Kammler wins RSC Outdoor Track Athlete of the Week honor
Another day, another conference runner of the week accolade in the bag for Aiden Kammler.
The Portsmouth High School graduate, PHS Hall of Famer and senior distance running talent ran, even for Aiden Kammler standards, an extraordinary race, posting the first-ever mark under 30 minutes in the history of the Shawnee State men's outdoor track and field program in the 10,000 meter run en route to River States Conference Outdoor Track Athlete of the Week honors, which was announced by River States Conference officials Monday afternoon.
On his way to a record-setting performance, Kammler set an NAIA National 'A' Standard time in the 10,000 meter run by over a full minute in the Lee University Fast Break Athletics Invitational -- as his mark of 29:59.71 placed second among 55 runners in the Cleveland, Tenn.-based event.
Running a strategically brillant race all the way, Kammler nestled himself inside the back end of the top-10 for much of the event's opening 5,000 meters before turning on the afterburners in the second half of the event.
Trailing Indiana Wesleyan's Luke Pohl -- the 2024 NAIA National Champion in the 5,000 meter run in an event that Kammler finished as the national runner-up in -- by just under three seconds over the first half of the event, Kammler not only blitzed his way past Pohl to get some getback on the highly-respected Pohl, but set his sights on much higher honors -- as the senior chipped away at the lead of NCAA Division I runner Sam Duncan out of Dayton.
Down to Duncan by over 10 seconds at one point, Kammler's smarts and running ability pushed Duncan all the way to his limits as it took a personal best time from Duncan, who ran a 29:57.71, to better Kammler's 29:59.71 -- a scant two-second difference. They were the only runners in the entire field to run under a 30-minute mark for the entire event.
Kammler is the fourth-fastest runner across the NAIA landscape in the 10,000 meter run. His time is nearly one minute and six seconds faster than that of the next-fastest River States Conference competitor, Rio Grande's Tyler Jenkins, who ran a 31:05.04 this past weekend.
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