Emmanuel Christian will compete at the D-III state meet at 10 a.m. Saturday at Fortress Obetz.
“It feels really good,” said Lions coach Justin Webster. “I gotta say I wasn’t expecting it at the beginning of the season. I knew we wanted to get to regionals but I didn’t really know that getting to state was going to be as big of a possibility as it was. We’re pleasantly surprised.”
Cedarville also qualified for the D-III boys race, as well as Mechanicsburg’s Beckett Negley. In the Division III girls race, the Mechanicsburg and West Liberty-Salem girls squads both advanced to the state meet, as well as Cedarville’s Ellie Mark and Mandy Mark.
The West Liberty-Salem boys squad and Urbana’s Vicent Lightle will compete in the D-II boys state meet. Greenon’s Ruby Clark qualified for the D-II girls meet.
After qualifying for regionals for the first time in program history, the Lions scored 120 points at the regional meet, finishing 21 points ahead of conference rival Legacy Christian to earn the last bid to the D-III state meet. They finished one point behind third-place Russia.
“Once we got out of the district, we realized it was very doable to get to state, we just have to run like we did the week before,” Webster said.
They did it without having one individual place in the top-16, which earns an individual berth to the state tournament. Lions sophomore Grady Schaadt finished 23rd in 17:21, followed by senior Alex Pinkleton (30th,17:42), junior Xavier Fudge (34th, 17:48.3), freshman Elijah Scales (35th, 17:48.9), junior Braylon Walls (40th, 17:56), junior Elijah Whetstone (45th, 18:04) and freshman Isaac White (88th, 20:06).
“We have six runners who can really be in the top-5,” Webster said. “If anyone has an off day, they can kind of fill-in in that spot and it helped us at districts and regionals as well as some other meets.”
The Lions’ pack time — the difference between the finishing time of a team’s first and fifth runners — was 35 seconds at the district meet, Webster said. At the regional meet, it was 34 seconds.
“If you look at all the other schools in the state, I don’t know if anyone has a pack time of 34 seconds,” Webster said. “That’s what’s brought us so much success this year. … We have six guys that are really close to each other,” Webster said. “We don’t have that advantage of having one standout superstar, but we just have that consistency.”
The Lions are just the second team in ECA history to qualify for a state meet. The boys bowling team qualified in 2017.
“It’s obviously a huge deal for our school,” Webster said. “We don’t send many individuals to state, let alone teams.”
The Lions have brought home a school-record seven trophies, Webster said, including champion and runner-up finishes.
On Saturday, the Lions will soak in the experience of competing at the state’s highest level, Webster said. The Lions are projected to finish 18th out of 20 teams based on virtual meet results, he said.
“We’re just really happy to be there and experience it,” Webster said. “Obviously I want them to go out and do their best and represent the school as well as they can, but the fact that we even got to state is all that we could’ve asked for at this point.”
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