Olpe’s Sadler excelling on JV squad after transfer from Emporia High
By Joey Berlin
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Olpe’s Lance Sadler isn’t too upset about being a junior varsity athlete who clearly has varsity talent.
“I’ve heard from other teams, ‘He should be a varsity runner,’ and all that other stuff,” Sadler said. “But it’s just the situation that I’m in.”
Sadler ran varsity cross country at Emporia High last year, finished 17th at State, and would likely have been the Spartans’ best returning runner had he come back for his junior season. But Sadler decided to transfer to Olpe this year. When he first made that decision, he didn’t know that transfer rules would require him to sit out 18 weeks before becoming a varsity athlete.
As a result, he’s been running JV cross country all season for Olpe, and doing things like finishing ahead of the first-place varsity runner — teammate Colby Nuessen — at last week’s Wabaunsee Invitational.
Running JV has forced Sadler to self-motivate a little more.
“It’s a little different, just because there’s not that many people pushing you for a fast pace,” he said. “And so I have to pretty much dig down and try to run the times that I was doing (last year), or faster.”
The 18-week rule will keep Sadler on the JV cross country squad for the entire season, but Olpe cross country coach Tom Camien is happy that Sadler will be eligible for this spring’s track squad. And of course, he’ll be able to run cross country next year as a senior.
“I think it was a difficult decision for him to make, because again, he had to sacrifice basically the season,” Camien said. “And had he stayed at Emporia, he probably would’ve been one of their better varsity runners.
“But yeah, I think he’s accepted the fact that ‘I’m delegated to JV, and I’m gonna do the best I can.’ And he certainly helps our kids in practice, because they have someone to chase constantly.”