Nate Schneider
Sports Scene
The narrowest of margins pushed Olivia Theis, the Lansing Catholic Central runner into second place as a junior at the Division 3 cross country state finals last year, as her time of 17:41.3 was edged by Hart’s Adelyn Ackley who ran a 17:40.6.
Theis opted to run track and field for the first time in her high school career last spring, determined to be the best distance runner of anyone in the state. She achieved exactly that, winning both the D3 1,600 and 3,200 state championships.
Along the way, Theis has also excelled on the national stage as after the 2016 season she competed in the Foot Locker nationals and took 14th place. She went to the New Balance nationals and placed second overall, running one of the fastest-ever two-mile races for a Michigan girl.
And now her sights are set on the D3 individual state title that has so far eluded her.
“I know we’re in a different division [than Ackley] now, but I’ve definitely been motivated to get that state championship back and have had my mind set on that,” Theis said.
Theis, whose younger sister Jaden is a promising sophomore on the Cougars, has dominated the competition thus far during the prep cross country season.
She has finished first in seven out of nine races, only taking second twice during two Capital Area Activities Conference jamborees where she opted to coast rather than run a fast time.
With the attention of universities around the country, Theis has been busy all season with a stretch of five straight weekends taking official visits to various schools.
“It’s definitely fun to visit different schools and get closer to making a decision on my future,” Theis said. “But I do want to focus on my team right now and my season and getting our team to the state meet. It’s kind of hard to focus on both, but I’ve been trying to make my team the focus.”
Lansing Catholic Central head coach Tim Simpson, who has been at the helm for 17 years, has no shortage of praise when it comes to Olivia.
“Right now she’s among the top five in the country amongst high school cross country runners,” Simpson said. “She was good last year and even better this year. She’s in my opinion the best runner the Lansing area has ever seen and probably one of the top five or 10 runners all-time in Michigan.”
And as far as Division 3 goes, the evidence is already there that Theis will likely cruise to victory in the upcoming state finals.
“She’s already raced the second-place girl in D3 from Portage twice this year and beaten her by over a minute both times,” Simpson stated.
Despite her extreme talent in running, Theis did not start running until sixth grade and began to realize over the next couple years it might be something she is good at.
“I wasn’t sure if I even liked it at first but my middle school coach convinced me to stick with it,” Theis said. “I started seeing by the end of sixth grade that I was getting decent at it and I saw my older sister doing well in running when she was in sixth grade, so that was pretty motivating. I just kept at it from that point on.”
Olivia has also embraced the opportunity to run on varsity with Jaden these past two years.
“It’s been a great experience,” Olivia said. “If she was not on my team, I would not be where I am right now. Same with her. We both push each other to our limits and past them. It’s the same with the rest of our teammates because we’re such a competitive team. But especially with Jaden, we don’t want to get beat by each other.”
Simpson says Jaden, who took sixth as a freshman at the 2016 state finals, has only begun to touch the surface of her potential.
“Jayden is different than Olivia being younger, but she is really a tenacious runner,” Simpson said. “She’s made a big jump in high school and I think people were even surprised by how good she was as a freshman. She put up some really good times in track and now it’s carried over to this season. She’s had a little tendonitis in her ankle, so we’re going to take it slow the next couple weeks.”
“As far as sophomores go, she’s one of the top three or four runners in the country. One of the services that does rankings has her ranked 30th amongst girls from all classes. Being Olivia’s sister, she’s getting beat by Olivia but she’s one of the only runners out there who isn’t scared of her sister. She gets frustrated when she loses to Olivia because she isn’t used to losing either. But I tell her, ‘You have two more years to beat all of Olivia’s records’. She’s taken that as a challenge and I’m sure over the next two years Jaden will have those records in her sights.”