Robertson matches best, wins pole vault at Senior Lion Relays
JESSIEVILLE — Annabel Robertson may have only been competing in the pole vault for a little over a month, but the Jessieville senior cleared 7 feet, 6 inches to win the event at the Senior Lion Relays Thursday afternoon at Don Phillips Field.
Robertson’s clearance may not have been enough to qualify her to compete at next month’s Class 3A State Championship at Lincoln, but with wind speeds in excess of 10 mph and gusts over 25 mph, she was pleased to have matched her personal best.
“We got to about eight foot, which my PR is 7-6, and I had to go up a pole, which I was pretty excited about because I’ve been waiting to blow through that 100,” she said. “So I got up to the 120, and we just got over it, started wobbling and it fell, but I feel like I did pretty good. I got my PR. Still have the same PR, but I feel like next race we’ll be up, especially with that new pole.”
Robertson said that she didn’t feel like the wind was too much of a problem for her, except on her approach.
“I don’t feel like it caused me too much trouble. … They were letting us wait it out a little bit, but it was kind of hard to carry the pole. Like I feel like I was forcing it down to plant it, but it wasn’t it wasn’t horrible,” she said.
Despite having just picked up the event this spring, Robertson was a bit disappointed that she had not tried it before.
“I wish I would have had a couple years on it, but I never even tried it until this year,” she said.
Classmate Dillen Morgan cleared the bar at 10 feet, 6 inches to match his best and win the pole vault. Fellow senior Lion Dalton Gamerdinger, who had a seed height of 12-1, held his initial jump until 10-6, but he was unable to clear in any of his three attempts.
“I was hoping to clear 11 foot … this track meet because next track meet is gonna be at Lake Hamilton, and it’s not gonna be fun there,” Morgan said during a break while continuing to practice and aim for the 11-foot mark. “I don’t like other tracks usually.”
Morgan ended up dragging the pole for his winning jump because he was fighting the wind on his approach.
“I was gonna hold the pole today, but … I wasn’t doing so good when I practiced,” he said. “So I swapped to drag again, and the wind don’t hurt with me dragging but when I go up in the air, it takes a lot.”
Jessieville senior Ty Lafoon and classmate Lincoln Crawford took first and second in the shot put, but Lafoon said that he was disappointed in his put.
“In warmups, I threw like three foot further than I did,” he said of his throw of 42 feet, 11 inches. “I don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t my farthest.”
Currently ranked No. 2 in the state in the event, Lafoon said that he is still trying to earn a qualifying mark for the Class 3A meet.
“In practice, I do it every day,” he said of hitting the qualifying distance of 45 feet, 4 inches. “I threw 46 (Wednesday). I don’t know why. I don’t know — I just had an off day (Thursday). It was really bad.”
Lafoon said that he was extremely happy to see his teammate finish second in the event with a throw of 42-8.
“I’m really proud of him because he PR’ed by two foot today,” he said. “We’ve really been trying to get him there and qualified.”
Jessieville ended up winning both the boys and girls side of the meet. The girls finished with 132 points for the win with Bigelow (101), Episcopal Collegiate (74), Centerpoint (59) and Bismarck (47) rounding out the top five. Mount Ida was ninth with 20 points.
The Lions put up 178 points to win the meet by 99 with Helena/West Helena finishing second with 79. Episcopal Collegiate (56), Mayflower (47) and Dover (37) rounded out the top five with Fountain Lake in sixth with 23, Centerpoint (21) eighth and Bismarck (19) 10th.