By Mike Walsh, The Berkshire Eagle

DALTON, Mass. -- Less than 24 hours before the biggest race of his life, Matt Lighten was awoken from a post-workout nap in a hotel room in North Carolina by a text message on his phone.

Lighten, a sophomore sprinter at Bridgewater State University, was seeded second in the 200 at the NCAA Division III National Indoor Track and Field Championships the weekend of March 13.

He and roommate Josh Higgins, a senior middle-distance runner, were asked to come to their coach's room.

"We went there, and he was just, like, 'They just canceled the meet.' And you could just hear the pain in his voice when he said it," Lighten says now, a month later from his home in Dalton. "I started tearing up, because I knew, I waited for a chance to run on a national stage for a while, and then, just, dang, this sucks."

Lighten's story is another in a long line of tales from winter and spring athletes who have been robbed by COVID-19. The proximity, and the journey he took to get there, though, make this saga particularly gutting.

"It's the hardest face-to-face conversation I've had to have as a coach," said Bridgewater head coach Connor Foley. "I had to tell them straight-up. They were devastated. I mean, they were less than 24 hours from competing at the national championships."

The thing about Lighten's story, though, is that it's still being written.

The 2018 Wahconah Regional graduate had taken a long road over the previous few years to get to this precipice.

"I was really going out of my blocks well at pre-meet that Thursday, feeling really well," he said. "I was really prepared, seeded No. 2, and not far behind the top guy. I really expected to be an All-American, if not a national champion."

Lighten was at one time hotly recruited in high school, after setting an MIAA sectional record in the 100 as a sophomore. An injury-plagued junior season, and no indoor opportunities in the Berkshires, dried up some high-level suitors, and he landed on Bridgewater after the Bears stuck with him through that frustrating period.

Now, the college sophomore says younger him didn't know the meaning of the word "frustrated."

Another groin injury stole his introductory campaign with the Bears, and had him second-guessing it all.

"It was very discouraging. I contemplated quitting, thinking I'd never get healthy. Nothing I did worked, and I kept tweaking things," he said. "I was just like, 'Really? Did I really just lose all the speed I had during my high school years?'"

Even after a summer spent dedicated to rest and rehab, Lighten's biggest critic, himself, wasn't pleased with the results after his first race in about eight months.

All through this time, while he admits he started losing sight of himself, he remembered back to when he was burning up opponents in high school, and the Wahconah family that helped get him there.

That family included Wahconah football coach and teacher Gary Campbell Jr.

"Coach Campbell always preached 'have purpose,' and all these things he would say when I went to lifting camp for him," said Lighten, who only played Warriors football as an underclassman. "I just started remembering that, and started getting my purpose back. It was like, what do I want out of this?"

So, Lighten started going to practice an hour early to work on rehab, he scoured the internet researching proper stretching techniques, and doubled down on the resources immediately available to "basically, rebuild myself."

Those resources include the now three-time defending Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference indoor champion Bridgewater State Bears.

"It was challenging and definitely tough for him. Seemed like every time we would get going, something flared up and he had a setback," said Foley, who was an assistant during Lighten's recruitment. "But as for his potential, the sky's the limit. He's gotten a much better understanding of our training program."

Lighten says the Bridgewater team is tight, and he's been working with and against fellow sophomore sprinter Jake DeAndrade to push each other. He also notes that he started to feel somewhat like himself again around the end of January.

At the Branwen Smith-King Invitational, hosted by Tufts on Jan. 31, Lighten placed second in the 200 in 22.63 seconds.

"Which sounds kind of mediocre for my standards, but I saw it as progress," he said. "I knew what I was doing was working."

Two weeks later, Lighten returned to Western Mass., to Smith College in Northampton, where Bridgewater State was trying to three-peat at the MASCAC Championships.

It was a busy day for him, but it started on the right foot, with 7.16-second run in the 60-meter finals. He was runner-up to DeAndrade.

Next was the rarely-run 4x200 relay, which Lighten ran the second leg of, taking the baton from DeAndrade and handing to senior Lamont Haynes, who gave to sophomore Jadin Bruneau. The foursome finished in 1:28.66, setting a BSU record and placing first overall by more than 5 seconds.

"My coach timed my leg in 21.39, so I could tell I was feeling like myself for the 200," Lighten said.

In said 200, Lighten was in Lane 6. He bolted out to a lead and kept expecting to see the horde come on at the second curve, but they never entered his peripheral.

"I had a really good start, my drive phase went really well through the first 30 meters," he said. "And then I was just coasting. I was just waiting for them to run up on me."

DeAndrade, who was runner-up, was the first to him, saying he ran a 21.9. Lighten took his first individual conference title in stride. He says he wasn't shocked.

"I was just glad to get back to feeling like my normal self."

Foley notes that that time came on a flat track, not banked, as indoor ovals typically are (subtract around .4 seconds from a flat time). Either way, Lighten's 21.94 was a personal record and a MASCAC Championship record, and put him No. 1 in the nation at that time.

The kid who ran wind sprints on the streets of Dalton amidst Berkshire County winters, who had to learn the sport of indoor on the fly, was a MASCAC champ.

The only thing that could slow a rebuilt Matt Lighten down was a global pandemic.

Foley says the small BSU group arrived in North Carolina on Wednesday of championship week. On Thursday, they got in a practice and some block starts at pre-meet, taking about four hours and getting back to the hotel around 4 p.m.

"I got a call from our sports information director saying he had seen the NCAA tweet that all championships were being cancelled," said Foley, who then called the school's assistant AD, before getting confirmation from the championship director. "At that point, we knew it wasn't just a rumor, so we called Matt and Josh in."

The current gut-punch is just the latest obstacle in Lighten's path. None have taken him out thus far, though.

"Missing outdoor kind of hurts even more," he admitted. "I've now missed three of my last four seasons of outdoor, and knowing the potential that I have, this outdoor season was going to be something really special. I'm sad that it got taken away."

While the Bears contingent caught a plane home the next day, Foley did say that even being there for a short time will be beneficial.

"The biggest thing is just having that opportunity," he said. "The first experience at nationals can be a shock to the system. It's daunting.

"But now, he knows he belongs. This isn't a guy who was on the bubble. That he was No. 2 in the nation and didn't get to compete, is only going to make him hungrier."

Back home in the Berkshires, Lighten is taking a break to let his body recover and focusing on his schoolwork — he's majoring in psychology.

"I'm liking Bridgewater a lot, pretty chill with the team, we're all very close. The sprinter group has a really great relationship with each other, it's been fun," he said. "Outside of track as well, I like the campus, the teachers, it's all pretty nice."

All in all, Lighten is dealing with the unfortunate scenario well. Controlling what he can control, and knowing, when the time does come, he'll be back and he'll be ready.

"I've been through this before," said the rebuilt sprinter, "so it's nothing new."