Shanta Ramdas and Larry Mathis are Casady Athletes of the Week

Every week Casady chooses two athletes for Athlete of the Week. The Athletes of the Week are chosen for their hard work and dedication to athletics. The selected Cyclones can be found posted on Casady's Instagram. This week, Shanta Ramdas ('21) and Larry Mathis ('22) were chosen for their athletic performance. Both are in cross country and are some of the school's strongest runners.Last Thursday, Shanta ran a 5k and had a very strong finish, placing third. She joined Cross Country in the 7th grade and has no regrets. Her brother, Sanjay Ramdas ('18), did it and she wanted to follow in his footsteps: “At that age I really liked to run.”During easy runs, Shanta lets her mind wander, but during a race she is focused. She feels determined to give it her all saying how, “this sport is a lot of you get what you put in, so if you are working hard you are going to see improvement." Last year she felt the pressure to do well to get recruited and she is currently in the process of doing so.Shanta’s most memorable run was when she was a junior last year in track. She was running 800 meters at North Zone. Since the 800 meters is her favorite race her goal obviously was to get first. The 800 is her perfect distance as she is “right in the middle where I don’t have the strongest long distance but I also have some speed, so it is kind of perfect in the middle race.” Although she placed second instead of first, she still felt like she gave it her all. She finished with a time of 2:19:64 beating her personal record by a few seconds. Shanta later remarked how “it was just really memorable because I knew I gave it my all.” The girl in front of her only beat her by just 0.11 seconds. Another reason why it was so memorable was because, “it was one of the few I was really racing to the finish line.”Larry also joined Cross Country in 7th grade. At first, he was conflicted on whether to join football or Cross Country but he is glad that he chose to run. He trains year round and is hopeful to run next year at UT Austin, Babson College, or the University of Pennsylvania.During his sophomore year, Larry was up against some people who were much faster than he was. He shared how “he was already feeling tired from the start, but I locked in and I was able to stay with the faster guys for the majority of the race.” He ended up beating his personal record at the time by 30 seconds.Last Thursday, Larry raced in a 5k at Booker T. Washington Invitational. He made a new personal record with a score of 15 minutes and 46 seconds, and he won by more than a minute. He was running his favorite distance at Booker T. Washington invitational and discussed how his “favorite distance has to be the 5k because it requires a lot of mental toughness and sharp pacing.” This one run got him Athlete of the Week at Casady and Athlete of Week in The Oklahoman.