Bourbonnais, Ill – On the eve of the NAIA Cross Country Championships, in this week's edition of 'Athlete Spotlight', we highlighted two of our cross country runners. This week's edition highlights seniors Jaclyn Latocha and Joshua Scharpenberg.
Jaclyn started running cross country with her twin sister, Lynette. Her sister was the one that wanted to get started with it and Jaclyn was trying to be there for her sister. She was running cross country in middle school with her sister, but when she was in high school, she found out that she had true potential within the sport of cross country.
Along with cross country, Jaclyn was also involved in soccer at a very young age and she is also a second-degree Black-Belt in taekwondo. When she was in high school, she also participated in badminton but she knew that her passion is cross country. Jaclyn was not planning to go to any other school than Olivet because her older sister Lynette was already there.
When we asked Jaclyn what she will miss most about cross country she told us, she will miss running competitively along with her teammates. She believes running and her team have been what has shaped her the most into the person she is today.
Joshua has a fascinating story how he joined the cross country team. When Josh was in 6th grade, after his first day of orientation, he walked past the cross country table and his mother told him to try out the sport. When he started cross country, he did not think he was going to do it for this long.
As a young child Josh grew up playing baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, and even archery. He found at a young age he was not truly committed to these sports like he is with cross country and track. Josh found Olivet through a couple of his high school teammates that were on the team at ONU and he wanted to go to a small Christian college not too far from home.
Joshua's post-graduation plans are that he really would love to get into producing or even editing videos. As far as his running competitions, he would love to run a Marathon shortly after graduation and would love to even try out Spartan Races.
We will miss seeing Jaclyn and Joshua out there racing for our Tigers, but on behalf of the Olivet Nazarene Department of Athletics, we wish them nothing but the best in their future endeavors.
Please visit onutigers.com on how to follow the Tigers at the cross country nationals in Vancouver, Wash.
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Contact: Ryan Jemar, rjemar@olivet.edu, Sports Information Intern