When New Jersey High School Runner Needed to Stop, His Coaches Made Sure He Did

Ben Andrus thought he could push through it.

It was July 2025, and the Haddonfield Memorial High School distance runner had returned from a family vacation and resumed summer training. The heat had never agreed with him, so when workouts became more difficult, there initially wasn't much reason for alarm. But Andrus was also experiencing headaches, his GPS watch was showing unusually low heart rates and runs that normally wouldn't have been particularly taxing were becoming a struggle.

His Coaches Knew Something Wasn't Right

Then came a scheduled 12-mile run. Only about a mile into it, Andrus had fallen behind the group while running with Haddonfield assistant coach Andrew Gostovich.

Andrus wanted to continue.

“I can do this, I can push through it,” he told Gostovich.

Gostovich wouldn't let him. He halted the run, strongly recommended that Andrus speak with Haddonfield head coach Matt Cieslik and that getting checked out by a doctor was imperative. Neither coach knew what was happening inside Andrus' body or that their concern would lead to the discovery of a potentially life-threatening heart condition. They simply knew something wasn't right.

“I was running with the team during the summers in the mornings. Just kind of being there, getting them started,” Gostovich said. “After coaching Ben for a year already you can kind of know the way guys run, how they look after a run. And you could tell something was off.”

That can be a difficult message for a distance runner accustomed to working through fatigue and discomfort. Andrus' first instinct was to keep running and figure it out later. Gostovich's take was different. He had seen enough.

Cieslik, meanwhile, wasn't trying to make a medical judgment.

Grateful that his coaches has stepped in, Andrus’ mother Alison booked Ben for an appointment at the renowned CHOP Specialty Care & Surgery Center in Voorhees. After conducting initial tests, medical staff immediately sent Andrus to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. His resting heart rate was 38 beats per minute and later dropped to 29.

According to a July, 2026 report in NJ.com, doctors determined that Andrus was experiencing complete heart block. A temporary pacemaker was inserted through a vein in his neck, and he spent five days undergoing tests before doctors determined the cause was Lyme carditis, a complication of Lyme disease caused by a tick bite that affects the heart.

Without treatment, she was told, her son could have died. Thankfully, the condition was treatable with antibiotics.

For Alison, what happened reinforced something she already knew about the Haddonfield coaches,that her son’s health was the single most important thing.

Without the coach’s intervention, “I think Ben probably would have continued to run, Alison said. “I really do. It is comforting as a mom, absolutely, that they always had his back as a person, not just as an athlete.”

Cieslik deflects much of the credit for what happened that summer toward Alison. His recommendation that Andrus see a doctor mattered only because she acted on it immediately.

“Give a lot of credit to his mom,” Cieslik said. “When he went home and they had the next conversation, she got him right in to see the doctor. When there’s no real in-your-face symptoms, it would be easy to say, ‘Let’s just wait, we’ll get to it.’ His mother, who at the time had quite a lot going on in her life, she just dropped everything and got him to the doctor right away.”

Prior to his life-threatening situation, Andrus had given a verbal commitment to compete on the cross country and track teams at Boston College. As he lay in a hospital bed for those five days, he was fearful that his senior high school season and dream of running in college would never materialize.

Getting Back Required a Different Kind of Coaching

Once the immediate danger had passed and Andrus was released from the hospital, the same coaches who had convinced Andrus to stop faced almost the opposite problem.

They had to keep him from coming back too quickly.

The temporary pacemaker was removed, Andrus was fitted with a heart-monitoring patch and doctors initially limited him to low-intensity exercise. He began with a six-mile walk and eventually progressed to a three-mile run.

For a runner entering his senior year with significant goals, patience didn't come naturally.

“After hearing what he ultimately was diagnosed with, it was pretty shocking and alarming,” Gostovich said. “At that point you have to put your athlete’s health at the forefront of things vs. rushing them to get back.”

“When he got back out there after he got through the major scare I just wanted to keep his spirits up and let him know that he was going to be back to where he was,” Gostovich said. “It was just going to take a little more time and effort.”

The irony wasn't lost on anyone. Distance runners are trained to keep going when a workout becomes uncomfortable. Now the coaches were asking one of their most determined runners to resist that instinct.

Gostovich said Andrus' motivation was never the issue.

Gradually, the restrictions eased and Andrus began training with Haddonfield's faster runners again. Eventually, he worked his way back to approximately 75 miles per week.

The results that followed made the comeback even more remarkable.

A Comeback That Went Beyond Running

Haddonfield won the Colonial Conference and Group 2 state championships, while Andrus finished sixth at the Meet of Champions in 15:43. The Bulldogs qualified for Nike Cross Nationals, where Andrus finished 18th among 274 runners and Haddonfield placed ninth nationally, becoming only the second New Jersey public school to finish in the top 10.

During the winter, Andrus became a state medalist in both the 1,600 and 3,200 meters as Haddonfield repeated as Group 2 indoor state champion.

“He’s certainly one of the top five runners I’ve ever had in my 25 years of coaching,” Cieslik said. “It’s interesting. Ben’s career, at the beginning of it he was a good runner and the second part of it is he’s an amazing athlete.”

For Cieslik, the biggest change wasn't physical.

“What separated part one of Ben from part two was his mindset and his attitude,” he said. “As he matured he just had one of those positive mindsets that he was determined to accomplish certain things in practices and in races. And he was mature enough to handle setbacks and handle things that didn’t go his way.”

That maturity showed during the health scare. Cieslik remembers an athlete who accepted what doctors were telling him even when his running career had suddenly become secondary.

Still, Andrus has never forgotten how the sequence began.

Gostovich was beside him when he wanted to continue that 12-mile run and refused to let him. Cieslik followed by telling him that the lingering symptoms needed to be checked by a doctor. Neither knew what doctors were about to find.

Once Andrus was medically cleared to return, their responsibility changed but their approach didn't. They continued paying attention to what was best for him, even when that meant telling one of their best runners to do less.

That may be what Alison appreciated most.

“It is comforting as a mom,” she said, “that they always had his back as a person, not just as an athlete.”

The Run He Didn't Finish

For everything Andrus accomplished after returning — including an emotional personal-best 4:16.84 mile at the Penn Relays just 10 days after his father died following a seven-year battle with cancer — none of it happens without the July 2025 training run he never came close to finishing.

He made it about a mile. Then Gostovich stopped him. Cieslik recommended he see a doctor. His mother got him to one. Months later, those same coaches were there as Andrus gradually rebuilt himself, sometimes encouraging him and sometimes holding him back.

Andrus knows what their decisions meant.

“Someone could say that my coaches are the whole reason why I’m still alive today,” Andrus said. “I’m very grateful that they advised me to go see a doctor.”

Today, Ben Andrus is a freshman, competing on the cross country team at his dream school – Boston College, with an eye towards the impending indoor track season.

The lesson Andrus learned was an unusual one for a distance runner. He had spent years learning how to push through discomfort, how to find another gear when his body wanted to slow down and how to keep going when a race became difficult.

In July, 2025, his coaches taught him something every bit as important.

Sometimes, you have to know when to stop.

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