By Jacob Tellers

ST. PAUL — With a shot to end an already stellar high school career on a high note, NRHEG senior T.J. Schiltz wasn’t discouraged by his 15th-place seed time of 4 minutes, 37.53 seconds in the 1,600-meter run.

Schiltz cut an incredible 14 seconds from his seed time to take sixth place and finish in 4:23.34.

“It’s just really awesome knowing that I’ve worked really hard the last six years to see my best time in the last race I’ll ever run in high school,” Schiltz said.

He hadn’t broken 4:35 this season, but Schiltz was confident he could perform at a high level. At last year’s state meet, he took fifth place with a time of 4:28.18.

“It kind of hit me in the heart a bit,” Schiltz said about his times this season.

However, he was determined to keep improving.

“With the 15th seed out of 16, there’s no place you can go but up,” Schiltz said.

His strategy for the race was to pick several runners to stick with the whole race.

“I felt really strong — the best I’ve ever felt — and I knew when I started that if I could get to a good spot right off the bat that I had a chance to fight them off,” he said.

Schiltz used the leading pack of five runners through the first three laps of the race to set his pace.

In the fall, Schiltz will be on the St. Cloud State cross-country team, and he also hopes to try out for their track and field team. This fall, he won eight of NRHEG’s cross country meets and finished second in the other three. At the Class A state cross country meet, Schiltz finished 32nd.