Shue Ready for Global Debut

He conquered the 800-meter run in the Lancaster- Lebanon League, District Three, PIAA and national championships last spring.

This winter, Tyler Shue is getting his first taste of international competition.

Shue, an Ephrata senior and a Penn State commit, has been selected to run the 800 in today’s indoor track and field meet at the Reykjavik International Games in Iceland.

The National Scholastic Athletics Foundation, which organizes the New Balance Nationals indoor and outdoor meets, assembled a team of 12 prep athletes to represent the United States at the Reykjavik Games. The roster also includes Northern York’s Marlee Starliper, an entrant in the girls 800.

“My friends would always make jokes about going to the Olympics, but I never took it too seriously,” Shue said. “But then (Team NSAF) got in contact with me, and then I started to change my thinking process about the whole thing. That’s a long-term goal I’m starting to develop.”

National champion

After winning Pennsylvania’s indoor 800 title last February, Shue rode a spring and summer surge into higher levels of competition.

He helped the Mountaineers claim their first Lancaster- Lebanon League Section Two title since 1989 before galloping through an individual gauntlet in the postseason.

In both the L-L and District Three championships, Shue won the 800 and had a pair of second-place finishes to Manheim Township’s Evan Dorenkamp in the 1,600.

“It takes a lot out of you, running multiple events,” Shue said. “States was the first race where I was actually fresh for the 800; so that was a huge confidence boost, knowing I could go out when my legs were still a full 100%.”

Shue’s legs carried him to a wire-to-wire win in the PIAA Class 3A preliminary heat. The next day, they carried him to a state title. After striking state silver as a sophomore, Shue the junior stormed to an early lead in the championship race and kept pushing. He finished in 1:51.55, almost two seconds ahead of Council Rock North seniors Jake Boyd (1:53.42) and Collin Ochs (1:53.68), and almost four seconds ahead of his season’s previous-best time.

“That kind of opened my eyes a lot, knowing that I could run a 1:51 solo,” Shue said. “Going into nationals, if I could be in a pack going around that pace, I could probably go even faster with the competition.”

At the New Balance Nationals on June 16 in Greensboro, North Carolina, Shue said his championship race played out as planned. He surged ahead in the second half of the race to a personal-record time of 1:50.39, ahead of New Jersey’s Luis Peralta (1:51.09) and Rhode Island’s Conor Murphy (1:51.30).

“Once I won nationals, it was a huge confidence boost,” Shue said. “I knew I could compete with the top guys, not only in the state, but now the nation. That opened a lot of windows for me, like the trip to Iceland.

It helped even more with getting accepted to Penn State.”

Looking ahead

Shue, who finished his high school soccer career in the fall, said he chose Penn State over Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, Georgetown and Pitt after an official visit to State College in October. Dorenkamp, who won the PIAA’s Class 3A 1,600 title before graduating from Manheim Township and settling in at Penn State, showed him around.

“They were the first team to actually take notice of what I can do,” Shue said of the Nittany Lions. “That was a huge factor in choosing them.”

Shue said he plans to study business in college, pursuing finance or accounting. In the meantime, he has his sights set on an 800 time below 1:50, a state championship repeat and another trip to nationals, all while growing into a role as one of the Mountaineers’ senior leaders.

“He has become a teacher to our younger athletes,” said Matt White, Ephrata’s head coach. “He really has taken some of our younger athletes under his wing and said, ‘This is what it takes to compete at a high level.’ ” When Shue was a younger athlete, he said Ephrata upperclassmen Zach Lefever, AJ Morales, Tanyon Loose and Andrew Foster helped him reach his higher levels in the early stages of his track career.

“Without Zach, AJ, Tanyon and Andrew, I don’t think I’d be anywhere near where I am now,” Shue said. “Even in workouts, they’d always push me to be better.”

He said he didn’t believe, at first, the email from the NSAF in November that invited him to an all-expense-paid weekend trip to compete in Iceland, but after some vetting and verifying, he expedited a passport. Shue’s flight out was Friday with a return trip Monday. He said he looks forward to seeing the northern lights and doesn’t mind missing the Super Bowl.

“I’m a Steelers fan, so it doesn’t really matter to me at this point,” he said.