MALLORY KREIDER of Edgewood is ready to go for the state cross country meet Saturday morning in Columbus. WARREN DILLAWAY / Star Beacon
Published November 05, 2009 02:03 am - The athletes who hold themselves to a higher standard than anyone else can place upon them are a rare breed.
Edgewood's Mallory Kreider has... Great Expectations
KARL PEARSON Star Beacon
The athletes who hold themselves to a higher standard than anyone else can place upon them are a rare breed.
Edgewood cross country coach Steve Hill knows he is blessed to have crossed paths with such a runner in Mallory Kreider. No matter how high the expectations are upon her, the Warrior senior has even greater objectives in mind for herself than anyone else does.
“Mallory has definitely always had high expectations,” Hill said. “They are so high for herself that the expectations of others don’t seem to affect her much.”
“I have my own expectations,” the daughter of Alan and Kim Kreider of North Kingsville said. “I do have high expectations for myself.”
She will be carrying those expectations into Saturday’s Division II race at the state championships at Scioto Downs Race Track in Columbus at 11:50 a.m. She set herself up for that with her 25th-place finish, good enough for second-team All-Ohio honors, last November. The projections for Kreider were really heightened this past June when she won the Division II state track championship in the 3200-meter run.
Expectations can be a tricky thing, though. Sometimes they can force an athlete to do things beyond their capabilities or can apply too much pressure.
That appears to have happened last Saturday at the regional meet at Boardman High School. Considered one of the favorites to win the Division II race, Kreider ran the vast majority of the race behind Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy’s Christina Blair and eventually dropped back to ninth. That was still easily good enough to qualify for her third trip to the state meet, but it was an eye-opening experience, one she would rather not repeat.
Kreider hopes to profit from that scary experience.
“I feel like I learned a lot from the race,” she said. “I think I’m going to be more mentally prepared this week.
“I guess I expected to be more in charge of the pace and I started to panic. I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, what’s going on.’ Not being in control of the pace was scary. Last week was a wakeup call. I can’t panic.”
“I think Mallory got caught up last week in the thought that she was being beaten by a girl she had already beaten twice before this season,” Hill said. “We want to let Mallory dictate her race.”
Hill noted that even though Kreider has had a lot of exposure to the big stage, it doesn’t mean she’s beyond learning new things.
“Mallory’s still a young runner,” he said. “She’s still experiencing new things. Chalk up last week to a life experience. She had hoped to win, but she just didn’t run well. She was upset.”
So a somewhat different strategy will be employed this week.
“We’re working toward putting Mallory in the best position possible to do well,” Hill said. “We’re not going in with the expectations of her winning. We want her to run her best race and let the chips fall where they may.”
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