Ohio Dominican comes calling for Rylee Frederickson

It took a year for Ohio Dominican University women’s track coach Connor Callahan to catch up with Genoa graduate Rylee Frederickson, but the end result was all good.
Frederickson, after already committed to attend another college, will run sprints for Ohio Dominican, an NCAA Division II school that competes in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.
“I actually got an offer from them in the middle of May,” said Frederickson. “I was already committed to another school, but not for track or anything. The coach was getting a hold of my mom and saying he was trying to get in touch with me for the past year. He got a hold of me and he just talked to me for a few weeks, and they made some good offers.”
Genoa track coach Luke Hodulik added, “Right before the season started, over the winter, she was asking me about running in college. I started reaching out to a couple schools and then Ohio Dominican caught wind of her somehow. That wasn’t even one of the schools that I talked to. They got a hold of her, even though recruiting was a mess this year because there was no season. So, however it ended up good for her and she’s happy with the place she is at.”
As a junior, Frederickson qualified for the state meet as part of two relay teams. In 2019, Genoa’s 4x100 relay of then-senior Reaghan Pietrowski, sophomores Taylor Simmons and Sara Partin and Fredericksen placed 10th (50.64) in the prelims. The 4x200 relay of Fredericksen, Simmons, freshman Lacy Frias and Pietrowski took 11th (1:47.76) in the prelims.
The state track meet at Ohio State University’s Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium was an event she will remember forever.
“It was amazing. I don’t even know how to explain it. I was just so grateful for the opportunity to go,” Frederickson said.
Hodulik witnessed Frederickson’s progression during his three years at the helm.
“Track is really her sport. That is what she really excels at. She’s naturally athletic and really fast,” Hodulik said.
“When she was a freshman, she started out as a mid-distance runner. She ran the 800 and would go down to the 400 and as a freshman she qualified for regionals in the 400 and she was really good. The next year, we were going to try her out in some more sprints because she had natural speed, and it wasn’t really something that she had done much of before, but I really wanted to try her out there.
“She ended up tearing her ACL in basketball, so she missed her sophomore year. Last year, as a junior we moved her exclusively to sprints because it turned out she was one of the fastest girls in the area, so she was doing the 100, 200 and both of the relays — 4x100 and 4x200,” Hodulik continued.
“Last year, she made it to regionals in all four of those events — the individuals and the relays, and both of our relay teams made it to state. She made the finals in the 100 at regionals and her prelim time would have qualified her for state in the 100, but she didn’t run quite as well in the finals, so she just missed it.”
Hodulik says while Frederickson excels in the sprints, don’t count her out for any event. On the Genoa basketball team, the 5-foot-8 forward leaped for eight rebounds per game her senior year.
“She’s really versatile. Had we trained her in distance, she could have been one of our top distance girls, too. She’s done sprints, I think she would have been great in hurdles, and she would have been great in the jumps,” Hodulik said.
“We actually needed another high jumper last year going into districts because we were trying to win the district title, and we had her do the high jump. I had wanted to try her out in it in the past but because of her ACL, she was a little hesitant. Then, she came to me about a week before districts and said she wanted to try it, and she picked it up naturally right away. I think she could be good at that, too, if she trained for that. Ohio Dominican got a versatile athlete. They will be able to put her wherever they need her.”
Frederickson just recently had her college signing with her family attending, including her grandparents and a cousin. She said the Ohio Dominican track program is fairly new, “but they are trying to build the program and get more athletes in, hopefully.”
Meanwhile, she continues to work out over the summer, and was planning to high jump in last Thursday’s Genoa Summer Fest, a summer track meet for area high school athletes.
“Our coach had some summer workouts for me to do, so we’re on the track and summer weight room a few days a week,” Frederickson said.
Frederickson credits Hodulik for helping her get the opportunity to compete in college.
“We actually had switched a few coaches throughout the years, but my sophomore season, I was hurt and that was the first year coach Hodulik was coaching,” Frederickson said. “He came in and he really turned the program around my junior year and we were doing well. Everyone was PR’ing, and we were close to getting the title last year and we were going to get it this year if we had a season.”