Ashland Source will select one student athlete to be recognized as the Park National Bank Athlete of the Month during the 2023-24 school year. Nominations for Athlete of the Month are accepted from Athletic Directors and Coaches, but are ultimately chosen by Ashland Source and are based on the student’s exceptional athletic performance, effective teamwork and achievement in their communities. Park National Bank is proud to support this initiative and is giving the athletic department of each school $1,000 in honor of each athlete chosen.
LOUDONVILLE — It almost seems as if Tess Shultz is frantically trying to make up for lost time.
The Loudonville junior didn’t run her first cross country race until her freshman year, and in the short time since has already broken three individual LHS running records.
In August, she won her first two meets of the season at Northmor and Seneca East. Her time of 19:21 at the latter event was just 10 seconds off the school record she set at last year’s state meet.
The explosive start to her junior year as a Redbird comes on the heels of two previous years of massive achievements for Shultz, who now has been selected Ashland County’s Park National Bank Athlete of the Month for August.
“I’ve got a lot of support from my family and my team and everything’s just going so well (so far this season),” said Shultz, who was a rare two-sport All-Ohioan as a sophomore. “Practices are tough and every year they just get tougher and tougher. But coach designed it that way so we can keep building and just go faster and faster every time.”
“She’s a grinder,” Loudonville cross country coach Whitney Snyder said. “She has the internal motivation that you need for this sport to do well. She sets a goal and she does everything that she can to achieve it in a healthy, responsible and hard-working way.”
Shultz, one of three daughters to Jim and Stacy Shultz, began open-enrolling to Loudonville in eighth-grade, not long after being motivated by the athletic feats of her father. She said that in seventh-grade she saw Jim’s one-mile record on the Danville school record board and wanted to beat it.
Her love of running came from her dad.
“I didn’t know what the mile was at that point,” Tess said, “(but) I was like, ‘I want to do that, I want to beat that, I want to get there.’ ”
Her path led to Loudonville, not long after she realized she had a knack for distance running. Almost immediately, Shultz had Loudonville’s junior high record in the mile, then she was on to the high school, where she has established top LHS marks in the mile (5:02) and two-mile (11:37), on the cross country course (19:11 for 19th place at last year’s state meet) and as part of the 4×800 relay team in track (10:06).
Shultz placed fourth in the mile in June at the Division III state championships, but so far it has been her exploits in cross country that have jumped off the page in Loudonville lore. She is the only female Redbird ever to be All-Ohio in the sport and was the first runner, male or female, in nearly 30 years to reach the podium for LHS. Jason Neubig (1993) and John Vogt (1995) are the only others to do it in cross country.
“As a multi-sport All-Ohio performer, Tess has established herself as one of the top athletes in the history of our school district,” Loudonville High School athletic director Tyler Bates said. “Additionally, she is a high-level student who is involved in a number of different organizations on our campus. We are very proud of Tess and grateful that she is a representative of our school.”
Despite all the success in athletics for Shultz, academics have not taken a back seat in her day-to-day regimen. Her 4.0 GPA is accompanied by her status as vice president in her agriculture class.
An animal lover who enjoys studying biology, she also participates in band and FFA.
“It’s a little tough keeping a 4.0 and doing all the things,” Shultz said, “but it’s just a really all-over great experience, so I’m glad I get to get this in my youth.”
Snyder said she’s counting on Shultz to continue her leadership role on the cross country course this fall, where the Redbirds are hoping to repeat for a league title when they host the Mid-Buckeye Conference championships and also have a few others with aspirations to qualify for the regional meet.
“She’s our most humble athlete ever; she will thank everyone else and give everyone else the credit for whatever she does,” Snyder said. “So she’s a good team leader in that regard.
“The kids all work well together and they know that Tess is gonna just go rock it, but Tess wants to know how everyone else did, too.”
