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Katie Jones merits long reflection

BRIAN FEES/For The Sun-Gazette Penn State-bound Katie Jones repeated her PIAA pole vault title in her last high school competition for South Williamsport.

For a moment, just a brief moment, Katie Jones sat on the mat of the pole vault pit, a dejected look strewn about her face. The South Williamsport senior popped to her feet and turned slowly to the crowd applauding her record-setting effort at the PIAA Track and Field Championships and waved both hands with a smile on her face.

The state championship-winning jump of 13 feet, 4 inches broke Jones’ own state meet record, which she set last year. But she couldn’t hide her disappointment. For an athlete who set the all-time state record a week earlier at the District 4 meet and had visions of challenging the NFHS national record, 13-4 just didn’t feel right.

“Of course it’s disappointing, but I’m just out of shape and that’s what’s sad,” Jones said. “I don’t know what else to say about that.”

This is the life of a perfectionist. This is the life of an athlete always striving for the next inch of improvement. In the moment, she was disappointed despite being a state champion for the second consecutive season and breaking a state meet record for the second consecutive season.

But let us truly examine what Jones accomplished over the last three weeks. She cleared 13 feet at the PHAC meet after not having vaulted for over a month because of a stress fracture in her left foot. And she did it despite the terrible weather conditions which seemed to plague the final three weekends of the season.

A week later, there was no more boisterous roar from the crowd at Williamsport High School than when Jones cleared 13-7, establishing a new all-time outdoor best in the Commonwealth.

And then there was Saturday. Each of the other 23 competitors in the Class AA pole vault competition had already been eliminated when Jones finally entered the competition at 12 feet. She wasn’t competing against anybody, just against the crossbar laying horizontally 12 feet above her head. When she cleared that mark on her first attempt, she was the state champion.

We should all be so out of shape.

Less than two months ago she was discussing with her family whether she should maybe forego the high school season because of that stress fracture. Jumping for Penn State is on the horizon for Jones and the thought of preparing for that seemed to make sense.

But that’s just not who she is. She loves to compete. So her senior season became a three-week sprint instead of a months-long grind.

“I don’t even feel like I’m competing right now,” Jones said. “It doesn’t feel like the end of the season. It just feels like the preseason. I didn’t feel like I was at states. It’s sad that it’s over, but we’re on to the next thing.”

The next thing for Jones is the New Balance Outdoor Nationals in less than a month in Greensboro, North Carolina. After that, it’s a summer off to try and let all her nagging injuries heal. She’ll work as a coach at vault camps at VaultWorx in Camp Hill. Then she’ll prepare for a new life at Penn State.

The life of a perfectionist never really has a break. It’s always looking for the next improvement, looking for the next minor form change to clear that next height. But here’s hoping there’s some time in there for Jones to sit back and appreciate all she’s accomplished in her high school career.

No girl in the history of Pennsylvania high school pole vaulting has ever cleared a height as high as hers at the District 4 meet last week. No girl in the history of the Class AA state meet has cleared heights as high as the two she cleared to win her state championships.

Think about it. It’s absurd.

It’s not easy to be a competitor when your goals are as outrageously historic as the ones Jones had for herself, even in a shortened season. But those goals can’t distract from the fact that what she did accomplish was something we’ve never seen before in this area and even in this state.

And that deserves to be both appreciated and celebrated.

Mitch Rupert covers high school track and field for the Sun-Gazette. He can be reached at 326-1551, ext. 3129, or by email at mrupert@sungazette.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/Mitch_Rupert.

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