A Crestview sweep: Brockway, Gerich win Richland County Cross Country Meet titles
MADISON TOWNSHIP — For years, the Richland County Cross Country Meet has been owned by the Shelby Whippets.
Year after year, Shelby takes the team championships and puts a gold medal around the necks of the individual boys and girls who win the race.
Shelby again won the team titles on Monday, with 20 points for the boys and 25 for the girls. But the individual titles went home to Crestview.
Juniors Cooper Brockway and Leyna Gerich won their races Madison High School. Brockway ran a blazing 16:59.1 to take home the gold.
Richland County Cross Country Scoreboard Them takes third at Northmor Invite
Richland County Girls Soccer Scoreboard: Mansfield Senior improves to 3-0 with win over Huron
Richland County Football Power Poll: Clear Fork takes over No. 1 spot
"It is great to be the Richland County champ," Brockway said. "This is my first one since I was always behind (3-time champ Huck Finnegan) and all those Shelby boys last year. I finally got them all this year and that is a great start to the season. Coming through the two-mile, there is a loop where you can kind of look and see what is behind you and I saw those guys right there and I knew they were going to be gunning for me in the last mile. Luckily, I held them off."
The next four runners were all Shelby Whippets: Marshall Moore, Indy Mayer, Luke Lesseuer and Carson Perkins.
But it was Brockway who ended Shelby's streak of complete dominance in the meet.
"That is really nice," Brockway said. "Shelby is pretty well known in the sports world and Crestview has a few good teams so it is so nice to bring this thing back to Crestview and represent the small schools."
Brockway's time was a minute and a half faster than what he ran in this event last year, proving all of the hard work he put in over the summer paid off. It was a great start to his junior season despite temperatures that pushed the high 80s with high humidity.
"I am definitely happy with that," Brockway said. "I went 18:30 here last year so it is a crazy improvement. The heat was tough, but I'll take it for the first meet of the year. My mileage bumped up in the offseason and I did a lot of tempo and progression runs in the summer so the speed work helped a lot and I felt a huge difference during preseason workouts."
Gerich came in first place by 25.6 seconds with a time of 20:47.4. It is also her first Richland County title after the meet was dominated by Shelby's Kayla Gonzales and Lexington's Halle Hamilton in recent years.
"It feels great," Gerich said. "It means a lot to me and it is great for my school."
Madison's Callie Cyrus took second at 21:14.0, and Shelby freshman Anna Will had a massive high school debut in third, leading the Whippets to the team championship.
Gerich was pleased with her time, especially in the tough conditions on a hard course.
"It is where I want to be right now," Gerich said. "It was very hot, but I have run in worse. This was a rough meet though so it was nice to push through. I just tried to slow my breathing, relax and run as light as I could."
Complete meet results can be found here.
jfurr@gannett.com
740-244-9934
Twitter: @JakeFurr11
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Crestview's Cooper Brockway, Leyna Gerich win Richland County Cross Country titles
