Beavercreek Girls Put In Extra Effort To Make 2019 Season Special

By Mary Albl of DyeStat

A year ago, the Beavercreek OH girls cross country team was primed for a promising postseason run.

A young and talented team approached the month of November as a top 20 team. A signature win at Nike Valley Twilight in Indiana and district and regional crowns highlighted the resume.

But, like the unpredictability of an unstudied cross country course, Beavercreek's plans suddenly became muddled.

Wild weather postponed the Ohio state meet one week, pushing the date to just one day ahead of the Nike Cross Midwest Regional meet, a race in which the team had plans to compete. Instead, the Beavers focused on what was ahead of them and won the program's first state title since 1996, with Taylor Ewert claiming individual honors.

That effort meant no team run at NXR Midwest and no chance to qualify for Nike Cross Nationals.

"We can't control the weather," Beavercreek head cross country coach Howard Russ said matter-of-factly. "We always talk about controlling what we can control. Our No. 1 goal was always a state title. Nike would have been a bonus."

Ewert was the lone Beavercreek runner to make the trek from Ohio to Terre Haute, Ind., so talented that she was able to run a second 5,000-meter race in less than 24 hours and pull out a gritty third-place finish to qualify individually for NXN.

As nice as a team state title was, the idea of what could have been lingered.

"We thought we maybe could have gone to Oregon, so that was hard," Beavercreek's Savannah Roark said. "I think we all kept that in mind. We're not done. We just definitely couldn't relax on our training, and it definitely fueled us."

That motivation fed into a productive offseason for Beavercreek, which is located in the suburbs east of Dayton. The track season featured a second-place distance medley relay at Penn Relays and a runner-up 4x800 at New Balance Nationals Outdoor. The hard work spilled over into the summer with a unified vision to be one of the best teams in the country. 

"In August, when we came back together, we were having really good training sessions, and we were better than we thought we were going to be," Roark said. "We all collectively had a goal of wanting to go to Nationals. I think that's where the strong season kind of starts from."

Russ spoke to the girls about the training required to be one of the best teams in the country. What would that look like? What needed to change?

This fall, along with implementing a new strength program, Beavercreek upped the mileage and the girls challenged themselves to go and chase their goals, which has meant traveling around the region – to Indiana, Michigan and New York – and facing some of the best teams in the country.

This Saturday, Beavercreek, No. 3 in the lastest DyeStat rankings, will seek a second consecutive Ohio state title.

Already, Beavercreek won the Hoka ONE ONE Postal Nationals with an 11:09 average for the top five in the 2-mile.

"I think we haven't always heard of Beavercreek as a national name, but we just believe in each other so much," Roark said. "You come to Beavercreek, there's just not teams like this. The way we act, I think we just hold each other accountable in a way that just isn't expected in high school."

Roark, who comes from a military family, moved from Virginia to Ohio last year. After a year of adjusting to the program, Roark has blossomed into one of the top runners in the country and is Beavercreek's No. 2.

"When I found out I was moving to Ohio, we looked for a school with girls I could run with," Roark said. “I just hit a stagnant point during sophomore year, because I was doing all my running by myself. Last year, it was a little bit of shock coming in because all of these girls could do what I could do as well, but after that transition period, it's helped me so much (being on this team).”

On Sept. 28, when the team traveled to the McQuaid Invitational in New York, Ewert was on a recruiting trip. Beavercreek didn't miss a beat. Roark, who is committed to Syracuse, took full advantage of the opportunity and won the race in 16:56.3 and led the team to a second-place finish.

“It's one thing wanting to win, but to actually put it together, it just meant a lot to me,” Roark said.

Added Russ: “For Savannah to go out and win McQuaid, she got to run her race, and it really gave her confidence. McQuaid also allowed our other girls to step up.” 

Beside seniors Ewert and Roark, Beavercreek features a lineup of two other seniors and one junior in the top five, all with different personalities and committed to their roles.  

“You have Taylor (Ewert), who’s been to the big meets, so she’s the one to talk about the race course and talk about the strategy,” Russ said. “Jodie (Pierce) likes being the mom, while Savannah, she’s the quiet, driven and detailed one. Jules (Juliann Williams, junior)  keeps us loose and smiling, and Kendall (Hobbs), she’s our rock. They relish their role, and it's just fun to watch.”

After a dominant regional victory this past weekend, winning by 52 points, compared to a four-point margin in the same meet last year, Beavercreek is more than ready to go after a second straight state title Saturday in Hebron.

“This is the best team, by far, I’ve coached,” said Russ, head coach since 2008. “This group, they know what it takes to be good. We train like a top-five team in the nation every day and we’ll live with the results. There is an excitement, but we are just trying to control what we can control. We just hope we get the opportunity.”