, wrapping it up with a 4–2 run which yielded a 5–6 overall record (4–4 in the conference), good enough for a third-place regular season finish.

The last week of the season yielded a hard-fought loss to first-place Emmanuel Christian (11–25, 25–8, 11–25) and a win at home against Middletown Christian (17–25, 25–14, 25–21).

“Even though it came during a loss, I saw this team play their best volleyball of the season during the second set against Emmanuel Christian,” Coach Bubba Worsham said.

Kayla Brown and Lauryn DeWine both served strongly with eight points and 3 aces each, and Alex Ronnebaum controlled the net with eight kills and six blocks. In the win against Middletown Christian, Meryam Raissouni and Audrey Thomas led the team in points (10 and 9, respectively).

In the tournament, the Bulldogs faced the number two seed Troy Christian in the semi-finals.

The team had not won a game all season when its serving percentage dropped below 80 percent and this match proved no different, Worsham said.

“Tournament match notwithstanding, I really like the late-season improvement of this group of athletes,” Worsham said. “I expect them to continue developing individually and as a team as they move on to high school competition next year.“

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