NANKIN — Braylon Goon could have let doubt wreck his running career.
Instead, the Mapleton High School senior found a way through it and turned his doubting into dominance.
Carrying the No. 1 seed into the 1,600-meter run at this Friday’s Division V OHSAA Track and Field State Championships in Columbus, Goon’s running shoes have positioned him to win gold – something he never would have dreamed of doing just a few short years ago.
As a sophomore, he surprised even himself when he went off for a 21-second PR in the 1,600 at the district meet (4:30) to qualify to regionals.
The pressure he put on himself to excel the year after that breakthrough became overwhelming.
“I remember at the Smithville Relays (early in his junior track season),” Goon said, “I sat there thinking I just had what felt like was one of the worst races of my life and I remember saying to my coach, ‘Everyone keeps saying I’m fast, but I don’t feel fast.’ So I ended up making the decision to see a sports psychologist.
“It was a big step, but she helped guide me through a lot of what my mind was doing and it just helped to know that what I was feeling was normal and we could spin it to my benefit.”
The ripple effect from that mental reset has resounded in ways most high school athletes never experience.
Goon went on to win back-to-back Firelands Conference titles in both the 800 and the 1,600 his junior and senior seasons, also taking the FC crown this spring in the 3,200.
At last year’s district meet, he won the 800, then at regionals, he landed on the podium in both the 800 (eighth place) and the 1,600 (sixth). His performance in that mile race left him just 3 seconds short of an at-large spot at state.
Despite some frustration around his lack of any state qualifications through his senior year of cross country – a sport in which he had placed third, fourth and sixth in the FC Championships during his career – the path had been cut out for a monster spring in 2026.
“There’s a lot of benefit to kids pursuing (time with a sports psychologist) on their own and I tell people it’s something they absolutely can benefit from,” third-year Mapleton track head coach Joe Ortiz said. “… We can look at diet and fueling and sleep and weight lifting and training, but the mind is probably the most important thing when push comes to shove in the moment.”
Ortiz, who has been coaching track at Mapleton in some capacity for 17 years, said there’s still a stigma in sports when it comes to athletes working through therapy. But he said he’s tried to connect his teams with sports psychologists in different ways recently.
It has helped his athletes think about things from new perspectives and form new strategies and ways to attack their goals.
Goon’s pathway to Columbus this week has given Ortiz a clear-cut example of the benefits of it all.
“Coaching him forced me to look at running in a very different way and I’ve learned a lot from what he’s shared with me,” Ortiz said. “Watching his growth becoming complete as a competitor and as a teammate has just been so enjoyable for me as a coach.
“It’s amazing to think of the good young man and good student that he was to now becoming an elite athlete; he’s been intentional about that the last three years in such a neat way and discovering it on his own.”
Earlier this year, Goon placed second in the state in the Division IV 800 during the indoor track season, missing gold by just .10 seconds (1:56.46). He even allowed himself to start analyzing heat sheets and opponents who could give him his toughest tests.
Things like that would have added a massive weight to his shoulders in the past, but his new mentality had changed it all.
In late April at Crestview’s Forrest Pruner Invitational, Goon posted a 3-second PR in the mile (4:27.51) and broke Pete Murtaugh’s 51-year-old Mapleton record in the 800 (1:55.20).
Less than a month later, he captured his three individual FC titles and set himself up for a monster district meet performance at Cuyahoga Heights.
There, he took gold in both the 1,600 (4:25.36) and the 800 (1:56.60) and was part of the district-winning 4×800 relay alongside teammates Jacob Bigham, Ridge Meyer and Tyler Hartzler (8:37.32).
Coaching him forced me to look at running in a very different way and I’ve learned a lot from what he’s shared with me.
Mapleton track coach joe ortiz on senior braylon goon
Goon’s only real snag this spring came last week in the regional meet back at Cuyahoga Heights. He burned around the track for an 8-second PR in the 1,600 to win that title (4:17.91), but fluctuations in the meet schedule bumped up his ensuing 800 start time by 20 minutes.
That unexpected change threw off his routine, and Goon finished 14th in 2:16.64. Had he matched his district time in the event, he would have placed second and had another state qualification off his checklist.
Still, he managed to find the good in the situation.
“It was definitely tough, especially being ranked so highly in that all year and then coming into the meet where it matters and having it kind of fall apart,” Goon said. “But it honestly showed me that running has had more of an impact than I knew, because when I crossed the line, all the kids I knew in the 800 came up, gave me hugs, and I remember one person said to me, ‘I’m so sorry.’
“It all just further grounded me in the fact that there’s so much more to this sport than just the running part of it. There’s the social part of it and the fact that I’m able to have an impact in a way I didn’t realize I could before.”
The senior, who earlier this year committed to run at Ashland University, has come a long way since first stepping into the sport as a seventh-grader.
Back then, he ran for fun and would slow to a walk the moment he got beyond the sight of his coaches during workouts.
Now, he’s driven to excellence by his deep faith and can recall his times and placements at big meets as if they’re scrawled on the back of his hand.
“His journey has been the most complete – from joining socially and being that freshman who runs around in the woods and is just having fun to setting some serious goals,” Ortiz said.
“It’s not just the physical development, but also the emotional, the spiritual. We’ve watched his faith grow and seen him use his running as a platform for his faith with others, too.”
Goon knows the Mapleton history he’s chasing and the names that go along with it.
There’s Pete Murtaugh, a 1975 MHS graduate who won both a cross country state title and the 1,600 state title his senior year before becoming an all-conference runner at Bowling Green State University.
Goon overtook Murtaugh’s Mapleton record in the 800 and hopes to break his 1,600 record (4:17.60) this Friday afternoon.
Then there’s former Mountie Drew Roberts, who won the 2019 Division III state title in the two-mile before a running career at Walsh University.
More recently, former Mapleton distance runner Isaik Schoch was a teammate of Goon’s his first two years of high school.
Schoch qualified to state twice in the 1,600 and three times in cross country, and Goon said he felt like a brother to him and a driving force behind his development.
Now, the senior heads into one final high school race with high hopes. Capturing a state title – which, unbelievably, could come in his first state appearance of any kind – would put his name alongside Murtaugh and Roberts.
But after a career filled with zigzags and pitfalls, Goon knows there’s life beyond the finish line.
“Getting that banner on the wall would be awesome, but I realize that I’m already seeing the impacts of the legacy that I’ve had,” he said. “My goal was always just to leave some sort of impact on people – whether it was through academics or athletics – in whatever way I could.
“The state title obviously would impact my legacy, but I know that, regardless of what happens, it’s not gonna destroy what I’ve built here. … I can only run my race, so I’m going to go out there and do what I can do and just keep praying that it’s enough.”
State Qualifiers
Division II Boys
Braden Donatini, Ashland (300 hurdles)
Greyson Blough, Ashland (shot put)
Ty Bates, Ashland (pole vault)
Dakota Kruty, Ashland (long jump)
Division II Girls
Sadie Walter, Ashland (100, 100 hurdles, 300 hurdles)
Oaklynn Burns, Ashland (long jump)
Division IV Boys
Max Durbin, Crestview (110 hurdles, 300 hurdles)
Lane Robinson, Crestview (high jump)
Liam Kuhn, Crestview (pole vault)
Division IV Girls
Chloe Ringler, Crestview (discus)
Kaelyn Weaver, Crestview (high jump)
Zoe Kuhn, Crestview (pole vault)
Division V Boys
Hayden McFadden, Hillsdale (200, long jump)
Braylon Goon, Mapleton (1,600)
Braden Carr Loudonville (pole vault)
Relays
Mapleton (4×100)
Hillsdale (4×200)
Division V Girls
Sophie Shultz, Loudonville (800, high jump)
Kaylinn Freelon, Loudonville (300 hurdles)
Cama Skok, Loudonville (high jump)
Adalyn Tipton, Hillsdale (pole vault)
Seated Girls
Savannah Beane, Mapleton (100, 400)
