State XC Preview: Mount Gilead's championship goal on line Saturday
MOUNT GILEAD — As he has done since he took over the Mount Gilead cross country program in 2018, Jake Hayes left it up to his athletes.
"We started talking as a team around camp in the beginning of July," Hayes recalled. "The coaches leave it up to the kids. What are your expectations for the season? What do you want to accomplish? And we will coach you to whatever level you want coached to."
After an hour of deliberation, the boys team came back with an answer.
They want to be state champions.
"They said we finished second last year, and we want to win it this year. We said, ‘All right, this is what’s going to have to happen,'" Hayes said.
With sophomore Will Baker and senior Reed Supplee, the Indians returned two All-Ohioans from last year's Division III state runner-up squad. Junior Parker Bartlett was a sub-17-minute runner who was back as well. The question was who was going to join the threesome in the lineup after the graduations of All-Ohioan Michael Snopik, Ethan Kemp, Ethan Honzo and Colson Chapman.
"The 4 and 5 guys were the focus. You’re going to have to do all the little things right along the way," Hayes said. "Having that really strong group of front-runners and modeling that for Aaron (Gannon, senior) and Owen (Hershner, freshman) and making it fun for them was important.
"If you ever come to a Mount Gilead cross country practice, you will realize how much fun those guys are having. It makes it something that the other guys want to be a part of. It brings those guys up and they want to experience it and they want to have fun. It’s lighthearted. We try to keep the pressure off by keeping it fun. Those top three guys really used their experience to help Aaron and Owen and some of the other guys in what to do."
The Indians started out strong and have never wavered, taking on the best the state and Midwest has to offer all year.
Mount Gilead opened the season at the Upper Sandusky Icebreaker and dominated its way to a win over Division III power Columbus Grove. At the following meet, the Indians lost head-to-head with Ottawa Hills at the Seneca East Tiger Classic, setting up a run atop the state coaches poll all season between the two schools.
Mount Gilead bounced back to win Seneca East's Stars, Stripes and Lights Invitational, defeating D-III rivals West Liberty-Salem, Black River and Fredericktown among others.
Next they went to northeast Ohio's Boardman Spartan Invitational and won that, taking down that region's top small-school squads like Maplewood, East Canton, McDonald and others.
The Indians went back to northeast Ohio, this time competing against some of the biggest schools in the state and finishing third behind Chardon and Solon and ahead of Perrysburg, Hudson, Beavercreek and more.
After dominating the Denny Stevens Invitational midweek meet in Fredericktown, they went to Centerville to run under the lights against Division I teams from around southwest Ohio and from out of state. MG was ninth, then followed it up by winning at Marion Harding, beating north central Ohio powers like Shelby, Lexington and Ashland.
Since then, they've cruised to championships at the Knox Morrow Athletic Conference meet, the district race and a fifth straight regional.
"The first week of the season we always joke that everybody wants to be state champion," Hayes said. "That’s the easy time to want to do it. It’s the middle of July or fair week when it’s inconvenient, then you really have to buckle down. Having them set that goal for themselves makes it a lot easier for us to say this is our goal."
The Indians, which have finished fifth, second, third and second in the last four Division III boys cross country state championships, are poised to achieve that season-long goal.
They enter Saturday's 11 a.m. race time at Fortress Obetz as the favorite.
In the pre-state coaches poll, Mount Gilead earned 11 of 12 first-place votes with Ottawa Hills ranking second with the other first-place selection. Cincinnati Summit Country Day, which had a spectacular regional performance at Troy in edging West Liberty-Salem and Botkins, is third followed by WL-S in fourth, Maplewood fifth, Botkins sixth, Lincolnview seventh, Columbus Grove eighth, Black River ninth, defending state champ East Canton 10th and Northmor 20th.
"We like winning. It’s always fun to win. I always tell the kids the running sucks, but winning is fun," Hayes said.
The Indians are built to win in 2022.
Baker has emerged as a potential state contender individually. He has consistently broken 16 minutes over the last half of the season. Supplee and Bartlett are right behind, running in the low 16s and capabilities of breaking into the 15s. However, it's the emergence of Gannon and Hershner that makes the Indians so formidable. Each can run in the mid 16s on the right day, and with five runners going faster than 17 minutes and five runners scoring points, MG can post a low number.
Baker won the Pickerington regional with a 15:51, while Bartlett was next in 16:17 for sixth and followed by Reed in eighth in 16:31, Gannon in 14th in 16:39 and Hershner 24th in 17:08. Junior Nathan Smith was 97th in 18:47 and freshman Gage Baker 107th in 19:17.
With their state experience and their big-meet competition throughout the 2022 season, Mount Gilead should be poised to take on the best in D-III.
Ottawa Hills has two runners who scorched the Tiffin regional in times of 15:49 and 15:58, but their next four runners packed behind them between 16:44 and 17:47. Maplewood has four stout runners, but there was a gap back to its fifth man at the Youngstown regional. Country Day has an amazingly tight pack among its first six runners, all finishing within 47 seconds of each other, but the question is whether they have the footspeed to run up front with the others. WL-S features a solid six pack as well.
"We don’t change a whole lot," Hayes said of their preparation for the final race of the season. "I go to a lot of clinics in the offseason and talk to a lot of coaches who are a lot smarter than me from other states. One of the things that has changed over the last couple of years is I used to really lighten things up the last week. I think getting our of our routine isn’t what is best for our program.
"We run the same exact volume of everything from conference meet to the end because it worked to get us here, so let’s not change anything now. We’ll run everything pretty much the same."
There will be a sendoff parade today inside the school. There will be a team meal as well, but the goal is to keep the distractions to a minimum.
They team has a goal to achieve.
"We’ve got a plan, and we’re pretty confident our plan will work. Trust the process," Hayes added.
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State Cross Country Championships
Site: Fortress Obetz
Date: Saturday.
Division III Boys, 11 a.m.: Mount Gilead (Will Baker, Parker Bartlett, Reed Supplee, Aaron Gannon, Owen Hershner, Nathan Smith, Gage Baker), Northmor (Ryan Lehman, Lucas Weaver, David Blunk, Bryce Cooper, Connor Radojcsics, Ethan Amens, Levi Hunter).
Division III Girls, 11:45 a.m.: Cardington (Magi Hallabrin, Loey Hallabrin), Pleasant (Casey Kimball), Mount Gilead (Kimberly Staley).
Division III Awards: 12:15 p.m.
Other Races: Division II Boys, 1 p.m.; Division II Girls, 1:45 p.m.; Division I Boys, 3 p.m.; Division I Girls, 3:45 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: State XC Preview: Mount Gilead's championship goal on line Saturday
