LANDIS—Time and distance. Basically, that’s all a cross country runner needs to worry about.
The equation becomes somewhat more complicated, however, when the cross country runner also plays soccer.
South Rowan’s Matt Maris has pulled off quite a feat this fall by simultaneously competing in two strenuous sports. The member of the cross country and soccer teams has amazed his coaches, his teammates, his fellow runners —everyone but himself, in fact.
“I’m used to running. So far I’ve held up,”Maris said. “It wears me out a little bit. They ask me, ‘Aren’t you running out of gas?’ but I get like an hour between to rest and eat, so I’m OK.
“Really, it’s just a matter of transportation.”
Maris is just a sophomore: no driver’s license yet. That’s where the time and distance factor comes in.
How long does he have between cross country meets and soccer matches, how far apart are they, and who’s driving?
n
Maris has only pulled double-duty three times this fall when it counted in the standings. On all three occasions, he raced in a cross country meet that started at 4 p.m., hopped in a car and drove to the 6:30 p.m. soccer match.
One time he ran at South and played soccer at West Rowan. That was pretty easy.
It was a different story for the Rowan County Meet at Dan Nicholas Park and home game at South, though.
“I was hoping he’d make it —30 minutes,”soccer coach Chris Walters said, casting a faux-worried glance at his watch. “He plays an important role for our team.”
He made it, although Maris missed the trophy presentation and a few photo shoots after the race.
“He played a soccer game that night after running an incredible race,”cross country coach Dwayne Fink said. “His conditioning is incredible. It would not be something that everyone could do.”
Maris easily could finish his Raider career on all-county teams for three sports. The cross country-soccer-wrestling
trifecta, if it happens, would go down as one of the most unique in Rowan County history.
At the county race, he finished sixth to earn All-County honors. Fink’s boys team won the event for the first time ever.
On the soccer field, Maris enjoyed an active and successful rookie season as a midfielder and has continued the trend in his sophomore season.
And for Wayne Freeman’s Raider wrestling team, Maris just missed All-County status at 103 pounds, losing once at the county tournament and settling for second.
n
Maris said his primary reason for running cross country this fall was to prepare for the grueling winter in the tough 4A Central Piedmont Conference.
“I wanted to run cross country last year to get in better shape for wrestling, but I didn’t think I could do it, so I just played soccer,”Maris explained.“This year I talked to Fink and he said I could work something out.”
“Sometimes he’ll run two miles before practice,”soccer coach Chris Walters said. “We joke that that’s his warmup lap — a couple miles.”
With soccer taking up Maris’ time during the week, he made sure to attend as many weekend runs as possible. Those Saturday practices are when Fink does the serious work — eight to 10 miles.
A soccer player can run an average of six miles during the 80-minute game. Boys run a 3.1-mile course at cross country meets.
“Soccer is an endurance sport, too, so it’s a good complement,”Fink said. “A lot of sports you couldn’t pull if off, but you don’t have to train fully for both sports. You don’t have to practice two sports full time.”
n
Maris has discovered cross country to be quite fun.
“I like the competition in cross country. It’s a different kind of sport — individual. You don’t have to worry about teammates,”said
Maris, who has finished in South’s top five all year and usually in the top three. “I love soccer. That’s like a fun thing. This is competing.”
Maris said soccer is his primary sport in the fall, but he’s found himself quite torn as he looks ahead to his junior year.
“What frustrates me is that I can’t focus completely on one thing,”Maris said. “Next year I don’t know what I want to do. I wish I could focus more on cross country. I know I could doing better.
“I’ll have my car, but I don’t know.”
Fink and Walters won’t make Maris choose between cross country and soccer.
“Since their soccer season has gone into full swing, he hasn’t been able to make as many meets as he once had, but that was an agreement we had,”Fink said. “I would never make him choose cross country over something he was supposed to be at.”
“To help out with cross country, I’m proud of that,”Walters said. “I almost feel
bad.Shoot, if he wasn’t playing soccer he could’ve maybe won the county.”
For now, Maris is fairly happy doing both.
“If it was soccer first, then a cross country meet, I don’t know if I’d be able to do that,”Maris said. “A cross country meet’s like a gut check; soccer’s off and on, sprints. I try to play smart in soccer, conserve my energy.”
n
Maris’ teammates admire what he’s doing, but can’t fathom taking on that type of double duty themselves.
“I wouldn’t want to run as much as he runs. I don’t think I could handle it,”said Dustin
Efird, a Raider senior who is one of the top soccer players in the region. “I don’t see how he does it. He never stops.”
Added Fink:“Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth getting them to run a cool-down, much less go to play a two-hour soccer match. He’s a natural at it.”
In the classroom, Walters said Maris makes the grades, is well-liked and respected.
“He could have been an outsider: You have kids going through tough cross country practices and this guy shows up and runs the meet,”Fink said. “Matt’s attitude and ability and his willingness to show up whenever he could are the things that prevented any problems. I’m proud of the team for responding real well to that.”
One of the first questions his runners ask is, “Will Matt be able to come to this one?”
Almost every time, Maris has answered the question with a resounding, “Yes!”
“I was a little skeptical at first,”Fink said. “I knew it would take a special individual to pull that off. There wasn’t any purpose in doing it if all it was going to do was put him through physical torture.
“But if anybody could do it,Matt could.”
n
Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4287 or shanf@salisburypost.com
.
Today's News
