Huron cross country runs to honor fallen teammate

HURON — "Give me an 'S!' Give me a 'C!' Give me an 'O', 'T', 'T!'"Huron's Trevor Poltorek led the chant after the Tigers qualified for the state cross country meet last weekend. He and his teammates cheered in honor of Scott Klaiber, their teammate who unexpectedly died on July 29.Since then, the Tigers have been running with a lot of emotion. They've been running to help heal their pain. They've been running for Scott.So when the Tigers learned they'd achieved a season-long goal, Poltorek decided to pay homage."When I figured out that we made it to state, it came back to me that all of this was for him in our minds," Poltorek said. "I feel like he drove us to be able to get here."The day before the regional race, Huron's cross country team visited Scott's grave. They said a prayer and reminisced about the time they spent goofing around with Scott at Old Woman's Creek, Nickel Plate Beach and the local Dairy Queen.Coach Roger Blevins described Scott as "the life of the fun." Scott always brought a bluetooth speaker to practice, from which he would play 80's music and country music.He was loud, boisterous, a walking good time. He lifted his teammates' spirits even during the most grueling training days."He brought the fun," Blevins said. "What these kids do every day in training is hard. So when you have a kid like Scott who brings the fun to the hard, it just makes it a little more bearable."The same qualities they loved were the qualities they missed after his death, though. When Blevins heard Scott had died, he cancelled the next day's practice. And when the Tigers did practice again, they were still grieving."The first actual practice was hard," Blevins said. "People didn't know how to go on." Gradually, though, the Tigers coped. They sparsely attended grief counseling sessions at first, but eventually over 20 members of the boys and girls cross country teams attended the sessions. Their shared grief helped them persevere. "We're all in the same situation," junior Connor Schuh said. "We're all in this together. That we all know that, it's comforting. It helps us go on and go harder."All the while, the Tigers excelled on the course. They won an SBC Bay Divison title and placed third in their district meet to earn a spot at regionals. They honored Scott while they ran, too. Each Tiger bought a white, Baker Mayfield-esque headband to match the headband Scott would wear while running. Aiden Kastor kept a pouch of pickled sunflower seeds that Scott gave him during a team trip to Kelly's Island in his bag. As the regional meet approached, though, the Tigers fell ill. Junior Salvador Sherer couldn't even finish Huron's "easy run" on the Thursday before the meet because he was so sick. Poltorek suffered from chest congestions. These were bad strokes of luck for a team that seemingly could not afford it. Blevins said the Tigers viewed themselves as the fifth or sixth best team in their region, and only the top three teams could advance to state. "But, he told them. "(If) you run a perfect race, anything's possible." They essentially did. Despite a consistent rain that muddied the course, five of Huron's seven runners finished the regional race in personal-best time. Of the other two, one tied his best time, and the other was four seconds off. Anything less wouldn't have been enough. Huron qualified for state over Shelby, who Blevins assumed would finish top two, by one point. For a while after the race, Blevins thought Huron might finish tied with Shelby. The tiebreaker would have been each team's sixth runner. For Huron, that would have been Schuh, who finished less than a second ahead of Shelby's sixth runner. Schuh passed him during the home stretch. "I normally don't sprint too fast at the end," Schuh said. "At the final stretch, I felt like I went out of my body and Scott went in."Poltorek had a similar experience toward the end of his run. When he turned the final corner, he wanted to give up. But when he closed his eyes, he pictured Scott, and it gave him the strength to push forward. "I don't think any of us can explain it, really," Poltorek said. "It was just a bunch of things that happened all together. "Personally, I felt like it was a gift."This week, the Tigers ate dinner at Scott's house. Scott's mother gave Scott's actual headband to junior Joey Lowy before the regional, and she has hosted several "team feeds" this season. The Tigers will visit Scott's grave again before they leave for the state meet at National Trail Raceway in Licking County, Ohio. They'll also keep their expectations reasonable — closer to top 15 than top five, they say. They'll enjoy the trip as much as the race.Then, one last time this season, they'll run for Scott. "Scott is part of our story of struggle," Blevins said. "There's a lot of ways these boys could've handled that, and they just came together as a team. They really are the closest team I've seen in my 23 years of coaching and teaching. And I really feel its the love they have for each other that drove them to succeed this year." The Huron boys cross country team will compete at the state championship meet this weekend. From left to right: Trevor Poltorek, Aiden Kastor, Salvador Sherer, Elijah Routh, Nick Pack, Connor Schuh, Joe Lowy.