The Daviess County Panthers dominated the course at Yellow Creek Park Tuesday as they won another City-County Championship.
Owensboro didn’t compete as they were held out because of Daviess County’s recent red status.
DC grabbed victories in the boy’s and girls’ races to capture the titles.
Panther coach Mark Fortney said it’s been great to see his team grow this season.
“With all the obstacles that we have had, our kids have bought into everything we’ve put out there for them,” he said. “They’re getting good results out of it right now. We still have a lot of work to do within the next 10 days, two weeks. A lot of obstacles but our kids, we just wanted them to come out and run. Now, they’re really grasping what’s in front of them. They know they’ve got a good chance to compete for a state title. It’s hard to do, there’s no doubt. It’s very hard to do. They’ve put themselves in the mix, both teams.”
Daviess County has a large number of seniors this season and Fortney said he knows how important they are to underclassmen.
“You got to have that senior leadership,” he said. “We’ve got seven guys, seven girls. Four years ago, they come in as freshmen and they started learning from their seniors at that time and they’ve just been great role models. Now they’re doing it on the course by their running. You’ve got to have them. Senior leadership means everything in the world.”
Daviess County dominated each race Tuesday but it was also the last local race they’ll have this season.
Fortney said it’s great for everyone to have people able to watch them.
“It does mean a lot, especially for your seniors who’ve been trying to win it for 3-4 years,” he said. “To have all their families around, it means a whole lot to them. Just to watch them pull it off is fun to watch as a coach.”
The veteran coach said his squad has a lot to do in the next 10 days as regionals are right around the corner.
He said they’re still trying to iron out their top runners.
“We’ve got the problem that you want as a coach, maybe not as a team member, but we’re still trying to decide who our top sevens going to be,” he said. “That’s how you get good results when you’ve got 10 people in the mix fighting for spots. They’re going to work their butts off trying to get that spot. We’ve got 10 guys under 18:00 then we’ve got 11 under 21-range so that’s the problem you want.”
DC cruised to victory in the girls’ race as they finished with 15 points to Apollo second-place total of 51 points.
Emily Ann Roberts won the race with a time of 20:09.82 as the Lady Panthers had the top-nine finishers in the race.
Roberts has been a fixture at the top of the leaderboard this season but she still hasn’t hit her goal.
For the DC senior, it’s not that easy to shave those last few seconds off.
“It’s really hard to get a PR, even if it’s just by four seconds,” she said. “For me, I get comfortable running a certain time so it’s good to run races like these where we run as a pack then eventually he lets me go off so I can run whatever I feel like.”
Roberts also hit the course at Yellow Creek Park on Saturday for the Fast Cats Classic and said she really enjoys having her loved ones be at races.
“I love Yellow Creek, it’s my favorite place to run,” she said. “To me, it’s pretty. I like it out here. My family is so close that they call get to come to this race. For out of town meets it’s only my mom and dad.”
The Lady Panthers are currently ranked second in Class 3A and Roberts said the focus now is simple.
“We just keep going,” she said. “Every practice, we practice like we’re going to win every race … Yes we could lose, but we never think that. We encourage each other and we always have a good mindset. As long as we do our best, we’ll do good.”
The next eight spots were filled by Daviess County as Emily Rempe (3rd), Elli Crabtree (4th), Katelyn Ahart (5th), Avery Heath (6th), Kayley Payne (7th), Lauren Howe (8th) and Kyra Rowan (9th) all led the way for the Lady Panthers.
Apollo’s top finisher was Ahmira Pickett as she took 10th with a time of 21:29.17. Ashten Tignor led Owensboro Catholic as she took 16th.
In the boys’ race, Daviess County finished with 21 points to edge Apollo’s 40 points.
DC’s Alex Adams won the race with a time of 16:19.93 as Apollo’s Thomas Ashby took second with a time of 16:35.98.
Adams said he was glad to grab a win but he was more glad to be able to let loose on the track.
“I feel great,” he said. “Good solid training the last two weeks, coach kind of tapered us off, got to really run my top level today, it was nice.”
Adams said he and his teammates are more than ready to win a state championship and he thinks they have what it takes.
“To get that first place, it’s all going to be in our 1-5 split, just getting that down,” he said. “Get the rest of our guys ready to roll and really trying to work on that pack.”
Much like Roberts, Adams was excited to run near his home one more time.
“It’s my last race here,” he said. “It’s just an incredible feeling coming across. Great way to close out my experience at Daviess County. I loved every second of it.”
Daviess County finished with seven runners in the top 10 as Logan Gish (4th), Caleb Tidwell (6th), Bryson McGary (7th), Parker Leachman (8th) and Jacob Kirk (9th) all delivered times under 17:30.
Apollo’s Nicholas Szemethy (5th) and Jake Alvey (10th) also delivered top-10 finishes.
Catholic was led by Braden Davis as he finished 16th with a time of 19:09.78. Trinity was led by sophomore Gavin Howard as he finished in 29th place.
Boys’ Race
1 Alex Adams 12 Daviess County 16:19.93 1
2 Thomas Ashby 10 Apollo 16:35.98 2
3 Justin Shelton 11 Daviess County 16:38.87 3
4 Logan Gish 12 Daviess County 16:53.38 4
5 Nicholas Szemethy 12 Apollo 17:05.18 5
6 Caleb Tidwell 10 Daviess County 17:07.97 6
7 Bryson McGary 10 Daviess County 17:12.48 7
8 Parker Leachman 12 Daviess County 17:17.07 8
9 Jacob Kirk 12 Daviess County 17:28.52 9
10 Jake Alvey 12 Apollo 17:58.43 10
11 Jake Turner 12 Daviess County 18:12.23
12 Gavin Sanders 12 Daviess County 18:22.21
13 Nathan Johnson 11 Daviess County 18:36.58
14 Brody Kurz 11 Daviess County 18:41.41
15 William Randolph 9 Daviess County 18:51.18
16 Braden Davis 10 Owensboro Catholic 19:09.78
17 Zach McCaslin 10 Daviess County 19:13.93
18 Jack Hamilton 9 Daviess County 19:17.86
19 Ethan Bell 12 Apollo 19:19.55 11
20 Josh Thomas 9 Apollo 19:20.32 12
21 Aidan Taylor 9 Daviess County 19:22.52
22 Austin King 9 Apollo 20:12.25 13
23 Frank Newton 10 Daviess County 20:25.20
24 Brayden Kaelin 9 Daviess County 20:30.87
25 Emerick Randolph 9 Daviess County 20:32.52
26 Logan Studsill 10 Apollo 20:43.10 14
27 Jonathan Hooker 11 Apollo 20:50.96
28 Michael Gray 10 Apollo 21:01.22
29 Gavin Howard 10 Trinity (Whitesville 21:41.91 15
30 Clay Thompson 12 Owensboro Catholic 22:40.78
31 Jonathan Miller 9 Trinity (Whitesville 22:42.18 16
32 Kyle Joiner 12 Owensboro Catholic 23:00.65
33 Dalton Millay 9 Trinity (Whitesville 23:51.99 17
34 George Newton 9 Daviess County 23:53.35
35 Christian Miller 9 Trinity (Whitesville 25:31.12 18
36 Nicholas Ward 11 Trinity (Whitesville 28:04.08 19
Girls’ Race
1 Emily Ann Roberts 12 Daviess County 20:09.82 1
2 Emily Rempe 11 Daviess County 20:20.94 2
3 Ainsley Taylor 12 Daviess County 20:27.35 3
4 Elli Crabtree 11 Daviess County 20:30.36 4
5 Katelyn Ahart 12 Daviess County 20:35.68 5
6 Avery Heath 12 Daviess County 20:39.26 6
7 Kayley Payne 10 Daviess County 20:39.63 7
8 Lauren Howe 11 Daviess County 20:56.56
9 Kyra Rowan 12 Daviess County 21:10.47
10 Ahmira Pickett 10 Apollo 21:29.17 8
11 Micah Sagar 10 Daviess County 21:41.82
12 Destiny Miles 12 Daviess County 21:46.51
13 Baylee Hare 12 Apollo 22:34.25 9
14 Abby Rumage 12 Apollo 23:38.58 10
15 Natalie Winfield 9 Apollo 24:23.49 11
16 Ashten Tignor 10 Owensboro Catholic 24:30.78 12
17 Roz Perkins 11 Daviess County 24:33.09
18 Caroline Ashby 12 Apollo 24:57.04 13
19 Sarah Rice 9 Apollo 25:22.83 14
20 Madeline Wahl 12 Apollo 25:48.99 15
21 Adyson Mattingly 9 Apollo 25:59.91
22 Addison Tignor 10 Owensboro Catholic 26:27.74 16
23 Katherine Caudill 12 Owensboro Catholic 26:33.84 17
24 Abby Evans 9 Daviess County 27:06.08
25 Natalie Estes 12 Apollo 27:38.34
26 Emily French 12 Apollo 27:47.38
27 Natalie Rhinerson 11 Trinity (Whitesville 28:40.37
28 Eva Ray 10 Owensboro Catholic 30:07.28 18
29 Chloe Sprague 10 Owensboro Catholic 30:55.73 19
30 Jessenia Garcia 9 Owensboro Catholic 31:39.85 20
31 Natalie Rhinerson 11 Trinity (Whitesville 32:11.77
