The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Layoff is tough for field athletes
Practice wasn’t possible with equipment locked up
For most high school track and field athletes, the event they compete in at the high school level will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Regardless of whether or not they choose to compete at the next level, they’ll always be able to slip on some running shoes and relive everything from the final sprint of a 200 to the balanced, long run of the two-mile.
But that’s not the case for everyone, especially for athletes who compete in field events, as most of the time, they need specific, sometimes hard to find equipment. That, coupled with the cancellation of this spring’s high school sports season, means that some area athletes have competed for the last time without even realizing it.
Prior to the start of this track and field season, Olmsted Falls high jumper Austin Juergens decided to base his decision on whether or not to jump in college on how he did in his senior season.
With this spring season being canceled, he’s stuck in an unforeseen gray area.
“I’ve thought about it a lot, but I’m not sure. I was going to base my decision off how I did this season, but that hasn’t happened,” said Juergens, who will be attending Akron in the fall and majoring in aerospace engineering. “Since the high school’s been closed, I haven’t jumped in three months.”
Juergens’ plight of not being able to work out is shared across the region, as every area school closed during the spring, which, in addition to moving all learning to online classrooms, also meant that any weightlifting or track and field equipment was inaccessible for students.
“I haven’t been able to do high jump since school closed,” Columbia high jumper Rose Sikorski said. “Columbia is building a track now, but all the high jump stuff has been locked up, so I haven’t been able to practice.”
Sikorski’s journey with high jumping started her freshman year, when Columbia restarted its track and field program. Sikorski, who also played volleyball at Columbia, knew she wouldn’t be the best sprinter. So she instead elected to try out high jumping, since she already had done some workouts to improve her jumping through training for volleyball.
“I love to play volleyball and my position does a lot of jumping, so I decided to try out the high jump and fell in love with it,” she said. “I wasn’t very good at first but got better. Really just the accomplishment of making it over different heights, it was a new obstacle every time.”
Sikorski is attending Toledo’s pharmacy school in
the fall and said she’s still unsure about if she’ll high jump recreationally in the future.
“I think it’s just something where I’ll have to see what happens, but it all depends on how the future goes,” she said.
Much like Sikorski, Firelands thrower Steven Iwanek did what he could at home to try and stay in shape. That was easier said than done for Iwanek, however, as he was without a shot put and discus at home.
“I didn’t have access to my school’s weight room, so it was just a lot of focus of staying focused on my cardio and working with some weights I had around the house,” said Iwanek, who will be attending Bowling Green in the fall to study broadcast journalism. “It was a lot of independent work, because if we had a season I wanted to be at the top of my game.”
Juergens’ high school track and field career ended a little later than most, as he competed in the state indoor track and field meet, where he finished fifth in the Division I boys high jump.
“Before the season was canceled, I was just doing some leg workouts and stuff to try and stay in shape,” he said. “Since I had the indoor track season it wasn’t as bad, but I still feel like it hasn’t set in yet. I have no clue when I’ll be able to get back. I know a bunch of people who are really upset, especially kids on our team who didn’t do indoor track.”
While Iwanek and his fellow seniors are upset they didn’t get a chance to build on their 2019 conference championship, they can still say they went out on top.
“I have a lot of buddies on the track team and they were pretty disappointed since we were trying to defend our conference championship,” he said. “I guess now I can say I’m leaving as a conference champion.”