Better late than never
ADAMS TWP — Ben Luce strolled into the preseason meeting for cross country summer conditioning last spring and caught Mars track coach Larry Young by surprise.
Young wasn't expecting Luce to come out for his senior season. He failed to recruit him in previous years.
Luce hadn't played any organized sports during his first three years at Mars.
“I was sub-teaching, — phys ed. actually — at Mars a few years ago and I saw Ben and my eyes lit up,” Young said. “I tried to talk to him about coming out the following fall for cross county, but he couldn't do it because he was in the band. My mind didn't click fast enough, I should have invited him for track.”
Luce and fellow senior Reed McDonough are both competing in their first full track seasons and playing important roles for the Planets, who are 7-0.
Luce has the second-fastest 400 dash time in Butler County at 52.2 seconds and is apart of a 1,600 relay — along with Ori Rinaman, Chris Check and Nate Bayuk — that has the second fastest time of 3 minutes, 35.3 seconds.
McDonough, who was on a WPIAL and PIAA swimming championship relay team in 2014, is in Mars' 3,200 relay team and also competes in the mile.
While McDonough has done other varsity sports, cross country was Luce's first go-round.
He plays on the school's club ultimate frisbee team and was in the band.
“I wasn't doing anything else in the fall and cross country seemed like a good thing to do to stay in shape,” Luce said. “A couple of my friends did it and they said I'd be alright at it. So I decided to give it a try.”
Building a running base required taking some lumps.
After the first meet at North Hills, Luce learned he didn't set his pace right at North Park.The hills took its toll on Luce by the time he reached the finish line.“At the end, I was really tired,” Luce said. “Pretty much fall on the ground and stay there for awhile because you are so exhausted.”By the end of the season, Luce was Mars' second-best finisher at the WPIAL meet, helping the Planets qualify for states.Luce came in 120th at states, finishing in 17:56. The success made Luce tell Young when he was taking off his spikes after states that he would give track a go.Young knew he could find a spot for Luce somewhere.“When we're training for cross country, we sprint at the end of practice to get prepared to run fast when we're tired,” Young said. “When Ben did it none of my top-level cross country kids are 400 runners, so they weren't fast enough to keep up with him.”When Jimmy Hibbert got hurt, Luce and Check were moved into the 1,600 relay. That's provided a boost for an event Mars qualified for last season.In his first time running the event, Luce finished in 53 seconds, which got Bayuk's attention.“We weren't really sure at first,” said Bayuk on the early expectations for Luce. “Then we saw him at a couple workouts and we realized he'd be able to pull his weight.”McDonough walked away from track as a freshman because he knew he couldn't pull his weight.He could barely walk.“I had a stress fracture in my left foot, I'm not sure if it came from track or something else,” McDonough said.McDonough decided to throw himself into swimming year-round.With college approaching, McDonough decided to get in running shape for his plan to take on the ROTC program at Penn State.“He's been wanting to come out for track , but after swimming something has always gone wrong,” Young said. “He's had some bad luck. He has the aerobic conditioning from swimming, but he's getting his running legs. He's going to improve significantly.”McDonough also competes in the 800 and 3,200 runs and is working on getting his 'land legs' under him.“I went into this season taking it pretty easy,” McDonough said. “I've been on the turf to build up my base.”Luce is glad he decided to attend the conditioning meeting. He just wishes he had one more year of experience.“I wouldn't have wanted to do it all four years,” Luce said. “I would have like one more year to get my feet wet and not be so cut and dry.”
