The Crestwood Red Devil girls’ cross country team needed to finish in the top eight of the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division III regional meet to extend their season one more week. They did so by earning second place, scoring 127.0 points with a 4-8-9-24-82 finish last Saturday afternoon at Boardman High School.
“This was our season-long goal to make it to the state meet and we felt confident that we were going to make it to the state meet since they were taking eight teams,” said Coach Jim Schweickert. “We ran great, we accomplished our goal, so we are excited to go to the state meet.”
Capturing their first team state berth since the 2013 season, the Red Devil girls will compete at the OHSAA Division III state meet at Fortress Obetz on Saturday afternoon at 1:40 p.m.
“Our goal is going to be to go there and run well,” noted the 16th-year coach. “I think we can place, it is always so close. Some teams run great, some teams don’t, if we go and run well like we have all year, we will be fine.”
It was the first time since Schweickert inherited the responsibilities of coaching both programs that the Crestwood girls’ team landed a team state berth.
Last Saturday, the Crestwood girls were led by freshman Luci Maschek, who finished in fourth place at 18:46.10, followed by senior Piper Seibold who placed eighth with a time of 19:11.20, senior Maddie Grace Gonczy netted ninth place by recording 19:16.20, senior Piper Freedline snagged 25th place with a personal best 20:08.20 and sophomore Abby Pfost took 88th place coming in at 21:41.10.
The Red Devils tied with Marlington, who scored 127.0 points with a 1-26-29-33-38 finish, but the Dukes claimed the regional championship because of the tiebreaker, which awarded the victory to the team whose sixth runner crossed the finish line first. Marlington’s sixth runner came in 75th place, while the Red Devils’ sixth runner took earned 142nd place.
Crestwood’s top four runners finished in the top 25, but the Dukes caught up by having their top five land in the top 40, recording a spread of 2:35.70 compared to Crestwood’s spread of 3:01.00.
“We are heavy strong up front, we can beat most teams up front, but you have to have five and not three,” noted Schweickert. “One point is so minimal that it could be less than a second that somebody is out leaning somebody, it was not any one person, that gap is part of our team and so hopefully on Saturday that gap shortens up.”
Maschek continued to impress in her first varsity postseason, pacing the Red Devils with a fourth place finish, where she dueled against some of the top runners in the region including Berkshire freshman Claire Passow, Hathaway Brown junior Caroline Valentino and Garfield sophomore Lina Kaufman.
Schweickert said that the most impressive thing about Maschek’s freshman season has been how unafraid she is to race at the front of the pack.
“She is just not intimidated,” he added. “She will go out up front. She did go with Valentino, who she has chased for the last few weeks, so she is doing what she does and she is very consistent with it and is not flustered because it is the postseason. She just does what she does every week.”
Schweickert said that Maschek competed until the final second of the race, as she was passed by Passow at the last second, but still finished strong to set the Red Devils up for a top placement to advance the team to the state meet.
Last year, Seibold and Gonczy became the first female Crestwood runners to qualify for the state meet since Zoë Simmons did so in 2020 but will return to the state meet as part of a team.
According to Schweickert, the Crestwood duo was more excited about making a return to Fortress Obetz with the team rather than repeating as state qualifiers themselves.
“This has been an entire year in the making, they have been thinking about it, training for it, racing for it, everybody is excited for it,” he noted. “Their parents are excited for it, it was when you reach your goals, and it is a great feeling.”
Having missed out on winning the regional title by one point, Schweickert said that the Crestwood girls will have another chance to run with not just Marlington but some of the other top teams from across Ohio.
“There are still race tactics involved but we will push them to get out and compete but hopefully their training and racing habits during the year carry over,” he said.
