Vaulters descend on Black Springs for Freedom Vault
BLACK SPRINGS — Pole vaulters of every level converged on Black Springs Thursday as Arkansas Vault Club hosted its 12th annual Fourth of July Freedom Vault.
The population of the small Montgomery County town more than doubled with the competitors, fans and family members who attended the annual event that saw a vaulter who was looking to make his first bar, NCAA Division I champion pole vaulter Tori Hoggard competing and many others between.
“This is one of our bigger years,” said Morry Sanders, who runs the club. “Usually, we’ll have about 30 athletes, and we had 40 signed up, had a couple that didn’t show in the last group. I don’t know how many didn’t show in this group. That’s a pretty good number.”
The day started with the higher competition, with the beginner through intermediate jumpers starting in the afternoon.
“They’re divided up into different divisions, but several of those divisions were jumping at the same time,” Sanders said. “This group right here, the best vaulter in this group has jumped 11 feet, and we go all the way down to a kid that this is going to be his first meet. He’s never made a real bar. You’ve got from the very beginning to the middle of the pack here.”
The annual meet is held in the club’s indoor facility, although in 2016 it was held outdoors.
“One year, we moved it outside when the Weeks twins [Lexi and Tori] were seniors because they were on the verge of breaking the outdoor national record,” Sanders explained. “We couldn’t do that indoor meet. Luckily, it was worth it. Lexi broke the outdoor national record. The rest of the time, it has been inside.
“It’s just so much easier to have it in here. It took about 16 hours worth of setup and breakdown to move everything outside. Then you’ve got all these guys that have to come out and help you, and since I don’t have a weather cover for either of these pits, we put it outside. We ended up having rain to deal with, so I’m trying to find tarps. Unless we end up in a situation again where we have a kid about to break the national record, we won’t move it outside.”
Lake Hamilton graduate Haze Farmer once again proved his mettle as he outjumped the competition with a final made height of 17 feet. Trinity Christian rising senior Rhett Nelson finished second with a jump of 16 feet, and Lake Hamilton rising junior Hunter Johnson cleared at 15 feet, 9 inches for a new personal record.
“It felt pretty good,” Johnson said of setting a new personal best. “I’ve been trying to hit this for a while. I’ve strung together some really good practices lately.”
Johnson, who has been attending Arkansas Vault Club since he was in the sixth grade, said that he feels that he will continue to improve.
“I feel good about it,” he said. “I think I definitely have room to improve. I take it just one day at a time.”
Farmer, who tried for a new personal best of 17-10, could not make the jump.
“I feel good,” he said of his performance. “I mean, I had a few good shots at it. I was a little tired. I’m just not in the best shape right now, and I think that’s the thing about it. I should have jumped it. I think if I came in a little sooner, maybe, and got on the right pole sooner, I would have had the energy on the last few bars. The last two, I came up way short.”
This was originally to be Farmer’s final high school meet before going to college at the University of Georgia, but he
has entered another outdoor meet for July 20 in Mobile, Alabama.
“It’s supposed to be 2,000 people there coming to watch, so I think it’s going to be awesome energy, and I’m going to get on some big poles,” he said. “This was supposed to be my last one, but after New Balance and I didn’t really compete well there, we wanted to try get one good last outdoor meet, so I can have a little redemption. I think I’m going to jump high there. I think it’s on a raised runway, too. It’s like a street vault, so I think it’ll be fun.”
Classmate Edie Murray also felt that she had a strong performance, winning her division with a jump of 12-3, an inch higher than her second-place outdoor finish at the Meet of Champions this season but still shy of her 13-5.5 personal indoor record set at the Millrose Games in February.
“I honestly feel really good,” she said. “I’m super happy with my performance. I felt better jumping than I have in a really long time, and it was just a problem of I was crushing all my poles. I couldn’t get on the right pole in time, get my steps right. I felt really good, and that was my last meet. I’m kinda glad. I left it on a good note, I feel like, so I’m happy with it.
“I felt like today this is my last meet. I just want to have fun with it. I grew up with these people, and there’s no pressure. I wasn’t trying to do anything big. I just wanted to go ahead jump high and have fun. That’s what I did.”
While this might have been Murray’s final meet as a high school vaulter, she will be competing for the University of Arkansas in the fall, so she was excited to be able to vault against Hoggard, despite competing in different divisions.
“I like it,” she said. “I’ve missed having some competition that I can even up with, and sometimes it helps to lose to make you, to push you a little further. I like to see what college did to them. It makes me more excited to go.”
Sanders was also excited to see his former athletes return to compete in Thursday’s meet.
“It’s always nice to see my former athletes come back and jump with us,” he said. “Lauren Sutherland, she was one of our kids. It’s nice to see her jump.
“Of course, obviously, Tori. It’s the first time I’ve coached Tori in a meet — she came down here in 2016 for this meet, and I helped her out then. This is the first time I’ve coached her in a meet since then.”
Overall, Sanders was pleased with the meet.
“I had a couple kids that I thought should have jumped a little bit higher, but I had a lot of kids jumping at PRs today,” he said. “Sometimes it works out to where you get a lot of those that actually make it. Just the fact that they were jumping at a PR, that’s a good day.”