Eastern’s Blake Rigdon heads to the finish line to place third overall in the Division III Regional Cross Country Tournament at Pickerington, earning a berth in the OHSAA State Tourney.
Eastern’s Blake Rigdon heads to the finish line to place third overall in the Division III Regional Cross Country Tournament at Pickerington, earning a berth in the OHSAA State Tourney.

Eastern cross country teams compete in regional tourney –

By Wade Linville –

Eastern High School’s senior cross country star, Blake Rigdon, headed to the Division III OHSAA Cross County State Tournament after placing third of 135 runners in the Pickerington Regional Meet on Oct. 29.
The entire Eastern High School boys cross country team would compete in the regional meet after qualifying as a team in the district championships, but the team would finish just one spot shy of qualifying as a team for the state championships with a sixth place finish in the Pickerington Regionals, which required a top five team finish or a top 20 individual finish to qualify for state.
There were 17 teams competing in the Division III high school boys race at the Pickerington Regionals, and topping all teams was the Fairfield Lions with a score of 71.
Rigdon would post a finish time of 16:28.14 as the third runner to cross the finish line and the only member of his team to place in the top 20 and qualify for the state championship meet.
Junior Logan Lainhart was the second Eastern runner to cross the finish line, placing 23rd overall with a finish time of 17:29.54.
Eastern junior Garyn Purdy placed 29th with a finish time of 17:38.54.
Eastern freshman Cy Young placed 66th on the field of 135 runners with a time of 18:21.02, and rounding out Eastern’s top five was freshman Ian Wiles, who placed 92nd with a finish time of 18:56.54.
This year’s OHSAA Cross Country State Tournament was scheduled for Nov. 5 at National Trail Raceway.
The Eastern High School girls cross country team also competed in the Division III Regional Tournament at Pickerington after placing among the top six teams in the district tournament at Rio Grande.
As a team, the Lady Warriors finished in 15th place of 17 teams in the Division III Regional Tournament.
Leading the Lady Warriors to the finish line was freshman Camryn Pickerill, who placed 35th on the field of 131 runners with a time of 21:55.69.
Eastern freshman Juanita Frost placed 51st in the regional tourney with a finish time of 22:28.25, and freshman teammate Emily Fannin placed 117th with a finish time of 25:36.94.
Eastern freshman Abby Gillispie placed 123rd with a time of 26:37.68, while sophomore teammate Sierra Mitchell placed 128th with a finish time of 27:33.79.