State meet
What: Ohio High School Cross Country Championships
When: Saturday
Where: National Trail Raceway, 2650 National Road SW, Hebron
Schedule (local participants): Division III girls, 11 a.m.; Division II girls (Monroe's Rachel Ploeger and Alayna Garver, Ross' Emily Casaceli), 11:45 a.m.; Division I girls (Lebanon's Jessie Hartman), 12:30 p.m.; Division III boys, 1:30 p.m.; Division II boys, 2:15 p.m.; Division I boys (Lakota East's Dustin Horter, Fairfield's Zach Birdsall, Lebanon's Nick Jarvis, Edgewood's Andrew Testas), 3 p.m.
When Zach Birdsall was in middle school, some friends after a baseball practice bet he couldn’t run 10 laps around the field. So he did 20.
Stunned, his friends told him he needed to go out for the cross country team.
Now, five years later, the Fairfield High School junior is still driven by his competitiveness, as he prepares for his second state cross country meet Saturday at National Trail Raceway in Hebron.
Birdsall finished third in a Division I regional meet to qualify as an individual with a time of 15 minutes, 50.25 seconds.
“I feel like it came pretty naturally to me,” Birdsall said about running. “I worked for it, but I was good from the beginning and working hard made it easier.”
Birdsall has come a long way since eighth grade when he first joined the Fairfield Middle School team, but especially has shown improvement this season when his times began dropping into the 15s. He was in the 16s all but one race last year and low 16s until state, when he ran a disappointing 16:42 to finish 74th.
After winning a district championship two weeks ago and placing third at regionals, Birdsall has his eye on a top 16 finish in the Division I race.
“I just want to be the best I can because last year’s race wasn’t so good,” said Birdsall, who was sixth at the Greater Miami Conference meet last year, fourth at districts and eighth at regionals. “Last year, it was a learning experience because now I know to go out a lot faster in the beginning and hang on, and I know where to kick it. I’m just trying to improve off last year.”
That 2014 state meet helped drive him into better finishes this year, but Fairfield coach David Pierce has seen that desire to improve all along.
Again, it goes back to that competitive nature.
“He loves to compete,” Pierce said. “It’s not just about running hard. It’s about getting out there and competing. I had heard that about him from the middle school coach and it was obvious freshman year. It’s just that will to compete — but he’s very humble, so he won’t say it.”
A personal competition with one local runner in particular also helps push him.
Birdsall ran his personal-best time of 15:38.20 in a runner-up finish at the GMC Championships, where he trailed rival Lakota East sophomore Dustin Horter. The next week, he became Fairfield’s first district champion since 2002, but Horter ran in a separate race and still had the better time.
Horter got him again at regionals for the win, but part of Birdsall’s race plan for state will include trying to keep up with Horter — and hopefully having the better kick at the finish.
Through the course of the year, the Indians junior has learned how to better pace himself to allow for a stronger push to the finish. Pierce is hoping that makes a difference Saturday.
“He likes to go out fast, but what good does that do if you run out of gas at the end?” Pierce said. “He’s got such great speed, and he’s learning how to stay close and pace himself to have the opportunity to use his speed at the end.”
Birdsall wants to run a 15:20 to break Fairfield’s all-time record. Pierce said that should put him in the mix with the other elite runners.
If Birdsall has enough left in him down the stretch, a top 10 finish isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“Having a kick at the end is mental because once I’m done, I’m done, so it’s pacing myself to make sure I don’t completely die and I know I have it at the end no matter what,” Birdsall said.
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