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Jones healthy enough to repeat in pole vault

BRIAN FEES/For The Sun-Gazette Katie Jones of South Williamsport waves to the crowd after clearing 13-4 to win the Class AA girls pole vault Saturday at Shippensburg.

SHIPPENSBURG — It was early on in the soccer season this past fall when South Williams­port’s Katie Jones ended up with an IT band injury and had to miss time. She had a chance to have come back and play, but Jones told coach Christa Mat­lack that she wanted to sit out the remainder of the fall season so she could focus on pole vaulting.

After a solid indoor season through the winter, the Penn State-bound pole vaulter was set on improving and hitting even higher heights. But in the first week of April, that looked like it was all in danger of not happening. Jones was diagnosed with a stress fracture and it was then that she began wondering what the future held.

Was she going to miss two weeks? Four weeks? The entire year?

Jones had no clue at all. All she knew was she had to get a boot on April 7 and miss out on pole vaulting for at least a little while. At the time, she had no idea if she’d be able to win her fourth consecutive district gold medal, let alone defend her state title.

“I didn’t know how long I was going to be out for. It was a really, really rough night,” Jones said. “So then when I was coming back, I had a little pain but it went away.”

On Saturday, all that doubt and anxiety was a memory. Jones not only repeated to win a state gold medal, but did so in convincing fashion to show everyone that her injury was only a minor road bump on the path to making school history.

Jones set the state meet record by clearing 13 feet, 4 inches to walk away from Seth Grove Stadium at Shippensburg University with her second consecutive gold medal, becoming the only South Williamsport track athlete to ever win two gold medals at the state meet.

“It feels pretty good. I was able to come back. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, it was really rough coming back, but I’m here,” Jones said. “I’m thankful to be here. I’m thankful to have won.”

Jones, who won the District 4 meet last weekend with a state record vault of 13 feet, 7 inches, didn’t enter the field until the bar was up to 12 feet. And while Jones was walking around behind the pole vault area in her warm-up shirt, jogging lightly and preparing to jump, her competition was slowly dwindling away.

As the bar was raised to 11 feet, 6 inches, Jones was one of just seven competitors remaining, but all other six competitors failed to clear the height. By default, it left Jones as the lone pole vaulter remaining as she upped the bar to 12-0.

Jones cleared 12 on her first vault, making it look easy, to give her the gold and from there, she wanted to keep going higher like she always wants to do.

She missed 12-6 on her first attempt and then cleared it with decent height on her second jump. She missed her first attempt at 13-0 and cleared it on her second attempt to tie her own state meet record she set last year. With the bar at 13-4, Jones cleared it with relative ease to set a new state meet record.

“I knew that it was still going to be a tough meet, I’m not in the kind of shape that I was in before my injury,” Jones said. “I just had to come in with same mindset, like you know I’m going to go high today. I don’t care about weather, rain or shine it doesn’t matter. I just have to give it my all.”

Jones failed to clear 13-8, which would have set a new state outdoor record, surpassing the one she set just a week ago in Williamsport when she cleared 13-7. Jones also wanted to go for the national record, which is held by Louisiana’s Morgan LeLeux at 14 feet, 2 3/4 inches, but Jones wasn’t able to attempt to make history in her final high school athletic competition.

“My run was off on first attempt, so I ran through. My second attempt was off again, just different. Third attempt, I was just tired because I’m out of shape,” Jones said of her attempts at 13-8.

Coming back from her injury, Jones wasn’t sure if there was any rust from her roughly six-week hiatus from the runway. But it was at the PHAC league meet the weekend before the District 4 Track and Field Championships at Williamsport High School that she knew she was right where she was when she left off and had the ability to go higher.

“We did a lot of short-run stuff, tried to get long-run on and it was difficult because nothing really clicked until I went to a meet,” Jones said of her training to come back and compete.

Forget the injury and forget the doubts anyone had; Jones was back.

“Jumping at the league meet right before districts, that gave me all the confidence,” Jones said. “I cleared 13, just getting back into it. I was pretty confident, that’s just really the main thing.”

By winning her second consecutive gold medal, Jones became just the sixth area track and field girls athlete all time to win at least two individual gold medals at the state meet.

“It’s just really awesome to have this opportunity and be able to compete for South and win another state championship, which is awesome,” Jones said.

Jones joins Williamsport’s Ruby Radocaj (2001-04) and Rachel Fatherly (2009-12) as two-time area state gold medalists on the girls side. Lewisburg’s Kalyn Fisher (2007-10) won three individual golds, Lewisburg’s Jill Snyder (1993-96) won four golds and Williamsport’s Leaha Walker (1985-87) won five.

“I’m really glad I won the gold today, because it just means a lot to me after injury. That really put a damper on my season,” Jones said of her stress fracture injury. “I’m just happy to be here, happy to have this medal and happy to have jumped 13-4 even though I didn’t get 13-8. Hopefully it’ll come.”

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