Journal-News.com

HAMILTON — Earlier this season, Badin High School sophomore running back Nate Snellgrove took the phrase "playing with pain" to a whole new level.

An incredibly dangerous level.

The day before the Rams' final scrimmage against Norwood, Snellgrove's throat had swollen to the point where he couldn't eat or drink anything. But he said nothing.

Later that night, as he lay in bed, Snellgrove said it felt like someone was stabbing him in the chest. Still, he stayed quiet and woke up Saturday morning ready to go.

"I felt obligated to play, and I didn't want to lose my spot," Snellgrove said. "I just thought I was a little sick."

After two days of not eating or drinking, Snellgrove felt weak, but he ran so hard and so well in the scrimmage that no one had any idea anything was wrong.

"Then," coach Dave Wirth said, "he showed up Monday in street clothes with a doctor's note in his hands that said he had a punctured lung."

Air was escaping the lung and entering his chest cavity, creating pressure.

"You see it in Little League sometimes, where a ball hits a kid with that blunt-force trauma, but it's such an incredibly rare injury," said Badin athletic trainer Aimee Bruketa, who was livid that Snellgrove never told her about the injury.

"Oh yeah, she reamed me big time," Snellgrove said. "She chewed me out so bad it actually made me scared of her."

After two weeks of doing nothing at all, Snellgrove gradually started working himself back in shape. He returned to the lineup full time in Week 6 against Purcell Marian, rushing for 102 yards, and the Rams haven't lost since.

"There is a direct correlation," Wirth said. "I think (quarterback Zach Toerner's) ability to run the ball makes Snelly a better runner, but vice versa, if you look at when Zach has had his biggest rushing numbers, it's been since Snelly got back and put up some numbers himself."

In a little more than six games, Snellgrove has rushed for 381 yards on 75 carries (5.1 average), and all three of his touchdowns have come in the last two weeks, including a 20-yarder in the Rams' playoff victory against Clinton-Massie in which he plowed over a Falcons defender.

"That one was like an Earl Campbell run," Wirth said. "I hadn't seen anything like that since the last time I watched 'Crunch Course.' I went nuts. There's only two or three times this year I've really gone nuts on the sideline, and that was one of them."

Wirth was one of the first people to greet Snellgrove on the sideline.

"You know it's big if coach Wirth gives you a hug," Snellgrove said.

He'll know he's forgiven if Bruketa gives him one.