On Feb. 20, the State High Indoor Track & Field team hosted its last meet of the season at the Penn State Multisport Indoor Facility. The team competed in almost 30 events and placed highly in many of them. This was an important meet because the results determined which athletes go on to compete at the states competition.
During all of the girls’ jumping events, State High athletes placed first. Junior Josie Younkin placed first in the high jump event, and senior Sanai Abdullah placed first in both the triple jump and long jump events.
Abdullah has been competing in track and field since she was an eight-year-old. This season, she competed in three events: the long jump, the triple lump and the 4x200m relay.
Abdullah was realistic about her goals for the meet. “[Breaking my personal records is] always the goal, but we like to be realistic with ourselves. I’m aiming for 18’ in long jump and at most 37’ in triple jump,” she said.
Abdullah came very close to both of her goals, placing first in the long jump at 17′ 9.25″ and the triple jump at 37’ 1”.
The boys team placed well in all individual running events. Jesse Myers dominated the short-distance races, placing first in both the 60-meter and the 200-meter events. Ryan Caldwell placed second in the 800-meter race, with Stephen Fowler following close behind in third place. Theo Oppermann placed first in the 3000-meter race, and Owen Coughlin placed second in the 1 mile race.
Coughlin reflected on his strategy during the 1 mile race. “I was kind of keying on my teammate, Luke Bradbury. I was kind of just looking at his back the entire time, just like trying not to increase the gap between me and him, and that worked pretty well for me in the workouts and it worked pretty well for me in the races, too,” Coughlin said.
The State High team placed first in both the 4x200m and 4x400m boys’ relays. The girls team also did well in its relays, coming in second in both the 4x400m and the 4x200m, less than a second behind first place.
Some of the team members had sparkles on their faces as they competed. Sophomore Alexa Petersen described this tradition. “It was actually a thing that we did from cross country, they are speed sparkles, it’s one of the things that the freshmen brought,” Petersen said.
Sophomore Sadie Kocher and freshman Evie Younkin both had a specific goal for the meet.
“[My goal for this meet is] for the DMR to qualify for States,” Kocher said.
Younkin seconded this. “Definitely [to] qualify for States in the DMR,” she said. Their team did just that: they won first place, and will be moving on to States.
Some other top placers from State High were junior Lydia Tate, who took second place in the girls shot put event, and senior Stella Roop, who placed second in the girls pole vault. Senior Adam Bell placed first in the boys pole vault, passing second place by over three inches.
The team is back in action at the PTFCA State Championships on March 2.
