Medical condition doesn't stop West's Lohaus from achieving hoops dreams

IOWA CITY – Wyatt Lohaus was scared the first time it happened. You would have been, too.“I thought I was going to die,” he said.The fears have gone away for the most part, been replaced by another feeling. The heart condition he has dealt with since eighth grade has become more a nuisance than anything else.“Annoying,” the Iowa City West senior point guard said. “Because I can't play, I have to come out of the game.”Lohaus suffers from a cardiac arrhythmia. Everything will be fine, he'll be taking jumpers, dribbling the ball down court and doing all the other things that make him an all-state player and future Division I college player.Then, suddenly, his heart rate jumps. If you've watched West play the four years Lohaus has been on varsity, you've seen it happen.He'll quietly take himself out of the game and head to the end of the West bench. Team trainer Sheila Stiles will pull out a large Tupperware container of ice water and place it on his lap.Lohaus will intermittently dunk his face into the container to help shock his heart rate back to normal. Usually, dad, Brad, or mom, Anne, will come out of the stands to aid him and rub his back in moral support.“A lot of people think I'm throwing up when I do that,” Lohaus said with a smile. “I bet it's pretty interesting to see me pull out a bucket of ice water and stick my face into it.”Sometimes standing on his head is the better option. A medical procedure done when he was first diagnosed didn't work.Doctors have assured him his life is not in danger by playing basketball. There's still a chance he might simply grow out of the condition.“I think every year it gets a little better,” he said. “This summer, I hardly dealt with it at all. I can deal with it quicker. I think when I was a freshman and sophomore, it kind of winded me a little, took my legs. But now that I'm older and stronger, I can deal with that a lot better.”Lohaus has won a lot of basketball games at West. The Trojans were undefeated back-to-back Class 4A state champions in 2012 and 2013.They enter this season on a 52-game win streak, the last loss coming in the third-place game of the 2011 state tournament.“That's something we do not talk about,” said Lohaus, who led West in scoring last season at 13.7 points. “We view each year as its own year. We're not trying to repeat, we're trying to go out and win it again. So we don't really focus on (the win streak), I don't think. Not returning a lot of players from that team kind of does that, too.”Make no mistake, this West team has a lot of talent, though much of it is young: guys like freshmen Connor McCaffery and Devonte Lane and sophomore Tanner Lohaus, Wyatt's brother.“I just think my role has changed,” Wyatt said. “I mean, we have a bunch of leaders on this team, but I'm more the main leader. I just try and keep being aggressive. Obviously, as I put in more work, more opportunities come. Just being in the system for four years now, I just naturally feel like I'm a better player.”West Coach Steve Bergman agrees with that latter thing.“He has worked real hard at improving his range,” Bergman said. “And it was noticeable to me that, OK, we were done in March and came back June or whatever it was for summer stuff, he was physically stronger. His body is bigger, and I thought that was pretty noticeable.”“I spent a lot of time in the summer working on getting my shot off quicker and increasing my range,” Lohaus said. "Me and my dad usually would just go to the gym in the mornings and bring my brother along. I think that will be a lot of fun, playing with him this season. This summer, he got a lot, lot better. Me and dad were on him hard the whole summer, pushing him.”Lohaus will join former West teammate Jeremy Morgan next season at Northern Iowa. There were rumors last winter that other, bigger-name schools were getting interested in the 6-foot-2 lefty, but he claimed there were no second guesses on his part.“Not at all. I was UNI 100 percent,” Lohaus said. “There was not a day that I doubted my decision.”