In my last blog, I left off stating how blessed I am to have been on such a phenomenal track team that had managed to win a state championship with only field events. With such great leadership before me I felt obligated to help continue the excellence of Lake Park Track and Field that came before me.

Sophomore year is when I realized that I truly loved this sport and that I possibly had a future when it came time for college (as long as I kept improving). The indoor season of my sophomore year was a very consistent turn out. I mainly competed in the Long Jump, Triple Jump and 55 meter high hurdles. My best performance of the 2011 indoor season would have to be my efforts in the long jump. My best mark ended up being 22’4” at the Upstate Eight Conference Meet. Throughout that entire indoor season I loved the variety of events that I was doing. It was a great way to keep me busy at the meet and it always left me with an event that I could work on.  Looking back on the indoor season I feel like it was a great stepping stone for my “career” because I was introduced to competition with great athletes and a gateway to big time meets.

In my opinion, I feel that the indoor season was a great experience for me as a transition to the outdoor season, it kept mw hungry for even more track and field competition which would help me step up for the outdoor season. When the team sat down in our meeting room for the start of the 2011 outdoor season we all had the same thing going through our minds, Title Defense. Our coaches stood in front of the team and put all the cards on the table declaring what needed to be done. Considering we had the “big three” (Zach Ziemek, Jeremy Kline, and Jermaine Kline) we all felt safe but we also knew that there are no guarantees in life and we will all have to work as hard if not harder than what we did last year.

My goal was not just qualifying for the state meet in May; I was dead set on contributing to the team score in Charleston. Overall, the season was a great success and I accomplished my goal. My best performance was in the long jump once again with a distance of 23’0.75”. My best mark in the triple jump was 45’0.75” and in the high jump I finished the season with a clearance of only 6ft. this just shows that there will always be difficult times that you will need to overcome. Never allow a bad season or a bad meet get in your head and prohibit your growth in your event area, you should always strive to do your best and make personal gains. When the sectional meet arrived I realized it was time to step up and take the first step in fulfilling my 2011 outdoor season goal. In the long jump I finished the meet with a mark of 23 feet qualifying for the state meet! My next event I had a chance to qualify in was the triple jump. I knew I had a shot but the qualifying mark was 45 feet even… which meant I needed to land a PR. After six agonizing jumps I had one attempt left to hit the 45 foot mark.

 I gave it all I had on the runway but I came up short… my final mark in triple jump at the 2011 York Sectional was 44’11”. Not everything goes as planned and I only qualified in one event, I had one shot to help my teammates at state and that’s exactly what I was going to do. At the 2011state meet at Eastern Illinois University I finished in 5^th place with a jump of 22’5.5” achieving my goal to contribute to Lake Park’s back-to-back state championship. Next year would be a different story on account of the “big three” graduating.