Into the home stretch

The 2020-21 season was a banner year for Coldwater's Tyler Schwieterman, who played a key role for the Cavaliers' Division VI state champion football team and won the school's first individual boys track state title in the 300-meter hurdles.

He was even better on the gridiron as a senior this fall, leading the team with 1,133 yards receiving on 55 catches and scoring 11 touchdowns as Coldwater fell short in the state championship game. Now in his final spring with the Cavaliers, he returns to the track and is gunning for another big year.

"Staying healthy, getting my hurdle form down for later in the year," Schwieterman said. "I feel like I've really got a good chance of going back, because I've had good times coming in so far. So I feel like I have a good chance, and it does motivate me to hopefully win again."

The run to the Division III state title started in eighth grade, when Schwieterman finished third in all of Ohio - not separated by divisions - in the 200 hurdles. His freshman year, he made it to regional in the 300 hurdles and finished eighth after running fifth in the prelims.

COVID-19 wiped out the 2020 track season, so Schwieterman's next shot came in 2021. He started out in both the 110 and 300 hurdles, but scratched from the 110 in the district prelims and refined his focus to the 300.

Marion Local's Ben Heitkamp beat him by 0.2 seconds in the prelims, but Schwieterman came back to win the district with a time of 41.63, then dropped nearly a full second to win the regionals.

"The competition kept getting better, and he kept raising his bar," Coldwater coach Mark Bruns said. "Marion actually finished first in the 300 hurdles, and for whatever reason, he was like, 'I think I'm faster than him,' and he just attacked the hurdles. Like, 'I'm not going to lose.' Just a different type of guy."

Three Midwest Athletic Conference rivals - Marion Local's Heitkamp and Owen Rindler and Minster's Joseph Slonkosky - joined Schwieterman at the state finals, and this time it was Rindler who edged him out in the prelims, running a 40.12 as Schwieterman ran a 40.41 and came in third behind Max McVicker.

But that time was easily good enough to reach the finals, where Schwieterman started off fast and pulled away from McVicker with a clean homestretch to secure the title.

"It doesn't matter what event you put him in, he's going to run faster than whoever's the fastest guy there," Bruns said. "So he's not going to put out his best time, it depends who he's running against. He's just going to try to beat that guy. So it's a different mentality."

Teammate Jesse Meyer, the other half of Coldwater's star receiver duo on the football field, made his own run to state last year, and while he didn't win an individual title, he made the podium with a fifth-place finish in long jump and placed 12th in the state in shot put.

"Last year, Jesse Meyer went to state too, so I had my buddy to go along with me the whole road," Schwieterman said. "We've been through every single sport together. He's my best friend."

So far this year, Schwieterman has been branching out. In Coldwater's quad meet on April 12th, he won the 110 hurdles, helped the Cavaliers to a win in the 4x200 relay, placed third in the 400 dash and went up six feet for a win in the high jump.

Come tournament time, he'll hone in on his specialties, and he hopes to make a run to state in multiple events this year. In the meantime, Bruns praised his willingness to help put up more points for the team and to build up the underclassmen.

"He's always been a quiet kid, he's not a real flashy guy, but he's becoming a better leader," Bruns said. "He's a kid who steps out comfortable in his own skin and is willing to give some of that knowledge, some of that drive, and not just show it by example… Now he's trying to instill that to the guys who are going to take over after. So that's been really fun to see."

This season is Schwieterman's final hurrah. Next year, he'll take his talents to University of Cincinnati, where Meyer is planning to walk on to the football team, but Schwieterman is giving up athletics and turning his focus to an aerospace engineering major.

"He wants to have the best senior year possible," Bruns said. "I think he realizes that this is the end and wants to go out on his terms."