sidney daily news spring sports 2013

SPRINGS P O R T S

SPRING SPORTS PREVIEW Sidney Daily News,Wednesday,March 27,2013

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It’s a real season ofchange this spring atSidney High School,with only one head coachfrom last season return-ing this year.That would be Tony

Brown in boys tennis.Bill Shoffner in base-

ball, Deron Barker insoftball and RuthieBaker in track are all intheir first seasons withthe Jacket athletes.

BaseballSidney High has a

new baseball coach thisseason in former YellowJacket standout BillShoffner.Shoffner has a career

record of 198-108, but hehas his work cut out torejuvenate a Jacket pro-gram that won just fivegames last season, fin-ishing 5-21.There are eight letter-

men returning for theJackets this season, in-cluding seniors JacobLochard, Kaleb Dotson,Brian Fishbaugh, NickLauth and PrestonHeath, juniors BobbyBenshoff and Ryan Pen-ley, and sophomore Con-nor Echols.Echols, Penley, Lauth,

Benshoff and Lochardwill all be counted on topitch some this season,along with sophomoreColton Risk. Echols hada 3.67 ERA last seasonand Lochard 2.86.Catchers will be Risk

and freshman SammyNiswonger, with Echolsplaying at short alongwith juniors Eric Vargasand Layne Sharp. Echolshit .405 last season.Lochard, who hit .292,

and Lauth, .333 last sea-son, will share duties atfirst and a long list ofcandidates are vying forthe job at second in Var-gas, junior Layne Sharp,Risk, freshman ShaneHerbert and Dotson,who hit .329 last season.Benshoff, who hit

.271, will be at thirdalong with Sharp.Outfield candidates

include Penley, who hit.319 last season, Her-bert, Preston Heath,Fishbaugh and seniorEli Burnside.“Eric Vargas is a

move-in from Californiaand will play middle in-field,” said Shoffner.“Eric has looked like hecan really help us. LayneSharp is up from the JVteam and is a good in-fielder. Colton Risk is upfrom the JV team tooand has been the mostimpressive in the shortamount of practices. Hewill be in a battle for thestarting catcher spot anda spot in the pitching ro-tation. Sammy Nis-wonger is thefrontrunner for thestarting catching spot.Shane Herbert is in therunning for an outfieldspot, but he can playanywhere.“I am very happy with

how hard the kids areworking,” Shoffner con-tinued. “They have highexpectations and believethey can get this thingturned around. Thenumber one priority forus this off season was tofind depth. A good num-ber of kids have workedall fall and winter tomake themselves betterand it has really showed.“They know what the

situation is coming off a5-21 season,” he added.“Things have to changeand no one’s position issafe. I have made it veryclear that these youngguys are pushing thoseveterans for playingtime. I think they haveresponded and havebeen working hard.“I am also happy with

our pitching depth,” hewent on. “If you look atthe records from lastseason it makes youcringe. But our ace was afreshman and the next

best guy was a sopho-more. It really wasn’tfair to them to be forcedinto such a huge rolethat early in their ca-reers.”

Boys tennisTony Brown returns

again as the head coachof the Sidney High boystennis team and he hasfive returning lettermenfrom a year ago.“In order to get some

wins this year theyounger players willhave to step up,” saidBrown. “This is a verycompetitive sport whichrelies on individuals get-ting better in the offsea-son. Some are doing justthat and it will pay off asthe season goes.“With the weather not

cooperating we have torely on players going in-doors to get some swingsin,” he added. “That is al-ways the tough part withthe boys in the spring.”He said at No. 1 sin-

gles will likely be DanTemple, who had a goodjunior season and hopesto improve on that. Butafter Temple, saysBrown, the rest of thepositions will be up forgrabs.“Oak Wynn and

Stephen Hendershotlook pretty good goinginto practices and bothmay challenge as theseason rolls around,”Brown said. “We look toget some good play fromJacob Colley, Neal Dev,Conner Bowers andTrevor Thompson to fitsomewhere on the var-sity squad.”

SoftballSidney has a new

coach in softball afterlongtime head manWade New stepped downfollowing last season.Deron Barker has

stepped into replacehim, and he has sevengirls returning from ateam that finished with

an 11-15 record lastyear.“I think we can be

competitive in ourleague this year but ithinges on the kind ofleadership that we canget from our upper class-men,” said Barker. “Wehave several holes to fillat key positions, includ-ing pitcher, shortstop,third base and first base,and some of the under-classmen will have tostep up and fill them forus. We had several girlstrain at F.A.S.T this win-ter and I’m expecting bigthings from them thisspring.”The returning players

include the coach’sdaughter Madison, whowill be the main pitcherfor the Lady Jackets.She was 4-2 last spring.Also back are Maddi

Homan, Grace Lochard,Josie Raterman, TaylorBusse, Ashley Doak and

Stephanie Davis.Raterman will be be-

hind the plate, Lochardat second and Doak andDavis in the outfield.Doak hit .375 last sea-son, Davis .321 andLochard .305.

Boys trackNew track coach

Ruthie Baker doesn’thave a lot returning inboys track this spring,with only six athletesback from the team thatplaced ninth out of 18teams in the GreaterWestern Ohio Confer-ence meet last season.They includes seniors

Kaleb Martin and AndreSpillers, juniors Jake Se-landers and BlakeSteenrod and sopho-mores Dean Fannon andAnthony Yates.Martin was a regional

qualifier in the 200 dashlast season and Spillerscompeted in the regional

shot put.“We have a dedicated

group of athletes thattrained hard in theweight room during theoffseason and are train-ing hard now,” said thecoach. We’re looking for-ward to some big per-formances this season.”

Girls trackCoach Baker has one

regional qualifier backin girls track at Sidneyin sophomore long-jumper Brandon John-son.She is joined by senior

returnees Jessi Beigel,Kayla Blosser and TinaEchemann, juniors IvyBarker, Elizabeth Dietz,Bria Foy, Cady Hoellrich,Stevie Shepherd, KyleeWatercutter and MorganWhite, and sophomoresMariah Bowser-Jones,Lauren Boyd, KenleeHarrod, Peyton Jonesand Keyli Murphy.

SDN Photo/Luke Gronneberg

SIDNEY HAS these seniors back in track this season, (l-r) Kayla Blosser, JenDavis, Tina Echemann, Jessie Beigel, Heather West, Samantha Fogt and Mar-ilyn Kies.

Only one head coachthe same at Sidney


THERE ARE eight seniors on this year’s Sidney boys track team. In the frontare (l-r) Dan Temple, Jacob Davis, Andre Spillers and Austin Oder, and back,Matt Schwarzman, David Young, Joel Fannon, Kaleb Martin and Troy Ros-sengarten. Martin and Spillers were regional qualifiers last year.

NEW KNOXVILLE

NEW KNOXVILLE—NewKnoxville has ex-perience back in base-ball, and some regionalqualifiers back in track.

BaseballNew Knoxville coach

Nick Schroer’s team wonjust two games in hisfirst year last year, butwith eight returning let-termen, he’s looking forbigger and better things.“With eight back and

half being seniors, theexperience is there,” saidthe coach. “We’re lookingto improve our all-around play.”Back are seniors Jake

Allen, Spencer Wolf,Michael Porter and TylerShreve, juniors WesMeyer and Cody Shawand sophomores ShaneTopp and Adam Howe.Allen, Topp, Shreve

and Howe will share

pitching duties,withAllenand Shreve splitting timebetween that as well ascatcher and shortstop.Porter will be at first,

Meyer at second,Topp atthird and Wolf, Howeand Cody Shaw in theoutfield.

Boys trackAndrewMackie heads

the returnes after win-ning a district title in the400 last year.He is joined as letter-

men by Isaac Kuntz inthe distance and hurdlerPJ Kiernan,The top newcomers

are freshmen DevinKuck, Jacob Shaw andMarcus Nitschke. Shawwas a regional qualier incross country and Kuckwon the 100 and 200 inthe MAC junior highmeet last spring.“Team finishes are

tough bcause of smallnumbers,” said coachNickWirwille. “Andrew will bea top runner in the MACand Isaac was a statequalifier in cross country.”

Girls trackThe Lady Rangers re-

turn two girls who qual-ified for the regionalmeet last season inCassie Boyle in the 1600and Haley Horstman inthe 100 hurdles. Theyare the lone returneesthis season.“We won’t be able to

compete in team scoringbecause of numbers butwe have some good indi-viduals,” said Wirwille.He said sophomore

Hannah Privette movedinto the school districtthis year and will rundistance. She was a re-gional qualifier last fallin cross country.

Ranger baseball returns eight lettermen


NEW KNOXVILLE hopes to improve on last year’s two-win season in baseball,and there are five seniors to lead the way this year, including (l-r) SpencerWolf, Michael Porter, Tyler Shreve, Jake Allen and Ryan Schott.

SIDNEY

NEW BREMEN —The New Bremen base-ball team was solid lastseason, finishing 13-10andf winning six of nineleague games.And with six players

back from that squad,coach Joe Bowersock isoptimistic heading intothis season.Back are seniors Clay

Bertke, Luke Schwieter-man, David Zirkle,Trevor Kitzmiller, AlexFeltz and Alec Heucker.All but Zirkle are ex-

pected to see some pitch-ing duties.Players who didnt let-

ter but are expected tomake an impact includejuniors Jacob Gilberg,TyOverman, Troy Siegel,Bennett Staton and NickBlaine and sophomoresTrey Naylor and NolanFox.“We have a nice blend

of experience and youngblood,” said Bowersock.“And we’ve had a greatoffseason of lifting and

conditioning. So our ath-leticism should be a plus.We hope to finish in thetop half of the MAC thisseason.”


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BOTKINS

BOTKINS — Thecoaches remain the samethis spring for the ath-letes at Botkins, withPhil Groves back inbaseball, Bryan Trego insoftball and Ryan Gut-mann in boys and girlstrack.All but the boys track

team will have a lot ofexperienced athletes tolead this spring, led bybaseball, which has allposition players return-ing from a year ago.

BaseballThe Trojans were 6-19

last season and second-year coach Phil Groves islooking for improvementout of his squad this sea-son.He has reason for op-

timism too, becausethere are nine lettermenreturning, including allposition players fromlast season.“Our upperclassmen

provide great leadershipand our players had aproductive summer withAcme and Legion base-ball,” said Groves. “Weare excited about the op-portunities we have infront of us this season.”The lettermen include

seniors Evan Dietz, SethHoying and JoshSchwartz, juniors ZachGreve, Roger Miller andAlex Roberts, and sopho-mores MitchellGoubeaux, ChristianHoskins and ReidManger.Dietz will pitch and

play third, Hoying willpitch and be a utilityplayer, Schwartz will beat first, Greve behindthe plate, Miller willpitch, Roberts will pitchand play outfield,Goubeaux will play firstand outfield, Hoskinswill be at short and thirdand also pitch, andManger will play at sec-ond.Dietz had a 2.36 ERA

last season and was alsolethal at the plate, witha .472 average. Whenhe's not pitching, the

first-teamAll-County se-lection from a year agowill be manning thirdbase.Roberts was honor-

able mention All-Countylast season and hit .321with 21 stolen bases.Hoying was also honor-able mention on the All-County squad and hit.315.“Three players from

the JV team last year in-clude Nick Okuley,who isa solid defensive playerwho played some varsityat the end of last year,Spencer Stutsman, whowill back up at first andpush for an outfieldand/or DH spot, andTrent Bergman, who hasconsiderable speed andwill also push for an out-field spot,” said Groves.“Senior Gabe Lawrencereturns afer missing lastseason with a broken footand will give us moredepth at first. And seniorCory Kies brings anotherleft-handed bat off thebench or possibly to theDH spot,” he added.

SoftballCoach Bryan Trego

had a lot of veteran play-ers back this season forthe Lady Trojan softballteam.Three-year letter-win-

ners include seniors JillSchneider and Jessica

Dietz, and two-year let-ter-winners include sen-ior Faye Kennedy, andjuniors Emily Brown,Erin Place and VickiGrillot.Other letter-winners

include senior LakeyaParks, junior CourtneyKohler and sophomoreGrace Vanbrocklin.Dietz and junior

Cameron Middleton willhandle the pitchingchores for the Lady Tro-jans, with Brown andPlace sharing duties be-hind the plate.Schneider will hold

down short and Kennedyand freshman AllisonKohler are second base-men. At third will beVanbrocklin and fresh-man Kassidy Esser, andin the outfield will beBrown, Place, Grillot,Kohler and freshmanBlake Maurer.“I feel like we have a

very good group of re-turning players this sea-son,” said Trego. “JessicaDietz will be starting herfourth year as our var-sity pitcher and we havevery high expectationsfor her. Jill Schneiderwill be starting herfourth year as a varsityplayer in our infield.She has worked veryhard in the offseasonand understands what it

takes to be a great soft-ball player. Erin Placestarts her third year forus and has become aswitch-hitter. She canhit well from either sideof the plate, whichmakes her very hard todefend. Emily Brownwill also be starting herthird season as a varsityplayer. She really cameinto own last season as ahitter and has increasedher strength and powerin the offseason.We havesix incoming freshmen,all of which are very tal-ented and fighting forplaying time. We have avery large number of re-turning lettermen butthere is always an oppor-tunity for new players toprove themselves.“As for the league,

everyone is chasing FortLoramie but I feel it willbe very competitive thisseason,” he added.

Boys trackThe Trojan boys track

team will be relying a loton a lot of young playersthis season.There are just two re-

turning lettermen insophomore Austin Jonesin the distance eventsand senior Nick Wagnerin the field events.“The boys team is

young and hungry forsuccess,” said coach

Ryan Gutman. “Withonly two returning let-termen, the team has anopportunity to establisha new identity and pavethe way for the next sev-eral years.”Among the newcom-

ers are junior RogerMiller in the distanceevents, sophomore CalebOren in distance, andfreshmen CameronFlora and Aaron Ful-lenkamp in distance,Brandon Cottrell andLevi Steinke in sprints,and Ben Aufderhaar,Jacob Cooper and MattSchipper in the throws.Miller is a three-time

regional qualifier incross country, and Floraand Fullenkamp eachqualified for the regionallast fall.

Girls trackCoach Ryan Gutmann

has a lot of returnees ingirls track this season,including two regionalqualifiers in juniorBethany Christman inthe 3200 relay and soph-omore Whitney Born-horst in the 300 hurdles.Also back are senior

Colleen Greve in thethrows, sophomores Jo-celyn Counts in thethrows, Allison Guckesin the relays, CorinneWoodruff in the sprints,Brandi Landreth in the

distance and MacKenzieBrown in the sprints,and junior Becca Knoopin the sprints. She wasthe County champ in the100 dash.The top newcomers

will be five freshmen inKayla Heuker, SarahKnoop, Chloe Flora,Amber Buehler and Tay-lor Doseck. Heuker wasthe County junior highchamp in the 400 meters,Flora was the Countyjunior high champ in the800 and a regional quali-fier in cross country lastfall, and Doseck was theCounty junior highchampion in the shotput.“Although the girls

team lost a lot of talent,we are focused on anothersuccessful year,” said Gut-man. “We still have manyreturning letter-winners,regional qualifiers, aschool record-holder(Bornhorst), and promis-ing freshmen joining ourranks.”Gutman is in his fifth

year and assistant FredSchmerge in his third,and they are joined thisyear by the new throwscoach, Dylan Newman.He replaces James John-son. “We certainly appre-ciate how successfulcoach Johnson made thethrowers.”

Lots of experience returns for Trojan squads


BACK FOR the Botkins softball team are seniors (l-r) Faye Kennedy, Jessica Dietz and Jill Schneider.


SENIOR TROJAN baseball players ready to make it a good final season are (l-r) Cory Kies, Seth Hoying, Evan Dietz, Josh Schwartz and Gabe Lawrence.

NEW BREMEN

SDN Photo/Todd B. Acker

THE NEW Bremen soft-ball team will be an ex-perienced one, thanks tothe presence of eightseniors this season.They include (front row,l-r) Haley Moeller, MeganBrandt, Kristin Spraugeand Emily Niekamp, andback row, Caitlyn Ever-hart, SamanthaLuedeke, Maddy Pauland Chelsea Russell.

Six returnfrom 13-10

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Houston has two newcoaches out of the four inspring sports this season,and they join longtimeand highly-successfulcoaches Ron Boeke inboys track and BrentNew in softball.The new faces are

Brad Allen in baseballand Joni Dunham ingirls track.

SoftballBrent New returns for

his 16th year as headcoach of the Houstonsoftball team, and withseven letter-winnersback from last season,he’s a good bet to add alot of wins to his careertotal of 246.The Lady Wildcats

were 16-10 last seasonand return seniors Tay-lor Willoughby, KortneyPhipps, Alyssa Stang,Nicolette Holthaus andMaddy Schaffner, juniorSonya Peltier and sopho-more Hannah Trent.Holthaus was honor-

able mention All-Ohiolast season after hitting.444 and she’ll be atshortstop this season.Willoughby is solid be-

hind the plate and bringsback a .329 batting aver-age, while Phipps willhold down first and hit.354 a year ago.Stang will play at sec-

ond and brings back a.314 average,whileTrent,who hit .284, and Peltier,who hit .292 are both inthe outfield.The pitching staff will

be ultra-young this sea-son, with coach New’sdaughter Kayla Newand Micalah Hensleydoing the hurling. They

are both freshmen.Also expected to see

playing time are Hensleyin the outfield, RachelWells, Rachel Slater,Tay-lor Block,Aspin Crowderand Schaffner.“We should be very

competitive this year,”said New, whose careermark is 246-161. “Wehave a lot of returningplayers but will also playsome freshmen. I’m look-ing forward to the sea-son and I believe we willfinish near the top of theleague.”

BaseballHouston has a new

head baseball coach thisseason in Brad Allen,who inherits a team thatfinished just 5-15 lastseason.He has five lettermen

returning in seniorsTylerDavis and Drew Roberts,juniors Jamie Riffel andChase Foster and sopho-more Quinten Pence.Davis will be the

mainstay on the mound,with Riffell his battery-mate. He hit .278 lastseason. Davis will be atshort, with Foster, Penceand Roberts in the out-field. Roberts had thehighest batting averageamong them at .264.That leaves first base,

second base and thirdbase open, and challeng-ing for those spots willbe newcomers Zach Jolly,Jacob Gates, AaronHeckman and AndrewMiller, all freshmen.“I’m really excited

about the opportunity totake over the program atHouston,” said Allen.“We have had productive

and competitive teamsin the past and I’m hope-ful of getting the pro-gram back to beingcompetitive again.”

Girls trackHouston’s girls track

will be minus some girlsthat decided not to comeout for the sport thisspring, but coach JoniDunham thinks there isa good group of girls re-maining, including fiveletter-winners.They include the lone

senior in Jenna Hooksand juniors MoniqueBooher and Heidi Coxand sophomores EmilyCreech and Jodi Jolly.In addition, there are

three freshmen who areexpected to make an im-pact for the lady Wild-cats this spring in EmilyCozad, Brayden Murrayand Josie Davis.“We unfortunately

have a lot of talent thatdecided not to return totrack this year. However,we also have some firsttime runners that aretraining hard to fill thosegaps,” the coach said.

Boys trackRon Boeke is back

again for the Houstonboys track team, and hehas good talent return-ing off a squad that was56-40 overall and placedthird in the Countymeet.There are eight ath-

letes in all that earnedletters last season, includ-ing seniors Levi Barger inthe sprints, Seth Clark inthe distance events, BradWells in the 800, TylerDavis in the pole vaultandTJMartin in the high

jump, juniors NathanRitchie in the hurdles andJacob Braun in the polevault, and sophomoreDevon Jester in the dis-

tance events.Boeke has some new-

comers that he thinkswill contribute and theyinclude Davis, Martin

and Jester along withfreshman Cody Meyer inthe high jump and longjump.

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Jackson Center has alot of veteran athletesthis season, and one newcoach in Isaac Klopfen-stein, who will need todo a rebuilding job afterlast season's 2-17 soft-ball record.Travis Pulfer is back

as the head baseballcoach, and Steve Hooverreturns again to coachboth the track squads

BaseballThe Tigers were just

4-15 last season underfifth-year coach TravisPulfer, and he’s lookingfor improvement thanksto the return of six let-termen from a year ago.Back are seniors Alex

Meyer, Trey Elchert andJoey Frye, along withsophomores TylerRogers, Zach Davis andGavin Wildermuth.Frey will be the main-

stay on the mound andhe also wields a strongbat. He hit .418 last sea-son and drove in 24 runs.Meyer will be behind

the plate and bringsback a .333 average froma year ago. Elchert willplay at short, and Wil-dermuth, who hit .339last season, will play theinfield, along withRogers and Ethan Zorn.The outfield candi-

dates are ChristianMabry, Davis, Drew

Sosby, Nathan Wahrerand Dalton Hughes.“We will be focusing

on our overall consis-tency as a team, makingthe routine plays andlimiting teams’ extra op-portunities as a defen-sive unit,” said Pulfer.“As an offense we need tofind any and every waypossible to get runnerson and move themaround. We will lean onJoey, Alex and Trey,three guys that haveplayed since their fresh-man seasons, to leads usboth offensively and de-fensively.”Pulfer points to the

Russia Raiders as beingthe team to be in theCounty. “They have twotop pitchers returning,”he said “But Fort Lo-ramie and Anna havequality pitching and willbe up there too.”

Boys trackThe Tigers return five

lettermen from a teamthat placed sixth lastyear in the County.They include senior

Nathan Wahrer in the400 and relays, seniorNathan Hensley in thesprints and relays, jun-ior Zack Buckmasterand sophomores RyanBooser and Travis Helm-

stetter.Two freshmen are

also in the mix in TylerLett in the sprints, highjump and distance, andDrew Sosby in the relaysand distance.“We have several sen-

iors this year that willprovide good leader-ship,” said the coach,Steve Hoover “NathanWahrer is a three-yearletterman who will leadour medium distanceand relay squads.Nathan Hensley willlead our sprint squadsand also contribute tothe success of our relays.We’re looking to improve

our standing in theCounty.”

Girls trackThere is just one re-

turning letter-winner ingirls track in juniorKaneta Schaub in thesprints and hurdles atJackson this season.The top newcomers

are five freshmen inPauline Meyer, ErinMetz, Peyton Esser andKatrina McGowan in thesprints and relays, andNicole Fogt in the shot,discus and high jump.“We have a strong

group of freshmen ath-letes participating thisyear,” said coach Hoover.“Pauline is expected tohave strong perform-ances in the 100 and 200dashes. We’re workingtoward a better perform-ance at the County meetthis year.”

SoftballJackson Center has a

new softball coach thisseason in Isaac Klopfen-stein, and he has somerebuilding to do, sincethe Lady Tigers onlywon twice in 19 tries lastseason.He has a lot of re-

turnees to help him,though, led by seniorHannah Meyer at short.She hit .483 last season.Also back are seniors

Tabatha Myers, Emma

Regula and Anna Wag-ner, juniors Erin Poppeand Tiffany Bayhan andsophomores MorganDickman, Gabby Fogtand Meredith Him-meger.Wagner hit .300 last

season and will be in theoutfield, and Regula hit.255 and is penciled in atfirst base.The top newcomers

are expected to be juniorCourtney Gies andfreshman Abby Meyer."Overall, we're a

pretty young team andwill be looking for someunderclassmen to con-tribute immediately,"said Klopfenstein. "Wehave some seniors whoare beginning to showtremendous leadershiptrying to get these un-derclassman ready be-cause they want tohave a senior year theycan be proud of. Theyare committed to creat-ing a new culturewithin the softball pro-gram and I'm lookingforward to helpingthem do that."He said he expects

several league teams tobe quite strong this year,led by defending champFort Loramie along withAnna, Houston and Rus-sia.

JACKSON CENTER


JACKSON CENTER softball seniors this season include (l-r) Tabatha Myers,Hannah Meyer, Anna Wagner and Emma Regula.

Lady Tiger softball has a new coach

HOUSTON


HOUSTON HAS a lot of seniors on the track team this year, including (l-r) TylerDavis, Kyle Patterson, Seth Clark, TJ Martin, Jordan Acker, Bradley Wells andLevi Barger.

New coaches at Houston

Fairlawn heads intothe track season withnot a lot of numbers, buttwo returning statequalifiers this season.

Girls trackTracy Nuss has seven

letter-winners back ingirls track at Fairlawn,including a state quali-fier. Olivia Cummingsqualified for the statemeet in the shot put anddidn't disappoint, finish-ing third in Columbuswith a heave of 39 feet,11.5 inches.She’s a senior, as are

returnees HaleySlonkosky and MarieRose, and sophomoresAbby Roe, CheyenneDriskel, Katie Nuss andHaley Blanford.“We will continue to

grow and improve thisseason” said Nuss. “Ilook forward to themostly seasoned trackand field athletes. Theyeach have a great atti-tude and work ethic andare working to improvetimes and distances thisseason. We hope to haveaddition regional quali-fiers this season.”

Boys trackCoach Tim Cummings

has nine lettermen backfrom last season, includ-ing Trey Everett, whowas a state qualifier in

the high jump last sea-son. He finished tied forsixth in the state meet.Also back are fellow

seniors Jessie Hughes,Anthony Gillem andCole Cummings, juniorTrey Fletcher, and soph-omores Jakob Penning-ton, Freddy Hughes,Sebastian Harshbargerand Joey Cockroft.“We bring back every-

body that went to re-gionals last year,” saidthe coach. “We want toget more kids to stateand improve our fourth-place County finish fromlast year.”

SoftballDave Jones is coach-

ing the girls softballteam for the secondstraight season and

looks for big improve-ment over last year,when the Lady Jets man-aged only one victory.“Last year was a

tough year for us,” Jonessaid. “We have 11 girlson the team this yearand they’ve been work-ing very hard in practice.So we’re hoping for goodthings.He has just two play-

ers back from last year inseniors Abby Stemenand Sam Forman. Ste-men will play at shortand brings back a .292

average from last season.Forman hit .333 and willhold down third base.The pitchers will be

Madeline Fogt and Ali-sonWatkins, and behindthe plate will be DanaStanley, who hit .300 lastyear.At first will be Megan

Dudgeon and at secondwill be MadisonGuinther and Watkins.Outfield candidates

are Emily Boerger,Christine Ward, KayliStrunk and SarahKeller.

BaseballThe Jets were 8-14

last year and coach BradBishop has seven play-ers back, including sen-iors Zach Rogers, GrantCovault and Ryan Less-ing, juniors Brad Caudilland Wes Bolton andsophomores Jacob Mar-vin and Seth Bishop.Caudill, Marvin,

Bishop and Rogers,along with R.J. Morri-son, will be handling thepitching.Rogers will be behind

the plate, with Caudill

and Bishop at short.There are several candi-dates for the rest of thepositions.“We are a young team

but we return some goodtalent,” said Bishop. “Wehave three seniors who

are four-year starters,and Brad Caudill re-turns as our No. 1pitcher. We got a nicesurprise with Jacob Pen-ningson coming out thisyear. He’s looked good inworkouts.”

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ANNA — Anna has alot of experience back incoaching, with longtimetrack coaches DeanStewart and RandyLerner, along with base-ball coach MikeMuehlfeld and softballcoach Tim McMahan.And they all have

players returning withexpereince as well.

BaseballMike Muehlfeld re-

turns as the head base-ball coach for theRockets, and has eightlettermen returningfrom a team that was 13-9 overall and finished 9-3 in the County.He has reason for op-

timism this season be-cause his top threepitchers return.“Pitching should be a

strength with JoshRobinson, Wes Showal-ter and Craig Berningall returning,” he said.“But there will be a lot ofquestion marks earlywith respect to the restof the lineup. There islots of competition for allspots.”He said Dustin Poep-

pelman in centerfield is“one of the few certain-ties.” Poeppelman hit.406 last season with 18RBIs, and uses his speedwell on the bases.“We need to finalize

who will be starting be-hind the plate and atshort,” Muehlfeld said.“Once that is deter-mined, other positionswill fall into place.”The lettermen include

Poeppelman, Brad Boyd,who will play at first andthird; Luke Cummings,who will play first andDH; Berning, who had a3.00 earned run averagelast season and averageda strikeout per inning;Carter Bensman, whowill play middle infield;Robinson, who had a

2.76 ERA last season;Travis Grieves, who hit.270 last year and willplay in the outfield, andShowalter, who had a2.12 ERA last season.The top newcomers

this season are juniorsNick Doseck, ZachZimpfer and Matt Cum-mings, and sophomoreRyan Counts.Doseck and Counts

can both catch and playanywhere in the infieldor outfield, and Zimpferand Cummings could seetime on the mound.

SoftballTimMcMahan is back

as the head coach of theLady Rockets for his11th season and he hasseven letter-winners re-turning this year.They include senior

Rebecca Bensman, jun-iors Jule Gephart, HaleySteinbrunner, AmandaRickert, Kylie Keenerand Chloe Egbert andsophomore Allison Har-ris.Keener will do the

pitching. She had a 3.10ERA last season.Egbert will be behind

the plate and bringsback a .416 batting aver-

age from last season.Rickert will hold

down shortstop andGephart will be at first.They both hit around.275 last season.At second will be a

freshman in AlexisPhillips and at third willbe Haley Steinbrunner,who hit .290 last season.In the outfield will be

Harris, who hit .275 ayear ago, Bensman andfreshman Cayleigh Kirt-ley.Another freshman,

Ashley Dentinger, is alsoin the mix.“We have seven

starters back so withthat nucleus,we shouldhave a good year,” said

McMahan.Girls track

Randy Locker beginshis amazing 33rd year asthe head coach of thegirls track team at Anna,and has 11 letter-win-ners back for the upcom-ing season.They include Kelli

Ehemann in the hurdlesand pole vault, AshleyMichael in the hurdles,Bonnie Altstatter in thedistance and high jump,Kylie Comer and Brit-tnee Axe in the sprintsand long jump, JessicaHamburg in the shotand discus, KatelynBrunswick in the 400,Shelbie Albers in thesprints, Amy Albers in

middle distance andKirsten Angus in thesprints.“Losing the points

Nikki Albers alwaysscored for us will be hardto replace,” said Locker.“We have 15 freshmenout this year, so a lot ofour season will dependon how they improve asthey gain experience atthe high school level.”Locker says Russia

should be he favorite inthe County.“Russia has a good re-

turning group that wonthe title last year,” hesaid. “And they also didwell the past few sea-sons in junior high. FortLoramie always has astrong program andBotkins has been gettingbetter and better. Itshould be a good battleat the league meet thisyear.”

Boys trackThere are 10 letter-

men back for longtimeAnna coach Dean Stew-art in boys track thisseason.The Rockets were

County champions lastyear and runner-up inthe district meet.Returning are three

state qualifiers in seniorRyan Spicer, who wasninth in the state discus,and senior Nate Boll-heimer and junior BradyCates, who both ran onthe 400 and 800 relayteams that placed in thetop eight at state lastseason.Other returnees in-

clude senior Gage Uder-man in the sprints,juniors Jonathan Bern-ing, Adam Larger, andDerek Steinke and soph-omores Matthew Bruceand Luke Gaier.Stewart lists the top

newcomers this year asfreshmen Ian Douglas,Conner Rioch, Zach

Kearns and Gerrit Hov-erstyrdt.Douglas was the

County junior highchamp in the discus lastyear, Rioch was the 200champ and the 400 run-ner-up, Kearns was run-ner-up in the shot putand Hoverstyrdt fin-ished in the top three inboth hurdles races at theCounty meet a year ago.“We should again be

strong as a team thisseason,” Stewart said.“In the throwing eventswe return senior RyanSpicer, who finished theseason strong last year,qualifying for the statemeet in the discus.Freshman Ian Douglaswill also add to ourthrows. He finishedthird at the middleschool championships in2012. Our sprints will bestrong. We return NateBollheimer, first in boththe 100 and 200 at theCounty meet, and statequalifier on the 4x100and 4x200 relays; BradyCates, who has run atthe state meet both hisfreshman and sopho-more years and seniorGage Uderman, who hada strong junior year andwill be a top sprinter onthis year’s team. JuniorAdam Larger, a statequalifier in cross-coun-try, will lead an experi-enced distance squad,including juniors DerekSteinke and Cory Ab-bott, and sophomoresJohnny Berning andLuke Gaier. MatthewBruce, a sophomore, wasthird in the league in thelong jump last year andwill be one of the bestjumpers in the area in2013.”Anna has won eight of

the last nine County ti-tles and should againfield a team that willchallenge.

ANNA

Experience returns in all sports at Anna

SDN Photos/Luke Gronneberg

LOOKING FOR big things this season at Anna in track are (l-r) Bonnie Alt-staetter, Jessica Hamberg, Kylie Comer, Amy Albers, Brittnee Axe and Shel-bie Albers.

READY FOR a big year in Anna baseball are (l-r)Luke Cummings, Brad Boyd, Carter Bensman andJosh Robinson.

FAIRLAWN

Two state qualifiers return in Jets’ track


FAIRLAWN HAS two state qualfiers returning intrack, including Trey Everett in the high jump andOlivia Cummings in the shot put.

RUSSIA — Baseballcoach Rick Gold haseight lettermen backfrom a team that won 17games last season, thereare also eight back insoftball, and there arefive girls out for trackthat have competed inthe state meet.

BaseballWith his top two

pitchers returning alongwith seven other letter-men from a team thatfinished 17-5 last season,veteran coach Rick Goldcan expect big thingsfrom the Raider baseballprogram this season.Treg Francis, a sec-

ond-team All-Countyperformer who saw hissenior basketball seasoncut short by a foot injury,is ready to make up for iton the diamond, and he’sa good one. Last season,he hit .382 with 24 RBIsand had a 1.65 earnedrun average when hewas on the mound. He’llbe at second base whenhe’s not pitching.Trevor Sherman is

the second top pitcherreturning for theRaiders. Last season hewas selected first-teamAll-County after hitting

.348 with 15 RBIs andrecording a 5-0 markwith a 1.63 ERA on themound. When he’s notpitching he’ll also playsecond.Also back are Isaiah

Counts, who was 4-1with a 0.82 ERA lastseason, Cole McEl-downey, who hit .342 lastseason and, Gold says, isthe team’s best defensiveplayer,Austin Gariety atthird base, AndrewDaniel in the outfield,Brad Schafer in the out-field, Brad McMaken inthe outfield, and NolanFrancis on the mound.He was 2-0 last yearwith a 2.90 ERA.“Our pitching staff

will be led by Treg andTrevor,” said Gold. “Ourtop relief pitcher was Isa-iah, who is recuperatingfrom Tommy John sur-gery. Gavin Hoying andTyler Young also couldplay an important roleon our pitching staff.”Junior Austin Tebbe

and sophomore RyanMagoto are battling forthe catcher spot.Gold said the middle

infield “is a lock” withCole McEldowney re-turning at short, where

he started last year as afreshman, Francis andSherman at second, Ga-riety at third and Countsand N. Francis at first.Outfield spots are for

returnees Schafer, Bran-don Barlage, Daniel andMcMaken, with BaileyFrancis also in the com-petition.

SoftballRoger Hammonds is

back for his 10th seasonas head coach and haseight letter-winnersback from a team thatwon 16 games last sea-son.The returnees include

Olivia Monnin at short,Alexa Counts in the out-field, Heidi Petty behindthe plate, EmilyFairchild in the outfield,Hannah Sherman in theoutfield, Julia Drees inthe outfield, KennedyMetz at third, and Emi-lie Frazier in the out-field.Counts hit .383 last

season, Metz .358, Mon-nin .317 and Sherman.281.The Lady Raiders lost

an outstanding pitcherto graduation in KatelynHerron, so the job falls toSara Young and Carrie

Petty, neither of whompitched last season.“We’re not thinking

about that,” said Ham-monds. “We’re just fo-cused on this year’steam. They are workinghard on the fundamen-tals of all aspects of thegame. The pitchers arefocused and workinghard. We will need theseniors to step up and begreat leaders, and I haveno doubt they will.”

Girls trackThird-year coach

Marti Phelan welcomesback 10 letter-winners,five of whom have quali-fied for the state at somepoint in their careers.The qualifiers were

Lauren Francis in the3200 last year and the1600 two years ago,Bethany York in thehigh jump and 1600

relay two years ago andthe high jump threeyears ago, TaylorMagoto in the pole vaultlast year, Kristin Vois-ard in the 1600 relaytwo years ago and EmilyBorchers in the 1600last spring.Also returning are

Kaylie Dues in the mid-dle distance,BeccaMeyerin distance, Kaitlyn Bar-lage in the sprints, Han-nah Bornhorst in thesprints and Leah Francis

in the hurdles.“We’re stronger and

deeper than last year,”said Phalen, whose 2012team won the Countytitle. “Staying healthywill be a major factor.Wehave a strong group ofseniors and letter-win-ners that work hard andare good leaders Theyare excited about im-proving on last year’ssuccess and look forwardto defending our Countytitle.”


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LEHMAN

Between the two ofthem, Lehman baseballcoachDaveKing and soft-ball coach Bill Booth have58 years of experience.King is in his 33rd

year as a head coach andBooth in his 25th. All ofBooth’s years have beenat Lehman.While King will have a

young squad, Booth haseight girls back and threenew girls who decided tocome out. And Booththinks they will help thesquad this season.In track, there are

state qualifiers return-ing for both the boys andthe girls.

SoftballBill Booth is back for

his 25th year as headcoach of the Lady Cavs,and he’s looking for goodthings with eight return-ing letter-winners from ateam that finished witha 9-12 record last year.“I have a good group

of girls returning and weare lucky to have threenew girls out this year inEllie Cain, Erica Paulusand Ellie Sargeant,” saidBooth. “Our pitchingshould be good and soshould our defense. Thegirls have been practic-ing hard and are lookingforward to the season.We play a very toughschedule this year.”The returning players

include seniors Andrea

Thobe, Ellie Waldsmith,Haley Baker and KatieRossman, juniors JuliaHarrelson and LindsayBundy and sophomoresAva Schmitz and BrookeJones.Bundy will do much of

the pitching, backed up byTaylor Schmidt. Bundyhad a 3.14 earned run av-erage and also hit .408.Behind the plate will

be Harrelson, who hit.314 last season, and atfirst will be Jones, whohit .403. At second willbe Schmitz, who hit .314last season, and Ross-man, and Cain looks tobe penciled in at third.At short will be

Thobe, who hit .400 lastseason.

Outfield candidatesinclude Waldsmith, whohad a .295 average lastseason, Paulus, Sargeant,Sonja Wolf, Baker, Ross-man, Diana Gibson andSarah Gravunder.

BaseballDave King is back for

his 33rd year as a highschool head baseballcoach, and it will be hissixth year at Lehman.King comes into the

season with 478 careercoaching victories and iscoming off one of his bestyears, the Cavaliers fin-ishing 23-6 last seasonand winning a districtchampionship before los-ing in the regional finals.He has six lettermen

returning this season in

sophomores Greg Spear-man, Cole Proffitt andAJHemmelgarn, junior An-drew Westerheide, andseniors John Copella andAndrew Gilardi.King has a long list of

players who will seesome time on the mound,probably led by Hem-melgarn, who was 2-0with a 3.20 earned runaverage last season.Also expected to pitch

are Copella, Wester-heide, Spearman, Prof-fitt, sophomore AustinArnold, sophomore NickRourke, and freshmenMax Schutt and NateBosway.Proffitt returns be-

hind the plate after hit-ting .297 last season,and Schutt and sopho-more Joe Skelton willback him up.At short will be Hem-

melgarn and Spearman.Hemmelgarn hit .359last season.At first will be fresh-

man Nate Bosway alongwith Skelton and Prof-fitt, and at second will beCopella, backed up byArnold. Copella hit .366last season.At third will be Spear-

man and he brings backa healthy .430 average.Arnold and junior EricRodenburgh will also seetime there.In the outfield will be

Gilardi, Westerheide,

Schutt, Bosway, seniorRyan Edelen and juniorStephen Blenman.“The players are

working hard and it’s agreat group to workwith,” said King. “We areyoung so there will besome growing pains.”

Boys tennisCoach Kristy Sher-

man has 17 boys out fortennis this spring, in-cluding four lettermenoff the team that fnished13-3 last season.They include seniors

Pierce Bennett, LouisGaier and Riley Pickreland junior MitchellShroyer.“The guys have been

playing indoors all win-ter and are ready to getoutside and play,” saidSherman. “We will havea solid team, but a lot oflearning will be happen-ing out there this sea-son. The boys know thatwe have a lot of work todo and are willing to dowhat it takes to buildthe team.”

Boys trackCoach Dwane Rowley

has state qualifiers backin boys track this spring,including Justin Stewartand Joe Fuller.Stewart ran to a sev-

enth place finish in the400 dash at state lastyear, and Fuller finished13th in the 3200 run.Both are still just jun-

iors and are joined byjunior lettermen BradMontgomery, QuinnMonnin, Ben Mont-gomery and Nick Elsner,and sophomore letter-men Eric Jackson andTeddy Jackson.“It’s a young but tal-

ented group of kids,” saidRowley. “It they can re-main injury free, dedicatethemselves to the pro-gram, and compete, theywill be successful. Eachindividual can controltheir accomplishments.”Rowley said the top

newcomers this seasonwill be freshman ColinHughes and sophomoreMitchell Slater.

Girls trackSenior Sarah Titter-

ington returns for theLady Cavs this seasonafter qualifying for thestate meet in threeevents last spring, the100, 200 and 400 dashes.She is one of only two

returning letter-winnersfor the Lady Cavs, theother being junior Made-line Franklin.Freshmen Olivia Gor-

man and Sarah Fullerare expected to con-tribute.“We did not have a big

turnaround as far asnumbers go,” said Fuller.“But these girls have thepotential to do greatthings.”

Cavs’ coach King closing in on 500 wins

SDN file photo

GREG SPEARMAN connects for a home run lastseason. He is back along with five other lettermenfor the Lehman baseball team this season.

RUSSIA


RUSSIA SOFTBALL seniors this season include (l-r) Heidi Petty, Alexa Counts,Olivia Monnin and Sara Young.

Raider baseball returnseight from 17-5 squad

FORT LORAMIE —There is never a short-age of success during thespring season at Fort Lo-ramie, and this yearshould be no different.Longtime baseball

coach and recent MiamiValley Hall of Fame in-ductee Bill Sturwolddoesn’t have much re-turning from a team thatwon 20 games last sea-son, but you can bet itwill still be a threat toget the 21 wins thatSturwold needs to reach400 for his career.Softball coach Brad

Turner led the LadyRedskins to 22 wins lastseason and a Countytitle. And with their toppitcher back and a lot ofletter-winners returning,the Lady Redskins willbe strong again.Kevin Wrasman re-

turns as the track coachfor both boys and girls,and there are three re-turning state qualifiersfor the girls squad thisseason.

SoftballThe Lady Redskins

had an outstanding sea-son in 2012 under coachBrad Turner, finishing22-7 and winning theCounty title at 11-1.Andwith their top pitcher re-turning and a long list ofletter-winners, the LadyRedskins are expecting alot more success thisyear.Paige Ordean was 20-

6 on the mound last sea-son, with a 1.86 earnedrun average and 200strikeouts. In addition,she hit .288 and drove in19 runs. And for her ef-forts, she was named theCounty Player of theYear.“Paige will be back in

the circle for us this yearand we will again leanon her to keep oppo-nents’ scoring chancesdown. She had a greatseason last year and willhopefully be able to do itagain this season,” saidTurner.Darian Rose returns

behind the plate. Agifted athlete, she hit.372 last season, withseven homers and 22RBIs.“Darian is one of the

best athletes in thearea,” said Turner.“She’ll be solid behindthe plate and hit some-where toward the top ofthe lineup to score anddrive in runs.”Taylor Timmerman is

a junior who will also seeaction behind the plate.She hit .348 in limitedappearances last season.Julie Hoying returns

at first base after sittingout last season with aknee injury. She hit .293in 2011, however. “Shewas a varsity letter-win-ner her freshman yearand played very goodfirst base,” said Turner.“We’re excited to have

her back.”Ashley Ordean, a jun-

ior letter-winner, willalso see some action atfirst. She hit .286 lastseason and will play inright field as well. “Shewill hopefully be a run-producer for us,” saidTurner.Danielle Wehrman is

back at second base. Asenior, she hit .333 lastseason with 19 RBIs and29 runs scored. She is al-ready a three-year let-ter-winner.“She’s already had an

impressive high schoolcareer and we look forher to cap it off in a goodway,” said Turner.Janell Hoying, a soph-

omore, is back and play-ing third base. She hit.300 as a freshman. “Shehad an impressive fresh-man season and there’sno reason to think shewon’t build on that,” saidTurner. “She makes usvery solid defensivelyand can also handle thebat.”Hallie Benanzer, a

sophomore, will likelystep in at shortstop thisseason, moving from theoutfield. She scored 24times last season.“She has very good in-

stincts and a lot of natu-ral athleticism.”Megan Bollheimer is

a senior who will join A.Ordean in the outfield.She hit .317 last seasonand drove in 19 runs.“She will make most ofher contributions at theplate,” said Turner. “Shehad a nice season lastyear and will be some-where in the middle ofthe lineup.”Another outfield can-

didate is junior Eliza-beth Barhorst, who hit.339 last season andscored 19 times.“Liz stepped up her

game last season and dida nice job in center,” saidTurner. “With a year ofexperience under herbelt, we’re looking forgood things out of her.”Other players Turner

expects to contribute in-clude junior KassidyBroaddrick, junior ToniBerning, who will pitch,and senior Macy Turner,who hit .345 with 29RBIs and 27 runs scored.An injury may keep herout until later in the sea-son.“This is the deepest

team I’ve had in myyears of coaching,” saidTurner, who is enteringhis sixth season. “I’ve gota problem that mostcoaches would love tohave because I reallyfeel like we’ve got 16-to-20 girls in the program,including some under-class players who havenot been mentioned, whocould contribute at thevarsity level. So gettingthe girls to buy in andaccept their roles isgoing to be a big objec-

tive for our coachingstaff. With eleven letterwinners back this yearwe’ve got a lot of playerswho want to be in thelineup and who willwork hard to earn a spot.This will drive the girlsto compete and to workand hopefully that willpay off for us as the sea-son progresses.”

BaseballBill Sturwold enters

this season as a Hall ofFamer, recently being in-ducted by the Miami Val-ley Baseball CoachesAssociation. And it’s nowonder — he enters thisseason with a careerrecord of 379 wins and165 losses, including lastyear’s 20-10 mark, whichincluded a runner-up

finish in the County.He has just four play-

ers back from last sea-son, and two of them aresophomores, so it will bea very young team thisseason.“Seth Guillozet will be

our only senior so we’llbe very young,” saidSturwold. “But we ex-pect to contend forleague and district titles.Returning along with

Guillozet are junior out-fielder Zach Brandewie,sophomore outfielderArron Boerger and soph-omore pitcher/outfielderTy Frilling.Gullozet, who hit .303

last season, will pitchand also play at thirdbase. He was 7-2 lastyear with a 1.39 earned

run average.Frilling, Grant Ol-

berding and TravisSiegel are also listed aspitchers.Behind the plate will

be Jacob Kitzmiller andCole Meyer, and at shortwill be Devin Braun. Ol-berding and Brandewiewill both see time at firstbase,Tanner Rittenhouseat second, and Guillozet,Connor Rose and TreyRittenhouse at third.The outfield candi-

dates are Boerger, LukeGephart, Frilling, Bran-dewie, Josh Koppin andBlake Gaier.Sturwold says the top

newcomers areKitzmiller,Braun, Gephart, Frillingand Rittenhouse.

Boys trackThere are just four

lettermen returning forFort Loramie and coachKevin Wrasman in boystrack this season.They include seniors

Qwinton Scheer andJacob Siegel, junior De-launte Thornton andsophomore Alex Dicker-son.Wrasman thinks new-

comers like sophomoreCole Cordonnier and afreshman class that is 10strong will also be goodadditions to the team.“I’m expecting to see

great leadership fromour juniors and seniors,”said Wrasman. “I lookfor Qwinton to be suc-

cessful in the pole vaultand Jacob in the dis-tance events. I’m alsolooking forward to see-ing hard work from De-launte and Alex. I expectDelaunte to do well inthe sprints and Alex inthe hurdles. We have alot of new athletes andI’m looking forward toseeing them peak in per-formance at the Countymeet.”

Girls trackThe Loramie girls had

an excellent season lastyear, finishing with anoverall record of 61-22and taking runner-uphonors in the Countymeet.Coach Kvin Wrasman

has 11 letter-winners re-turning from last season,including three statequalifiers in senior Se-lene Waters and juniorsTara Luebke and MegWesterheide.Westerheide was

nothing short of fantas-tic last season, finishingfourth in both the state800 and 1600 runs, andjoining with Luebke andWaters to place ninth inthe 3200 relay.Also returning this

season are seniors Lau-ren Luthman and AlaineSchulze, junior EllenTurner, and sophomoresRegan Geise, Sara Mau-rer, Elena Moore, SarahPuthoff and HaileyWray.In addition,Wrasman

is excited about the in-coming freshman classwhich numbers 13.“They did very well injunior high track lastyear and I’m looking for-ward to watching themimprove throughout thisseason.“I see our seniors

doing well and showinggood leadership,” Wras-man added. “Lauren willbe in the shot and discus,andAlaina and Selene inthe distance events. Ialso see Tara, Ellen andMeg doing a great job inan array of events andI’m also happy to havefive sophomore re-turnees on the team whowork very hard.“I think our girls can

do well in the Countymeet,” he concluded. “Ihope to see them im-prove throughout theseason and do their bestin the County meet andpostseason.


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FORT LORAMIE

Loramie coach Sturwold nearing 400 wins


FORT LORAMIE is looking for good things during the track season this year,and these three seniors lead the way for the Lady Redskins. They are (l-r) Se-lene Waters, Alaina Schulze and Lauren Luthman.


FORT LORAMIE will have a young baseball teamthis spring, with only one senior on the squad inSeth Guillozet, who is coming off an outstandigjunior season that saw him hit .303 and finish 7-2with a 1.39 ERA when he pitched.

Softball teamreturns top pitcherfrom 22-7 squad

The spring season isalways amazing at Min-ster, with all the girlsstate track champi-onships the school hasand the two straight Di-vision IV championshipsthe baseball team hasgo-ing.And with a lot of ex-

perience back in all thesports, it will no doubt beanother outstandingspring at the school.Head baseball coach

Mike Wiss has enoughtalent returning to makea run at a third straightstate title, and softballcoach Scott Robinsonhas eight players return-ing from a team thatwon 24 games last sea-son.Boys track coach

Larry Topp’s 2012 teamwas unbeaten during theregular season, andthere are 19 lettermenback from that squad.And coach JessieMagoto’s girls trackteam includes six girlswho ran in the statemeet last spring, and an-other five who ran in thestate cross county meetlast fall.

BaseballMinster head coach

Mike Wiss has 310 winsand 146 losses in anoutstanding coachingcareer, and as he entershis 19th season at thehelm, he is working onback-to-back DivisionIV state champi-onships.Wiss was nothing

short of phenomenal lastyear in the way he tookhis Wildcats to a 26-6record and a repeat statetitle, especially after histop pitcher, AdamNiemeyer, was unable togo on the mound becauseof an injury.Doug Huber stepped

in and pitched bril-liantly, andWiss workedthe pitching staff per-fectly, to the point whereNiemeyer wasn’t missedon the mound.However, that doesn’t

mean Wiss isn’t glad tosee Niemeyer back andready to pitch this sea-son, and with the otherplayers Minster has re-turning, the Wildcats gointo the season as proba-bly the favorite to win itall again.Last year’s sectional

championship was the13th under Wiss, andyou can add to that sixdistrict titles and threeregional championships.His 2003 team was staterunner-up.Back for this season

are six key players forthe Wildcats, includingNiemeyer, who hit .438last season with 12doubles and 27 runsbatted in. Also, he didmanage to get in 45 in-nings of work and hada 0.00 earned run aver-age and 76 strikeouts.He gave up just 10 hitswhen he pitched – allsingles.Devon Poeppelman,

who drove in the win-ning run in the statechampionship game lastseason, is back at shortand will also pitch. Hehas what Wiss said is a“great glove” at shortand also hit .360 with 24RBIs.Jay Eilerman is back

in center and is theWild-cats’ leadoff hitter. Hehit .367 last season with

17 RBIs. He will also dosome catching.Andrew Knapke will

play infield and alsopitch and Wiss likes hisglove at second base. Hehit .371 last season.Brandon Hoying will

play infield and alsopitch. He worked 25 in-nings last season andwas 2-2 with a 3.32ERA.The final returnee is

Ethan Wolf, who had agood year behind theplate as a sophomore.“He did a super job forus,” said Wiss. Wolf hit.295.Niemeyer, Poeppel-

man and Eilerman wereall first-team All-Mid-west Athletic Conferencelast season and Wolfmade the honorablemention list.Among the players to

watch for this season arejuniors Clay Brown,Brad Walterbusch, JohnBaumer,Max Huber andGarrett Hogenkamp,and sophomores JRNixon and MathewTrushaw.“Hopefully, JR will

provide a little power inthe middle of the orderand Mathew is arighthanded pitcher whowill receive opportuni-ties on the hill. Brad is agood hitter and Clay is alefty on the mound andat first.”Wiss said an out-

standing senior classgraduated, includingHuber, who was theMVP of the state tourna-ment.“We started off 16-2

last season, then lostfour of our next sevenbefore ending with sevenstraight tournamentwins,” Wiss said. “Wehave good pitching depththis season and I look for

solid uppperclass leader-ship again. You’re onlyas good as your seniors.We’ll look for success atthe plate in hitter’scounts and solid fieldingearly in the year. Plus wereturn lots of pitchingfrom our tournamentrun.”Wiss expects Ver-

sailles to be strong againin the Midwest AthleticConference along withColdwater, Delphos andParkway. “I think Mar-ion, New Knoxville andNew Bremen will alsocontend,” he said.

SoftballThe Minster girls

were outstanding lastseason, finishing with a24-7 record and reachingthe regional champi-onship game before los-ing.Coach Scott Robinson

lost a premier player inHanna Floyd, who isnow playing for WrightState. But he has a longlist of returning letter-winners to turn to.They include juniors

Kayla Richard, NicoleBrandewie, Sara Hosey,Kathy Prenger, MarissaConrad and StephanieAlbers, and sophomoresRegan Hahn and AlexisRobinson.Richard will pitch and

also brings back a .400average. She was on themound every game lastyear, finishing with a 24-7 record with a 2.47ERA.Hahn hit .433 last

season as a sophomoreand returns behind theplate, and Brandewie isback at shortstop afterhitting .247 last season.Prenger will hold downfirst and hit .286 a yearago, and Robinson willplay second and bringsback a .355 average from

last season.Conrad hit .490 last

season and will play atthird base.In the outfield, Hosey

is back after hitting .448last season. MichaelaGoettemoeller, a sopho-more, and juniorStephanie Albers will bein the outfield.Albers hit.302 last season andGoettemoeller .304.The top newcomers

will likely be three fresh-men in Jessica Berels-man, Brooke Monninand May McFarlin.“We are looking to

build on last year’s suc-cess of reaching the re-gional finals andhopefully going one stepfurther,” said Robinson.“For the second time inthree years, we willhave no seniors on theteam, but our youngladies are experiencedand ready to step up.One of our goals thisseason is to compete forthe MAC title. A titlewould be a first for theprogram.”He said he expects an-

other competitive seasonin the league, with Park-way returning somegood pitching. He said heexpects St. Henry, Mar-ion Local and Versaillesto all make a good run.

Boys trackThere are 19 letter-

men back for longtimecoach Larry Topp in boystrack at Minster. Andthat’s bad new for Min-ster opponents this sea-son because theWildcatswere 89-0 during theregular season last year,then went on to win dis-trict and regional cham-pionships.Topp has been coach-

ing for 25 years now, andis approaching his2,000th victory, going

into this season with aregular season record of1,996-245, a winningpercentage of 89.Returning are seniors

Alan Tebbe, who was theMidwest Athletic Con-ference champion in thepole vault; Troy Kauff-man, MAC and statechampion in the 1600relay; state 3200 relayqualifier Eric Dahling-haus, Korey Schultz, theMAC and state cham-pion in the 1600 relay,regional qualifier JoshSpieles in the sprints,and Kurtis Thobe in thelong jump and sprints.Also back are juniors

Dominic Slonkosky, astate qualifier in the3200 relay; Scott Sekasin the hurdles, WesHegeman, a regionalqualifier in the shot anddiscus; AJ Huelsman,who was fourth in thestate pole vault; PaulDues, MAC and statechampion in the 1600relay; Andy Albers, statequalifier in the 3200relay; Tate Carlon in theshot and discus; andChristian Boenlein andthe pole vault andsprints.Sophomores return-

ing are Eli Wolf in thesprints and high jump,Jonathan Fausey in themiddle distance, An-drew Fausey in the dis-tance and Sam Dues inthe sprints and hur-dles.“We have a strong

core of athletes return-ing,” said Topp. “Sevenof them have state expe-rience, which we hopewill lead to a year ofgreat leadership. Weonly graduated five sen-iors last year but four ofthem had state experi-ence so they leave alarge void. But weshould have the ath-letes to fill the void with58 out for the team, in-cluding 23 freshmen. Itmay take time to de-velop athletes to fill thevoid. We will look to ourjuniors and seniors tolead.“This year could be

promising but we willneed a lot of growth toreach our team goalsthis year,” he added.“The league could bevery interesting withVersailles and Coldwa-ter looking very strongand St. Henry having agreat chance to upsetthese league powers. Weonce again have bigshoes to fill but hope bythe end of the year to bein the mix.”

Girls trackThere are a host of

state qualifiers back forthe Minster girls, whichis usually the case.This year they include

seniors Hannah Butler,Natalie Fausey and SaraDahlinghaus, along withjuniors Olivia Enneking,Hannah Barga andChelsea Stewart.Fausey, Barga and

Enneking ran on the1600 relay team thatwas second in the statemeet, Fausey and Butlerran on the 3200 relayteam that was fifth atstate, and Barga andStewart ran on the 400relay team that placedseventh in the statemeet.In addition to those

girls, also returning asletter-winners for coachJessie Magoto are sen-iors Claire McGowanand Madeleine Eiting,and juniors Olivia En-neking and LeahNiekamp.Magoto is also opti-

mistic that a strongfreshman group can con-tribute this season, in-cluding Julia Slonkosky,Lisa Barlage, KatherineBurke and KaciBorhorst, who all ran inthe State Cross CountryMeet last fall. Two otherfreshmen are also ex-pected to be key playersthis season in MyaFrancis and KelseyRichard.“We have plenty of di-

verse young girls comingout,” said coach Magoto.“And we have strong re-turning leaders with alot of experience.”


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MINSTER

Baseball goes for 3rd straight state title


THESE MINSTER seniors have already won two state championships in base-ball and have the talent to make it three this season. They include (l-r) An-drew Knapke, Jay Eilerman and Devon Poeppelman.


THE MINSTER girls track team will be led by this senior group, including frontrow (l-r) Madeleine Eiting, Natalie Fausey, Claire McGowan and Allison Jutte,and back row, Hannah Butler, Sara Dahlinghaus, Taylor Arnold and KaitlynOldiges.

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