Grace Kosmicki saw the coaches running over to the Highland tent, where the Rams cross country runners were camped out at last fall’s district meet, and tempered her expectations. Highland hadn’t gone to state in any of her first three seasons. She would have been happy with a bid.

“They were like, you guys won the whole thing,” Kosmicki said.

Turns out, Kosmicki had broken a three-way tie to help Highland win the meet and advance to the 5A state meet, her first trip. “That was so amazing,” Kosmicki said. “It was so exciting.”

As she told that story Thursday afternoon, Kosmicki sat behind a table set up in the Highland library, where she signed with Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, a Division III school where she’ll run cross country and track.

For Kosmicki, the accomplishment is sweet on its own merits — “It’s really cool that I get to continue running,” she said — but also because she doesn’t remember many signings like hers. She racked her brain, trying to recall a similar ceremony for a girl Highland runner, but she couldn’t come up with one. Maybe a recent Ram had gone on to sprint collegiately? She wasn’t entirely sure, she said, but that’s kind of the point.

“It’s really cool to kind of bring recognition,” Kosmicki said. “It feels like it’s bigger than me today, especially for girls.”

The interesting part is that Kosmicki isn’t exactly a lifetime runner. She wasn’t logging hundreds of miles when she was eight, wasn’t braving the pouring rain to work on her mile time. The truth is that she only fully committed to the sport until her sophomore year, when she made a decision: It was time to challenge herself.

As a freshman and sophomore, she played JV soccer and ran varsity cross country. In the winter seasons, she played basketball and ran indoor track. Then in that spring, she went out for track and picked up club soccer.

“It was really busy,” Kosmicki said. “I still found success and things, but when I got to be a sophomore, I was kinda like, OK, I’m gonna start taking harder classes now that I’m older. I thought it was time to cut it down and pick one.”

Which prompts a question: Why running? When she played basketball games, she enjoyed something of a crowd. Same with soccer. But there aren’t exactly rowdy student sections for cross country meets, no intimidating home field advantage, not even a significant sliver of attention from the general population.

She stuck with running, she says, because she felt she was best at it out of the sports she had been playing. She enjoyed her teammates. Plus, her parents enjoy running to stay in shape — “so I had been around it,” Kosmicki said. Put all of that together and you understand why she decided to give cross country her full attention.

Still, it didn’t always dawn on her that she could do so in college. That possibility lived in some corner of her mind, like a bat hiding in the shadows, but the runners she knew had advanced to the college ranks had gone on to Division I schools.

“Looking at my times and looking at what they run,” Kosmicki said, “I definitely knew that going to Division I was not something I would do.”

So last fall, when distance coach Mark Van Orden took over the position at Highland, something clicked for Kosmicki. He helped her understand that, hey, you might not have the times for DI, but that doesn’t have to stop you from running in college. Other options do exist.

So she started researching Division III schools in the area. Enter Willamette. The school piqued her interest because she already liked Oregon, and she enjoys outdoor hobbies like hiking and skiing. Plus, it gave her a chance to pursue environmental science, which is her passion anyway.

“I think it’ll be a good place for me to focus on both academics and running at the same time,” Kosmicki said. “And it’ll be a good fit for the team for me to go and still be able to compete, and find success, not just be at the back of the pack all the time.”