Van Wert independent sports<\/i><\/p>\n
Both Van Wert cross country teams and the Lincolnview boys qualified for the state cross country meet during regional competition this past Saturday. Also qualifying individually was Crestview\u2019s Mycah Grandstaff. It was the first time ever that both the Van Wert boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 teams qualified for state the same year.<\/p>\n
The Van Wert boys\u2019 cross-country team was second in the Division II race, behind Western Buckeye League rival Defiance.<\/p>\n
Connor Holliday led the Cougars with a seventh-place finish in a time of 16:23.37, while Connor Shaffer was 17th (16:47.13), Daniel Perry was 18th (16:50.21), Jordan Butler finished 32nd (17:09.12) and Cade Fleming was 46th (17:24.83).<\/p>\n
The Lady Cougars were fourth in the Division II girls\u2019 race, led by Andi Foster\u2019s 16th-place finish in 19:47.6. Amanda Clay was 18th in 19:55.84, Schealissa Williams was 24th in 20:07.55, Chloee Gamble finished 45th in 20:40.71 and Megan Barnhart was 69th in 21:20.2.<\/p>\n
The Lancer boys ran their best team race of the season to place third overall in the field of 16 Regional qualifiers including seven state-ranked teams.\u00a0 With the top 4 teams qualifying for the State meet next weekend the Lancers earned their trip to compete one more week against the best teams in the state of Ohio.<\/p>\n
The Lancers were led by Alex Rodriguez, who individually qualified for the state meet by placing 14th and running a career best time of 16:45.\u00a0 He was followed by teammate Bayley Tow, who placed 27th overall (17:13), Ben Bilimek 37th (17:22), Travis Lippi 50th (17:37), Trevor Neate 64th (17:51), Colton Snyder 80th (18:02), and Tracey West 88th (18:12).\u00a0 Five of the Lancers ran career bests.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was the very definition of team,\u201d said Lincolnview Coach Matt Langdon.\u00a0\u201cIt was clear watching the race that they were running for each other and on a day when not every team is able to run their best, we were able to put together our best team race of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll seven runners played a vital part in the team qualifying as we had very little margin for error,\u201d Coach Langdon added.\u00a0\u201cI could not have been more proud of a young group of athletes in terms of how much they listened to coaching and focused on each other.\u00a0 It was an awesome moment when we realized that we had made the top 4.\u00a0 Now, we are excited to take one more shot at some of the best teams in the State.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to be a fun week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The boys run in the Division III state championship meet at Hebron at 1:30 p.m. this coming Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Crestview High School boys\u2019 cross country team finished eighth at the Tiffin Regional meet on Saturday. Mycah Grandstaff earned a trip to the state meet by running a personal record time of 16:32 and placing seventh. Grandstaff is an all-regional performer with his finish and ties Matt Langdon on the Crestview All time top 10 time list.<\/p>\n
He was followed by Charles Thornburg in 32nd, Branden Clayton 48th, and Bryce Richardson 62nd. Cody Mefferd rounded out the scoring for the Knights with a personal record performance. Adam Saylor and Copsey Bogle were the other varsity runners in the race for Crestview.<\/p>\n
Grandstaff will race in the state cross country meet at Hebron this Saturday, November 2, at 1:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Van Wert independent sports Both Van Wert cross country teams and the Lincolnview boys qualified for the state cross country meet during regional competition this past Saturday. Also qualifying individually was Crestview\u2019s Mycah Grandstaff. It was the first time ever that both the Van Wert boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 teams qualified for state the same year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 19:26:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}