Lions advance to Div. III State Championship
The Fairfield boys cross-country team has done everything they've set as a goal this season. The Lions won a Southern Hills Athletic Conference championship and a district championship this postseason. On Saturday, following malfunction of timing equipment and photo equipment, the Lions were left with more questions than answers over the weekend.
Following the completion of the Division III Regional race held at Pickerington North High School, the Lions were declared the winner over then-second-place Fredericktown.
Then the Lions had the trophy taken back from them by officials, but around 30 minutes later, the trophy was returned to the Lions with the individual medals, and that seemed to be it.
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Sometime over the weekend, Fairfield went from being named the regional champions to the regional runners-up, according to the official scoring page (as of Monday, Nov. 2 at 11 a.m.). The standings currently state Fredericktown has a score of 91, while the Lions are at 92, with the lower score being the winner in the sport.
As of this article being posted, there is still confusion as the teams await a final ruling and explanation from the OHSAA and those in charge of the final results of the regional race.
For the Lions, their top finisher and also an individual qualifier was sophomore Matthew Mangus, the highest-placing sophomore in the Div. III race with a time of 16:47.5, for an average mile of 5:23.9.
Andrew Davis was the next finisher for Fairfield, coming in at 23rd place with a final time of 17:24.9, a 5:36.0 average mile. Next in line was Noah Richmond in 24th place at 17:29.1 (5:37.3 average mile).
Dillon Burley finished 34th (17:46.1), and in 36th was Austin Setty at 17:50.4. Burley had an average mile of 5:42.8, while Setty's average mile came in at 5:44.2.
Trent Swisher had a time of 17:54.6, giving him a 41st-place finish (5:43.5), and in 58th place overall was Wyatt Evans at 18:18.3 (5:53.1) to complete the FHS scoring in a race that consisted of 125 runners.
Winning the entire event was Aaron Wood of Fisher Catholic with a time of 16:10.3.
However the race is officially ruled, the Lions will be running at the 2015 State Cross-Country Tournament on Saturday, Nov. 7 at the National Trail Raceway. The Division III boys race is scheduled to be run at 1:30 p.m.