Schadler's 4th place finish at the Nike Cross SW Regionals earned her an individual spot to Nike Cross Nationals where she place 17th with at time of 17:59.
Schadler's teammate Carols Villarreal (Sr) also moved onto the
National scene with his sub 15 minute win at the Twilight Invitational. His 2nd place finish (by 1 second) at the Nike Cross SW Regionals earned him an individual spot to Nationals along with Tyler Day (Sr. Mesquite) who had to nervously sit on the edge of his seat until the end of the awards to find out if he would be one of the individuals going.
For the boys the experience was the greatest ending to their high school cross country career.
"Nike Cross Nationals was an unbelievable experience," said Carlos remembering the weekend. "Portland is a beautiful city and the Nike World Headquarters were breathtaking. It was awesome to go with 9 other Arizona runners and I feel like we all became good friends there. The race was really intense, definitely the toughest race I've ever been a part of. The hills and muddy terrain along with the cold weather made it a real cross country race. I didn't run as well as I wanted, which was disappointing but I will use that race as motivation for my upcoming track season. I'm happy that I had a chance to run against some of the best runners in the nation. It was one of my goals to qualify this year and to be able to reach my goal was really exciting."
I don't think I will ever forget the excitement from Tyler Day when they announced he would be going to Nationals. It was a great memory for everyone.
Tyler shares some thoughts about his journey.
The race was equally as great as the build up. The course was very good to what I was expecting it to be after hearing that it was raining hard the night before. During my race, I caught a soft piece of Portland and slipped right on my butt. I quickly rolled over, got back up, and ran into the herd of runners. I wanted to be an all American but after falling down, my goals quickly went to placing the top half of the race. I ran my first mile split right around 4:40 something (I think). I was just pushing the whole race, always passing people the whole time to make up for lost time. When I was at the "800m to go" mark, I started to surge for the finish which was up a crazy incline. I manage to have a kick though and passed at least 10 people before finishing. My time was 16:02 with a 43rd place. Not bad for starting on my butt. I was very glad to have my family out there supporting me at Nationals. I don't think I would have placed as high if they were not there. And I want to give a shot out to the Southwest individual girls and the Desert Vista girls team for cheering me on during the race. They pushed me to run faster because I wanted to impress them hahahah."
Both boys got to meet and take pictures with Jimmy Stevenson the "Run Junky" Milesplit guy and with the hotel lobby filed with Oregon football fans, Carlos proudly wore his University of Arizona sweatshirt during the football game! It was fun to watch!
Arizona was well represented by these three awesome individuals!