Maplewood | Cross Country Tristan Dahmen

The Maplewood cross country team has been dominant in the last three years. A fourth-place finish, then runners-up and finally a state title this fall.

One common factor?

Tristan Dahmen.

Dahmen, a junior, won the individual state title this season as well for the Rockets.

“Coming into the season, I saw a lot of good improvement [from my team],” Dahmen said. “We have a pretty large sophomore class right now and lot of them stepped up.”

Dahmen was overwhelmed with emotion for the team championship.

“It’s one of those feelings, that you can’t really describe it or put it in words,” he said. “To raise a gold trophy over your head in front of a crowd of who knows how many. It was an incredible experience.”

Dahmen says his freshman year was a disappointment in a way.

“We only got fourth and we were ranked higher all year,” Dahmen said. “We were hoping for top three at least. To redeem myself and the team to get first, it was great.”

Dahmen’s winning time was 15:57.53.

It was just about a second better than Logan Smith from Mineral Ridge.

Dahmen wants to keep improving along with changing his role.

“I think that I will definitely have to be more of a leader,” Dahmen said. “Just being a senior and all that. I just have to lead them in the right direction.”

College running is not out of the picture for Dahmen.

“Here or there, but I’m not too into it yet,” Dahmen said. “I still have a year left to decide that I’m looking for a good, educational school.”

For now, he’s focused on his senior year and making more memories.

“Last year, I’d have to say when I won runner-up to Bobby Johnson,” he said. “It was good to know that Trumbull County did well as a whole.”