Ultimate High TC Article (AZ)

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/sports/art ... 5803c.html

Vaulters excel at national meet

By Christopher Drexel
Staff Writer

It's been four years since Jeff Guy sent a pole vaulter to the Junior Olympics national championship.

The Desert Vista High School pole vault coach and founder of the Ultimate High Track Club knows he had athletes since that could have qualified for the competition. But preparing for the Junior Olympics is a summer activity, and Guy usually felt that time is better spent recuperating from the grind of the high school track season.

But this time around, he had three athletes in mind that would be perfect to take on the task. And Shea Kearney, Lauren Mitchell and Shaylah Simpson didn't disappoint, as they all competed in the Junior Olympic national championships last weekend in Indianapolis. To reach the event, the trio had to place in the top three at the state level, and then at the top three again during a regional in Denver on July 16.

Kearney finished in second place in the intermediate age group (15- to 16-year-olds) with a leap of 14 feet, 5.25 inches. Mitchell, an up-and-coming sophomore for the Thunder, placed 21st in intermediate, jumping 9 feet. Simpson, 13, who will be an eighth-grader at Kyrene Altadeña Middle School, ended up second with a jump of 10 feet.

None of the three athletes is exactly your conventional pole vaulter quite yet.

Kearney, who will be a junior at Desert Vista, only got serious with the sport in the last year. He was a promising club baseball player who quit competing on the diamond his freshman season to concentrate on pole vault.

Mitchell is an accomplished soccer player who served as backup goalkeeper on the Thunder's 2005 state championship team and had to resume track late as a result.

Simpson, meanwhile, does not have a high school team to be a part of yet, and was eager to begin competing.

So Guy figured the extra competition would serve all three athletes well and his gamble paid off.

"I'm sensitive with the long season so I don't push (my athletes) to go the Junior Olympic route," Guy said. "The other ones, I had to shut them down when you start seeing the signs of them getting tired.

"But for Shaylah, they don't have pole vault for middle school athletes, so this is her competition. Lauren had a late start because of soccer, so this is a great opportunity for her. And Shea is just so competitive and so hungry; he wants more."

It may not seem like it now, but neither Kearney, Mitchell nor Simpson grew up with aspirations to be a pole vaulter. But now the sport is what they enjoy doing the most.

One day while practicing at Mesa Community College, Colby crashed during a jump, breaking bones in his wrist and face, and Shea's parents didn't welcome another jumper in the family after that.

"When I told my dad I wasn't going to do baseball, he was definitely upset," Kearney recalled. "Then I ended up telling him a week later I wanted to do pole vault, and he flipped out because my brother had gotten hurt. But he never dreamed I would be this successful at it."

Mitchell, who took second at regionals with a 9-6 jump, began pole vaulting when she began at Desert Vista because her parents requested she participate in another sport to keep in shape for soccer.

"I saw pole vaulting, and it looked like fun," she said. "So I tried it and now I'm in love with it."

Now, Mitchell considers the sport to be of equal interest to her as soccer, and feels her participation in one sport helps her performance in the opposite. Ideally she would like to play soccer and pole vault for the same college in the future.

"Pole vaulting helps with my short endurance and sprints, while soccer helps with my long endurance and gets me fit for pole vaulting," she said.

Of the trio, Guy believes the one with the most potential is Simpson. The state record for the 13- and 14-year-old age group is 10 feet, 6 inches, and Guy said Simpson had already vaulted 10 feet in practice with more than a year left to compete in the division. She won the Denver regional with a jump of 8-6 and took state with a 9-6 leap.

After a number of years competing in gymnastics, Simpson says it is her unusual upper-body strength for a girl her age that allows her to excel while pole vaulting. But a good attitude doesn't hurt matters either.

"A lot of people don't have the qualities I have," she said. "And I usually don't get too hard on myself about things. I just go out and have a good time and focus on what I need to do instead of worrying about everyone else around me.

"One of my dreams is to try and go to the Olympics. I don't do vaulting just to go to the Olympics, but I think about it a lot," she said.

The reporter can be reached at (480) 898-4906 or by e-mail at cdrexel@aztrib.com.

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwa ... 16Z14.html

Training top vaulters a tall task
Richard Obert
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 16, 2006 12:00 AM
Jeff Guy takes his poles, teaches a sport that some might call lunacy and turns vaulters into champions.

Guy has trained more than 10 state champions.He did it for nine years at Corona del Sol High. He's now in his second year at Desert Vista.

Last year, Guy guided Dutch Perryman and his sister, Jaci, through the rigors of pole vaulting, one of the most difficult events in track and field.

They became the first brother-sister team to win state Class 5A titles in the event in the same year.

Dutch is vaulting at Arizona, which is where Jaci will be next season.

Desert Vista junior Shea Kearney appears to be the favorite for the boys 5A Division I title in May after he cleared 16 feet, ¾ inch in an indoor meet in Flagstaff this month.

Is there a secret to producing champions?

"I develop a relationship where they believe in what you say," Guy said. "It's a partnership, a trust. When they change poles when instructed to, that's a huge trust. You have to have faith in them as an athlete."

It takes a rare breed to want to sprint down a runway with a pole, plant it and fly skyward, trying to hold onto your equilibrium and fall into a foam mattress.

Jaci has had more than 50 stitches since she began seriously vaulting as a freshman. She suffered a broken arm last summer.

"Just a bump in the road," she said.

Last year, she won state with a jump of 12-3. Her best last season was 12-9½, which ranks as the third-best female Arizona vault of all time. She is aiming for 13 feet. April Kubishta of Lake Havasu became the first Arizona girl to clear 13 feet in a big meet, but it came in the summer after her high school season ended.

Former Corona del Sol vaulter Katie Morgan holds the state high school record of 12-10½. Guy coached Morgan at Corona.

"She's capable of breaking Katie Morgan's record," Guy said of Jaci.

It's all about putting together that perfect jump on a perfect day.

"I feel like I've made some gains in my (high school) career," said Jaci, who began vaulting in middle school when she became intrigued by the sport. "It takes a long time to understand it."

Many of the nation's best vaulters don't peak until they're in their 30s.

Kearney had decent jumps as a freshman, a little better than 11 feet, when he took up the sport. He emerged last season when he cleared 14-4. His goal is to break the junior state record of 16-3.

Kearney is capable of breaking Dutch's school record of 16-1 this year, Guy said.

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Club contact info from the USATF Club Directory:

Ultimate High/Adrenaline TC Phoenix, AZ 480-225-3920 jguy5048@aol.com