Published: Sunday, September 17, 2006
Lape brothers spark Boardman
The Spartans placed second in Division I in the Spartan Invitational.
By MARK W. MILLER
BOARDMAN — Twin brothers Rick and Jake Lape are competitive in everything they do and that helps the Boardman High boys cross country team.
"Everything between us is competitive. At home when we eat, each of us tries to eat faster," said Jake.
"We take a couple of classes together and compete to see who will gets a better grade and our grades and GPAs are similar," said Rick.
The two athletes helped their team place second with 154 points in Saturday's Spartan Invitational at the Boardman High 5000-meter course. Jake (16:43) placed 11th, Rick (17:02) was 21st, Adam Haushalter (17:14) was 32nd and Sam Deskin (17:18) was 37th.
"It's a big step for our program and shows how hard we've worked since last summer and for the past two years," said Rick.
"I couldn't have asked for better captains," said coach Dave Pavlansky, referring to Rick, Jake and Haushalter. "Everything they have done is as it should be."
The three captains have been friends since seventh grade.
"If we train hard, don't get big-headed, burn ourselves out and take each meet one step at a time, we should improve by the districts," said Jake.
"Our immediate goals are win the Federal League, run our best race at state and show everyone what we can do," said Rick.
Emil Heineking (15:36,3) of Chardon was first, leading his team to the Division I title with 110 points in the field of 36 schools with 250 runners.
Division III
Joe Copploe, Taylor Sowers, T.J. Holland and Mitchell Thornton helped McDonald to second place with 93 points in Div. III.
St. Thomas Aquinas won the title with 81.
"We are like a big group of brothers that encourages each other at practice and meets," said Copploe (16:53), who placed third. Sowers (17:18) was eighth, Holland (18:05) was 20th and Thornton (18:14) was 28th. The strong finish was a good sign for the Blue Devils, who will run here in October for the regional meet.
"It meant a lot to us to do well here," said Copploe. "We felt pretty good about what we did today; there were six state-ranked teams here.
Andy Arnio, Andy Morgan and Steve Barnhart of Maplewood couldn't compete in the meet because they were taking their ACT tests.
So the Rockets were unable to defend their title and finished eighth with 280 points.
Senior Chaz Rice said, "We missed the three, but wanted to see how we would do without them."
McDonald girls fourth
In the Div. III girls run, Gates Mills Gilmour Academy won with 40 points and McDonald finished fourth with 159.
Kyrsti Sowers (21:14), Callie Garland (21:22), Jamie Fynes (21:28) and Jenn Molinari (21:48) placed 22nd, 27th, 31st and 37th respectively.
"We weren't sure how we would do, but wanted to finish in the top five," said Fynes. "It was tough competition and gave us an indication as to who will be in the regional this year."
Kayla Witmer (19:45) of South Range was second in the race, Monica Ciarniello (19:56) of Springfield was eighth, Audrey Maheu (20:49) of Warren JFK was 16th and Stephanie Case (20:53) of Columbiana was 18th.
Lauren Agnew (19:52) of Boardman placed seventh in the girls Div. I run. Jimmy Ramson (17:05) of Poland was 13th in boys Div. II. Christine Oles (20:56) of Mooney was 16th in girls Div. II.
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