Lions continue state-qualifying streak
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
It has become a tradition for the Fairfield Lions boys cross-country team to race in early November, and this Saturday they will do so as a team for the sixth straight year as they will take part in the 2018 OHSAA Division III State Cross-Country Championships.
The race at National Trail Raceway in Hebron will feature the best runners in the state as the Lions have placed in the Top 4 overall as a team the past two seasons and before then competed at a high level in all five previous trips as a team.
That one word — “team” — is what this year’s Lions spoke about with great passion the week of the state event because being a team has been their mantra this season, both on the race course and away from it as well.
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This season, the Lions have continued to have success, with the team winning their eighth consecutive Southern Hills Athletic Conference championship, their eighth straight SE District championship and they were third place at regionals too.
In each of the past five years, the Lions have raced in the state championships, starting in 2013 with a 15th-place finish (1:31:11.64), followed in 2014 with a 16th-place finish (1:31:33.26). In 2015, the Lions had an eighth-place finish (1:26:25). In 2016, FHS was fourth at 1:24:41, and in 2017 Fairfield finished in fourth again with a time of 1:24:47.
Members of this team are seniors Brandtson Duffie, Austin Setty and Bennett Hodson. Juniors on the state team are Gavin Campbell and Ethan Davis, and sophomores are Blake Haines and Cohen Frost.
Fairfield boys head coach Raymond Friend said even with losing top runners from a year ago, he still had lofty expectations for his team entering this season.
“I expected them to qualify for state, and when you lose two top-notch runners like Matthew (Mangus) and Noah (Richmond), you expect to have a little downfall, but I didn’t expect any,” he said. “I know the character of these guys and the leadership of this team, and I fully expected them to be this good.
“I’m impressed with their whole dedication from throughout the spring, winter, track … they didn’t take days off, and that is why they are this good. Brandtson Duffie last year was seventh man, and he’s a much better middle-distance runner than long -distance runner, but he set his mind to it and that is why he’s doing what he’s doing now, because of the work he’s put in during the summer.”
Friend spoke about the seniors before the state event takes place.
“I’ve had such good leadership examples from the seniors. Austin, Brandtson, Bennett and all the seniors not in the top seven, they pushed the young guys. Austin has been a part of a state team all four years, and all three of the other Top 7 seniors plan on running in college.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised with our sophomore Cohen Frost because last year he couldn’t run in the state meet (due to injury). He’s made it his mission to get there, and he was two spots away from qualifying as an individual. Others were down on the depth chart last year, and now they’ve worked their way up to the Top 7, and you have to have that for a team to be successful. You have to have kids who want to move up.”
Setty enters his fourth year as a state runner, qualifying for the event since his freshman year. As for his individual state career, Setty had a time of 18:00.3 as a freshman, followed by a time of 17:38.2 his sophomore year. His junior season last year, Setty finished with a time of 17:19.2.
“I’ve achieved about every goal I’ve wanted to achieve, but I still have one goal out there I still want to get,” Setty said. “I’ll have to run decent to get it, and that is to run in the 16:30s at state. With it being my fourth year at state, I think I have the experience to do it.
“This year feels a little different being the fourth year, knowing that this is the last time I’ll have a cross-country meet at the state tournament. It is tough, but I’ll be able to get through it.”
Setty worked hard to get back to state this season, including over the summer when he ran over 1,000 miles in his training, while also changing his diet, and that work has paid off for the senior. He also spoke about how the team has bonded this season.
“The season has gone pretty well. Being in the Top 7 the whole year and running decent all year, improving my times with each race, stands out for this year,” Setty said. “We’ve had the Top 5 consistently running together all season, and we’ve had good team chemistry all year and good team bonding.”
Fellow senior Hodson has shown improvement as well this season, and a lot of that came from work put in during the offseason as he’s earned his third trip to the state meet. He said some things have changed this season compared to previous years.
“Coming in this season, we all wanted our times to be better than they were last year, and all of us have improved this year,” Hodson said. “Seeing what our times were last year after where we placed at state, we all put in a lot of hard work and effort to get back to state.
“Being a part of the two teams that placed in the Top 4, it was fun and a great experience. This year, we have the same expectations. Our team goals are still the same in going to state and to run well at state and place well.”
Hodson said making state is never a given, and lots of hard work has been put in by the team to get back again.
“We know we still have to put the work in, and we don’t get used to that,” Hodson said. “We still want to train hard and know we have to work hard. My individual expectation for state is to race in the 17s.
“Individually, this year wasn’t quite my best because of an injury, but coming back from that injury, it’s really been going uphill for me now. That started happening around league, and at regionals I got my confidence back after that race. I was happy with how I raced there, and it wasn’t in good conditions because of the weather because it was freezing and misting and muddy conditions.”
Hodson spoke about being a three-time state qualifier and said it was all about the team.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the team,” Hodson said. “We want to go out, compete hard and have fun.”
Duffie is entering his third state cross-country race, and the three-time state qualifier is ready to run his last race at state with the Lions, while using the success of the past as motivation.
“This year, the expectations went down a little bit, and I took a big leadership role this year. I’ve made sure that the whole team knew we could be just as good or better than last year,” Duffie said. “I think that right now, we are in just as good of a spot this year as we were last year, and we are ready to compete just as competitively as years in the past.
“You always want to be better than the year before – you never want to go down – so every year we come in, see what we did last year and start to tackle things to run faster, to do better as a team and to be better in general.”
The senior Duffie spoke about his overall season as well, as he wants to also surpass his current PR of 16:52.
“I’m very happy with the season and how it has gone so far,” he said. “I trained through the first couple of meets and didn’t run as well as I wanted to, but I’m peaking at the right time, and I want to gain a PR at the state meet.”
Frost will be making his state race debut this Saturday (though he qualified for state last season but was unable to race due to injury), and he believes the bond as a team is stronger than compared to a season ago.
“We are closer together, and we are more cooperative with each other and we like to train with each other,” Frost said.
“Individually, I took care of my body more this year, because I came down with a stress fracture last year and was unable to run. I feel a lot better this year, and taking care of it helped it not break down like it did last year.”
When looking at the finishes this season, the Lions all seem to finish near each other in most races.
“It isn’t planned to finish as close to each other as we do, it just happens organically,” Frost said. “We try to finish as close to each other as we can, but we don’t plan for it, it just happens. It makes it more exciting and more competitive during the races. We strive to do better than each other and do better than everyone else at the races.
“My season has been successful, and I’ve pushed a lot harder and was more prepared than I was last year. I’m just looking forward to being competitive with everyone else at state. Years past, I’ve struggled through cross-country due to lack of experience a couple years before and last year with injury. This year, I ran more miles than I ever have during the summer, and I stayed more true to my plan I laid out. I ran faster in track workouts later in the season, and my training has jumped to another level than compared to years past.”
Haines will be running at state for the first time in his varsity career, and though this is his first trip to state, he understands how big of an achievement it is for himself and his teammates.
“It has been pretty good, and my times have been getting better throughout the season and I’ve worked harder this year,” Haines said. “The experience has been great, and I’m thankful for being around my teammates and for having a good coach.
“Last year I wasn’t a part of the state team, but this year I worked harder at it and I think I can help out the team. I was happy with how we worked hard all season, and now we are up to this point and it is exciting. I’m looking forward to us running a good race.”
Campbell said he’s been working hard to get to his first run at the state tournament, as it is a great personal and team accomplishment.
“I’ve been working hard for the past couple years now to get here, and it feels good to achieve a big goal,” Campbell said. “When we made state, it was exciting and again a great accomplishment. This year has been my best year in high school cross-country.
“I’ve improved every week and I’ve been working hard, and working harder this year has paid off. Positive mantras and going in with high expectations, working as hard as I can and pushing myself to the limit, have really helped me this year.”
At the SHAC Championships this season, Campbell felt that is where his season went in the direction he’d been chasing all fall.
“At league, I had a really good race and had a PR in the 17s,” Campbell said. “I did really well in that race. As for state, I’m looking forward to having all of this hard work pay off and showing my teammates I can do this and that we can run our best and run to the best of our abilities.”
Davis is making state for the second year as a member of the Lions, and his season has also seen an improvement over past years.
“I’ve had a lot of improvement on my times this year, and mid-season at the Johnstown night race I got down to 17:60, and that was a good determining factor to where we could be and what we could be as a team,” Davis said. “I have a goal to break 17 minutes, but I haven’t quite got there yet, but there is still the state race and there is always next year too.”
Davis put in the extra work needed to have the success he’s had this year during the summer, and like his teammates, he’s been seeing the results.
“I ran a lot more over the summer, and this year I was able to obtain the 1,000-mile offseason training goal,” he said. “You have to dedicate a lot of time over the summer to wake up each morning to go out for a run, to call up some buddies and run together. We’ve been running together a lot and have gotten to the point where we are all running the same pace for a race, to work off each other as a group.
“I expect for our team to go out and have the best race we can have as a team. Battling an injury, I just hope I can get out there and have a smart race and have a good time.”
The race at National Trail Raceway in Hebron will feature the best runners in the state as the Lions have placed in the Top 4 overall as a team the past two seasons and before then competed at a high level in all five previous trips as a team.
That one word — “team” — is what this year’s Lions spoke about with great passion the week of the state event because being a team has been their mantra this season, both on the race course and away from it as well.
[[In-content Ad]]
This season, the Lions have continued to have success, with the team winning their eighth consecutive Southern Hills Athletic Conference championship, their eighth straight SE District championship and they were third place at regionals too.
In each of the past five years, the Lions have raced in the state championships, starting in 2013 with a 15th-place finish (1:31:11.64), followed in 2014 with a 16th-place finish (1:31:33.26). In 2015, the Lions had an eighth-place finish (1:26:25). In 2016, FHS was fourth at 1:24:41, and in 2017 Fairfield finished in fourth again with a time of 1:24:47.
Members of this team are seniors Brandtson Duffie, Austin Setty and Bennett Hodson. Juniors on the state team are Gavin Campbell and Ethan Davis, and sophomores are Blake Haines and Cohen Frost.
Fairfield boys head coach Raymond Friend said even with losing top runners from a year ago, he still had lofty expectations for his team entering this season.
“I expected them to qualify for state, and when you lose two top-notch runners like Matthew (Mangus) and Noah (Richmond), you expect to have a little downfall, but I didn’t expect any,” he said. “I know the character of these guys and the leadership of this team, and I fully expected them to be this good.
“I’m impressed with their whole dedication from throughout the spring, winter, track … they didn’t take days off, and that is why they are this good. Brandtson Duffie last year was seventh man, and he’s a much better middle-distance runner than long -distance runner, but he set his mind to it and that is why he’s doing what he’s doing now, because of the work he’s put in during the summer.”
Friend spoke about the seniors before the state event takes place.
“I’ve had such good leadership examples from the seniors. Austin, Brandtson, Bennett and all the seniors not in the top seven, they pushed the young guys. Austin has been a part of a state team all four years, and all three of the other Top 7 seniors plan on running in college.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised with our sophomore Cohen Frost because last year he couldn’t run in the state meet (due to injury). He’s made it his mission to get there, and he was two spots away from qualifying as an individual. Others were down on the depth chart last year, and now they’ve worked their way up to the Top 7, and you have to have that for a team to be successful. You have to have kids who want to move up.”
Setty enters his fourth year as a state runner, qualifying for the event since his freshman year. As for his individual state career, Setty had a time of 18:00.3 as a freshman, followed by a time of 17:38.2 his sophomore year. His junior season last year, Setty finished with a time of 17:19.2.
“I’ve achieved about every goal I’ve wanted to achieve, but I still have one goal out there I still want to get,” Setty said. “I’ll have to run decent to get it, and that is to run in the 16:30s at state. With it being my fourth year at state, I think I have the experience to do it.
“This year feels a little different being the fourth year, knowing that this is the last time I’ll have a cross-country meet at the state tournament. It is tough, but I’ll be able to get through it.”
Setty worked hard to get back to state this season, including over the summer when he ran over 1,000 miles in his training, while also changing his diet, and that work has paid off for the senior. He also spoke about how the team has bonded this season.
“The season has gone pretty well. Being in the Top 7 the whole year and running decent all year, improving my times with each race, stands out for this year,” Setty said. “We’ve had the Top 5 consistently running together all season, and we’ve had good team chemistry all year and good team bonding.”
Fellow senior Hodson has shown improvement as well this season, and a lot of that came from work put in during the offseason as he’s earned his third trip to the state meet. He said some things have changed this season compared to previous years.
“Coming in this season, we all wanted our times to be better than they were last year, and all of us have improved this year,” Hodson said. “Seeing what our times were last year after where we placed at state, we all put in a lot of hard work and effort to get back to state.
“Being a part of the two teams that placed in the Top 4, it was fun and a great experience. This year, we have the same expectations. Our team goals are still the same in going to state and to run well at state and place well.”
Hodson said making state is never a given, and lots of hard work has been put in by the team to get back again.
“We know we still have to put the work in, and we don’t get used to that,” Hodson said. “We still want to train hard and know we have to work hard. My individual expectation for state is to race in the 17s.
“Individually, this year wasn’t quite my best because of an injury, but coming back from that injury, it’s really been going uphill for me now. That started happening around league, and at regionals I got my confidence back after that race. I was happy with how I raced there, and it wasn’t in good conditions because of the weather because it was freezing and misting and muddy conditions.”
Hodson spoke about being a three-time state qualifier and said it was all about the team.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the team,” Hodson said. “We want to go out, compete hard and have fun.”
Duffie is entering his third state cross-country race, and the three-time state qualifier is ready to run his last race at state with the Lions, while using the success of the past as motivation.
“This year, the expectations went down a little bit, and I took a big leadership role this year. I’ve made sure that the whole team knew we could be just as good or better than last year,” Duffie said. “I think that right now, we are in just as good of a spot this year as we were last year, and we are ready to compete just as competitively as years in the past.
“You always want to be better than the year before – you never want to go down – so every year we come in, see what we did last year and start to tackle things to run faster, to do better as a team and to be better in general.”
The senior Duffie spoke about his overall season as well, as he wants to also surpass his current PR of 16:52.
“I’m very happy with the season and how it has gone so far,” he said. “I trained through the first couple of meets and didn’t run as well as I wanted to, but I’m peaking at the right time, and I want to gain a PR at the state meet.”
Frost will be making his state race debut this Saturday (though he qualified for state last season but was unable to race due to injury), and he believes the bond as a team is stronger than compared to a season ago.
“We are closer together, and we are more cooperative with each other and we like to train with each other,” Frost said.
“Individually, I took care of my body more this year, because I came down with a stress fracture last year and was unable to run. I feel a lot better this year, and taking care of it helped it not break down like it did last year.”
When looking at the finishes this season, the Lions all seem to finish near each other in most races.
“It isn’t planned to finish as close to each other as we do, it just happens organically,” Frost said. “We try to finish as close to each other as we can, but we don’t plan for it, it just happens. It makes it more exciting and more competitive during the races. We strive to do better than each other and do better than everyone else at the races.
“My season has been successful, and I’ve pushed a lot harder and was more prepared than I was last year. I’m just looking forward to being competitive with everyone else at state. Years past, I’ve struggled through cross-country due to lack of experience a couple years before and last year with injury. This year, I ran more miles than I ever have during the summer, and I stayed more true to my plan I laid out. I ran faster in track workouts later in the season, and my training has jumped to another level than compared to years past.”
Haines will be running at state for the first time in his varsity career, and though this is his first trip to state, he understands how big of an achievement it is for himself and his teammates.
“It has been pretty good, and my times have been getting better throughout the season and I’ve worked harder this year,” Haines said. “The experience has been great, and I’m thankful for being around my teammates and for having a good coach.
“Last year I wasn’t a part of the state team, but this year I worked harder at it and I think I can help out the team. I was happy with how we worked hard all season, and now we are up to this point and it is exciting. I’m looking forward to us running a good race.”
Campbell said he’s been working hard to get to his first run at the state tournament, as it is a great personal and team accomplishment.
“I’ve been working hard for the past couple years now to get here, and it feels good to achieve a big goal,” Campbell said. “When we made state, it was exciting and again a great accomplishment. This year has been my best year in high school cross-country.
“I’ve improved every week and I’ve been working hard, and working harder this year has paid off. Positive mantras and going in with high expectations, working as hard as I can and pushing myself to the limit, have really helped me this year.”
At the SHAC Championships this season, Campbell felt that is where his season went in the direction he’d been chasing all fall.
“At league, I had a really good race and had a PR in the 17s,” Campbell said. “I did really well in that race. As for state, I’m looking forward to having all of this hard work pay off and showing my teammates I can do this and that we can run our best and run to the best of our abilities.”
Davis is making state for the second year as a member of the Lions, and his season has also seen an improvement over past years.
“I’ve had a lot of improvement on my times this year, and mid-season at the Johnstown night race I got down to 17:60, and that was a good determining factor to where we could be and what we could be as a team,” Davis said. “I have a goal to break 17 minutes, but I haven’t quite got there yet, but there is still the state race and there is always next year too.”
Davis put in the extra work needed to have the success he’s had this year during the summer, and like his teammates, he’s been seeing the results.
“I ran a lot more over the summer, and this year I was able to obtain the 1,000-mile offseason training goal,” he said. “You have to dedicate a lot of time over the summer to wake up each morning to go out for a run, to call up some buddies and run together. We’ve been running together a lot and have gotten to the point where we are all running the same pace for a race, to work off each other as a group.
“I expect for our team to go out and have the best race we can have as a team. Battling an injury, I just hope I can get out there and have a smart race and have a good time.”