Deer hits Cedarville runner at championship race

Kayla Casaletto overcame a surprise challenger to help the Cedarville University men’s and women’s teams sweep the National Christian College Athletic Association’s national cross country championships at Houghton, N.Y., this past weekend.

Surrounded by mountains but otherwise running on a flat and mostly unobstructed 5K course, Casaletto was blindsided by a deer while on a 400-meter loop in the woods.

“The trees and bushes started shaking,” she recalled Monday after returning to Cedarville’s campus. “There were these loud like crunching noises. We were thinking, what is that? Then this deer just blazes out of the forest and I had no time to think. It ran straight into my legs and knocked me over.”

Casaletto, from Goshen, Ind., said she was knocked down but quickly recovered. She finished in 18 minutes, 41 seconds to earn All-American honors. The Cedarville girls edged Oklahoma Baptist by one point for the national title.

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