Matt Levins - The Hawk Eye
(Matt Oleson is on the left- Gabe Andrus on the right)
Ryan Ritter is slowly building something special with the Notre Dame-West Burlington high school cross country programs.
The girls have had several state qualifiers and now feature two of the state’s top runners in Hannah Ritter and Kaitlyn Kipp.
The boys side of the ledger has been a bit more challenging.
Last season, freshman Cavin Denney gave the Nikes a bonafide No. 1 runner, someone who can consistently compete for the top spot at every meet.
Denney currently is ranked 24th in Class 2A.
This year, sophomore Matthew Olsen has stepped into the No. 2 spot for the Nikes.
And on the rare occasion Denney has an off day, Olsen is there to pick up the slack.
One of those occasion came Thursday at the Timm Lamb Invitational at Rodeo Park in Fort Madison. While Denney finished 16th, Olsen came through with a fourth-place showing in 18 minutes, 8.6 seconds.
That helped the Nikes, ranked 11th in Class 2A, win the Class B team title with 49 points, 13 ahead of Class 1A’s third-ranked Columbus.
For Olsen and the Nikes, it was just another day at the park.
The Hawk Eye recently caught up with Olsen, the High School Athlete of the Week, to learn a little more about him.
What is your favorite sport besides cross country?
I’d say my favorite sport other than cross country would have to be swimming. It is a lot harder, well in my opinion, and is less of a mental challenge than it is in cross country. By that, I mean that your body exhausts and drags you down before your mind does, which is basically the opposite of cross country. It is an extremely dedicated sport that you pretty much HAVE to stay in shape for all the time or else you hardly improve if you’ve done nothing off season.
Something I learned from a coach that I will never forget is ...
Something that I learned from my coach that I will always remember is to NEVER cut practices short, even by accident, and to NEVER leave any trash on the bus after meets. If we cut short or leave trash on the bus we sometimes have to do suicides and those are not so fun to deal with.
My favorite moment in cross country was ...
My favorite moment has to be able to race at Monticello each year. Last year we ran at Monticello, Quinten Nauman was there and it was his birthday meet. I’d say it wasn’t his best meet, but still racing with him was still pretty cool. Even if I didn’t see him all race because of the vast gap between us.
My most embarrassing moment in cross country was ...
I’d say it was definitely a couple years back when I got yelled at by the coach to stop throwing an orange like a baseball. It was someone else’s orange and I kept trying to give it to them so they could throw it away, but it just got me in trouble, too.
A role model that has had the most influence on me is ...
Definitely my classmate and fellow runner, Cavin Denney. He is number one varsity on our team and is in my grade. He had such a huge impact on our team’s dedication to actually trying to qualify for state. I think it’s because of him being so young, but also so talented at running that really made the others, including myself, attempt to compete at his level or even surpassing him.
Something on my bucket list is ...
Definitely dropping to average in the 17-minute range either this year or next year, and, eventually with a little bit of hope and prayers, breaking past seventeen minutes my senior year.
My favorite meal is ...
It’s gotta be the lasagna at Mazzio’s. But the catch is that instead of tomato sauce, you have alfredo sauce in the lasagna. It makes it ten times better. It’s astonishingly creamy and flavorful with alfredo sauce instead of normal tomato sauce.
If I won the lottery, my first purchase would be ...
Replacing Notre Dame’s track with something at least manageable. It is made of asphalt and is 440 meters instead of the normal 400. I feel like that would be a good project if I won the lottery.
My biggest pet peeve is…
Probably my classmates at school are always saying, “hey, why didn’t you beat this guy!” or, “why can’t you be under a five minute mile!” I mean, sure, I guess it COULD encourage me to prove them wrong, just for them to say, “why couldn’t you get under a 4:50 mile!”
In my free time I enjoy ...
I love drawing. It has to be one of my favorite things to do in my free time other than hopping on my xbox with my friends. I also love building LEGOs and making all sorts of things with them. I also love collecting all of the different sets and sometimes even window shopping for LEGOs.
My favorite motivational slogan or quote is ...
“You can do no great things, only small things with great love.” — Mother Teresa
Which teacher has had the biggest influence on you and why?
I’d say Mr. Lundvall had the biggest influence on me. He always checks the meets and always has something to say at school day after. He’s always on it about making sure we’re doing okay with school so we can participate in the events. If you’re on the F list, you can’t play games or attend meets for sports. He’s the one that receives the F list and makes sure kids either come in during study hall or activity period to get anything missing done and turned in so we can keep our grades up. Thankfully, I’ve never experienced something like that with him and plan not to in the future.
What is special about your high school?
I’d say the one thing that is so special that no other school in Burlington can have is the chance to even attend such an amazing community of students and staff. Being at a catholic school really is amazing. Having mass every Tuesday morning, having an actual in-school religion class, and even our own chapel for adoration.
In 25 years, I will be…
Hopefully in twenty-five years I’ll be an engineer. It’s always been something that intrigues me. For starters, I love building things. Like LEGOs or those Lincoln Logs when I was younger. Second, I love to draw. Drawing is something that I’ve loved and have been good at since I could remember.
Something about myself that would surprise people is ...
I didn’t take cross country really seriously in middle school. I only wanted to try it out and see if it could help out with my swimming skills, since swimming was and still is my main sport. Over time I felt like I got more competitive with it and started actually trying to win and beat kids in meets. I’m still improving and I hope that this season our team makes it to state collectively. I feel like it would be an awesome accomplishment.