Valley runners give it their personal best at state

By Joe Scalzo

COLUMBUS — Sam Deskin listened to his coach and listened to his brain, two things that don’t always happen with first-timers at the state cross country meet.

Deskin, a junior at Boardman, began Saturday’s Div. I race at Scioto Downs on the far outside of the starting line, which left him with two options, neither all that appealing. One, he could start fast, move to the head of the pack and not get boxed in.

“Then I’d just be burning lactate and it’d kill me later in the race,” Deskin said.

Two, he could start slow, fade into the middle of the pack and risk getting boxed in.

He chose the second option. And, as he’s tried to do all season, he focused on getting through the first two miles before kicking it in on the third, using his miler speed to pick off runners in front of him.

“Every time I passed another kid, I was just like, ‘One more, one more,’” Deskin said. “Then I just tried to make that last mile my race.”

He moved from 60th at the half-mile mark to 25th at the two-mile mark, then kicked it in on the last mile, finishing in a personal-best 15:59.09 — fourth-best on the school’s all-time list — to place 12th overall, the best finish for a runner in Coach Dave Pavlansky’s 10-year tenure.

“He ran a great race,” Pavlansky said. “We should enjoy this one. We’ll talk about next year, next year.”

Or will we?

“My immediate goal definitely is track, but cross has a special place in my heart,” Deskin said. “I’d like to finish in the top five next year.

“And while up there, I might as well shoot for first.”

Lakeview senior Tyler Ames was just shooting to make it on the podium, an honor reserved for the top 15 runners in each race. (The top 25 make All-Ohio.)

In the days leading up to the Div. II race, he felt a familiar energy and bounce in his legs.

“I felt faster than I ever had,” he said. “Real bouncy, real light. Usually when that happens, I run my best race.”

True to form, Ames ran a personal-best time of 15:54.38 to place seventh, while his teammate, senior Heath Harris, placed 35th.

“This is way beyond my wildest dreams of finishing,” Ames said. “Everything came together perfectly, the weather, the way the course went. ... If I had written down on a piece of paper what I wanted it to look like, this would be the day.

“It was just five years of hard work all coming together for one day.”

The day didn’t quite go as hoped for McDonald in Div. III. The Blue Devils ran well, but it wasn’t enough to push them into one of the top two spots. They placed third, 25 points behind Bellaire St. John (129-104) and 14 behind two-time defending champ St. Thomas Aquinas.

“There’s a lot of schools in Ohio that would be happy with doing as well as we did today, but it’s the nature of those guys that they’re just not happy with anything less than winning,” said McDonald coach Chris Rupe, whose team won last week’s regional meet. “That’s what’s gotten them as good as it’s gotten them.”

The other area team qualifier, Maplewood, took seventh. This is just the second time since 1997 that a Trumbull County team has not finished either first or second.

“We’ve shared an awful lot over the years and months and it’s just hard to watch them walk away and not be able to head over to the award stand,” said Rupe, whose team placed second last year. “That was a part that I really wanted to share with them.”

East Palestine senior David Chick placed 10th in his first year of cross country, running a personal best time of 16:10.31 to break his own school record.

“I kick myself all the time,” said Chick, when asked if he regrets not running cross country earlier in his career. “I’m happy I picked it back up.”

On the girls side, Lowellville junior Monica Ciarniello earned All-Ohio honors for the second straight season, placing fourth in Div. III with a time of 18:58.24 after finishing sixth last year.

“I was really focused today,” Ciarniello said. “I felt good and the weather’s nice. I was just really looking to either PR [set a personal record] or improve my place, and I improved my place.”

Jackson-Milton senior Samantha Hamilton placed 11th after finishing 39th last year.

Columbiana finished 15th out of 16 teams in its first trip to the state meet. Senior Stephanie Case placed 18th overall to lead the Clippers.

In Division II, Mooney senior Christina Oles placed 96th. She was the only area girl in either of the top two divisions to qualify.

scalzo@vindy.com