Harley Pflugh saw the call from Washington & Jefferson College men's and women's cross country coach Derek Workman and ignored it.

The coach called again.

She ignored it.

And again.

Ignored it still.

It wasn't that Pflugh, a standout senior runner for Slippery Rock, was being rude. She just didn't want to waste Workman's time.

W&J was just too expensive for Pflugh to attend, she thought.

“It's a really expensive school and I just thought I cannot pay for that,” Pflugh said.

Pflugh was set on going to a less expensive state school, like Edinboro.

But Workman wouldn't take no for an answer.

He drove two hours to talk to Pflugh at a swim meet at SPRIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, and helped Pflugh get scholarship money to bring the price within her budget.

Pflugh could no longer ignore him. She recently committed to run cross country and track and field and study business at W&J.

While Pflugh said she was blown away by the lengths Workman went to help her, it also has put some pressure on her.

“I'm super nervous,” Pflugh said. “It's very exciting on top of that. I talked to all the girls on the team and they are very sweet. It's just crazy and a little overwhelming that I'll be moving out on my own to go to school.”

Pflugh is already done with her high school coursework, completing it all online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

She's been staying in shape by running five days a week while also doing workouts inside her home.

“It's nice I do a sport that the coronavirus doesn't stop me from doing,” Pflugh said.

She found a good workout regime that she has just begun — on TikTok of all places.

Pflugh laughed when talking about finding a regime on that app.

“It is kind of strange, but I like it,” she said.

Pflugh started running in the seventh grade when one of her friends convinced her to come out for the team with her.

“Because, you know, in junior high you can't do anything by yourself,” Pflugh said, chuckling.

She hated it.

“I bawled after every practice,” Pflugh said.

Her half-sister, Hope (Vitous) Barnhart — a 2012 Slippery Rock High graduate — picked her up each day, and when Pflugh said she was going to quit, talked her younger sibling out of it.

“She told me, 'You can't quit. You're not allowed,'” Pflugh said. “She said when you sign up for something you have to do it until you're done.”

Pflugh said he hated it because of how she felt at the end of each practice.

And because she couldn't keep up with the “big kids.”

“I felt horrible after,” Pflugh said. “I was really trying hard to keep up with the varsity girls and when I couldn't, I'd stop. My coach told me one day I'd be up there, but I wanted to be up there now.”

That drive ended up serving her well.

When the competitions began and Pflugh started doing well and earning medals and trophies, she was hooked.

Pflugh made the Butler County Cross Country first-team in the fall and missed qualifying for the PIAA championships by one place.

She ran the best in her life, eclipsing her personal records set all the way back in freshman season.

Despite that success, Pflugh decided to eschew indoor track and field season this winter for swimming.

Ironically, Pflugh was a sprinter in the pool — a far cry from the distances she ran on land.

“I bought a pair of goggles and a swim suit and joined the team,” Pflugh said. “I was actually getting some pretty good times.”

But the cross country trail is when Pflugh feels most at home.

Workman told her she had a chance to help turn the Presidents' program around — a big show of faith in an incoming freshman.

“I'm happy I get to go Division-III,” Pflugh said. “I still want to improve.”