Last season’s best fly out of the gates
Welcome to a new season! It’s the time of year when
everyone looks forward to reaching their new goals and achieving success. If
one of your goals was to chase down and upset one of last season’s top stars,
then the opening night was a reality check.
The likes of Brooklynn Broadwater of Springside Chestnut
Hill, Chris Stone of Springfield Montco, Ciara Leonard of Cheltenham, Taylor
Chapman of Pennridge to name a few, came flying out of the gates on the opening
weekend. Broadwater cruised in the 400 meter dash and ran 57 seconds in the
process. Chapman ran mid 25s in the 200 meter dash, Leonard ran 8.86 and
defeated one of her top hurdling challengers, and Stone cleared 14 feet in the
pole vault. All these athletes did this without spikes and without really
getting all their cylinders fully geared up in training.
It looks like the 2015 season could be a case of déjà vu
if these athletes can continue on this blistering pace.
Girls pole vault could be very deep in 2015
In the girls pole vault rankings, an astounding ten
girls pole vaulters have already cleared 10-3 or better. That is nearly one
third of the way to the 33 vaulters who cleared that same mark for all of the
2014 season. Valuters like Tesia Kempski of Bishop McDevitt (3), Grace Reidel
of Delone Catholic, and Jordan Hess of Penn Manor have already outdone their
2014 season best and the calendar hasn’t even switched to 2015. We still have
the likes of Kaitlyn Toman of Salisbury, and Lucianne Burner of North Pocono waiting
to join them, while Kennedy Shank of Northern cleared 11-3 on December 6 and
sits at PA#2 behind Kempski. Perhaps it will take more than 11-6 to make the
medal stand in 2015 if this pace keeps up, as the talent keeps improving and
the knowledge of the coaches continues to grow.
Isa Paschall lets it fly in the long jump
One of the big story lines in the 2014 outdoor season
was the Carlisle jumping dup of Isa Paschall and Deshawn Millington recording
big marks in the long and triple jump. Millington ended up being the 2014 AAA
outdoor state champion in the triple jump after his first season of basketball
and outdoor track together. Paschall medaled indoors at states at both jumps,
and finished 8th outdoors in the triple jump.
Fast forward to last weekend’s Dickinson Invitational
and Paschall has kept that incredible 2014 spring form and brought into the
2015 indoor season. Paschall jumped 22-7.50 to win the long jump on Saturday,
and just missed his overall personal best by .25 inches. This is the best start
to a season in the long jump since Saahir Bethea jumped 22-11 last season on
December 21. Bethea never reached those marks for the rest of the season,
something Paschall will hope doesn’t happen to him as he moves along in the
season. But a start like this would suggest that one of last season’s best
jumpers will be back there once again to contend for PA’s ultimate prizes.
Catch him if you can!