SCRANTON — Thomas Dean passed Nick Costello for second place and was going to be content with that finish in the Steamtown Marathon on Sunday.

Then he saw something he never expected to see that changed his mind:

Race leader John Tatter had stopped.

Suddenly, Dean had a shot at victory. He passed Tatter for the lead around the 23.5-mile mark and went on to win the 28th running of the race Sunday morning. The 30-year-old from Highlands Ranch, Colorado, covered the 26.21876-mile run from Forest City High School down to Courthouse Square in downtown Scranton in 2 hours, 24 minutes, 40.49 seconds.

“I figured, OK, I’m in second,” Dean said. “Zero percent expecting that the guy in first was right there. It sort of threw me off.

“I went through the half at 72, paced myself and felt strong. Passed him on the uphill and just kept pushing.”

Costello, last year’s Steamtown winner from Laramie, Wyoming, also passed Tatter with about 1½ miles remaining and finished second in 2:27:40.63. Tatter managed to place third in 2:28:56.15. Benjamin Eysenbach from Princeton, New Jersey, was fourth in 2:32:25.02 and Ivan Zavala of Avondale rounded out the top five in 2:34:17.58.

Top local finisher was Tavian McKenna from Forty Fort in eighth in 2:40:01.71.

In the female division, Kim Brown of Toronto, Ontario, Canada was the winner in 2:51:39.10. Brown was the 32nd runner overall to cross the finish line.

Allie Caminiti from Atlanta, Georgia, was second in 2:52:05.86 and Kathleen Casey-Anderson, who originally is from Dickson City and now lives in Maryville, Tennessee, was third in 2:52:47.86.

Tatter, a 26-year-old who ran at the University of North Carolina and currently is a coach at the Chapel Hill school, moved in front four miles into the race and built a sizeable advantage. But just past Mile 22 on Eagle Lane in Dickson City, Tatter began to struggle. He stopped on several occasions and even got sick. That allowed Dean to catch and eventually overtake Tatter.

“Around halfway, I started struggling to keep down the gels I was taking,” Tatter said. “Once that happened, I couldn’t keep the energy up. I hit the wall pretty hard in the later miles and had to stop a few times top regroup.

“Definitely not the day I was hoping for, but that’s the marathon sometimes.”

Kim Brown of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was the female winner of the 28th Steamtown Marathon on Sunday.

A total of 1,035 runners were entered in the race.

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