Emily Clancy was hoping to set a school record in the pole vault this season.
She just didn’t expect to do it in the first meet.
Clancy vaulted a school-record 9 feet, 7 inches Saturday morning to win the pole vault in her Columbus East girls track team’s 82-49 loss to Bloomington South.
“It was really exciting and definitely unexpected,” Clancy said. “I didn’t expect to do it.”
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Clancy, who plans to pole vault at Hanover next year, broke the school record by one inch and eclipsed her previous personal-best by more than a foot. She attributed that to using a 110-pound pole instead of 120-pound pole.
“I’m able to bend it easier,” Clancy said. “It allowed me to go higher.”
The Olympians also had wins from Katie Mack in the high jump (5-1), Alexis Scheidt in the long jump (14-5¾), Sydnie McCammon in the shot put (30½), Becca Bryan in the 100-meter hurdles (17.6 seconds) and Morgan Martindale in the 300 hurdles (53.4).
“I was very pleased with the way we competed,” East girls coach Glen Brown said. “Bloomington South is a good team. We just wanted to come out and do what we could do, and I think everybody gave their best. We had some good times that we can improve on.”
Meanwhile, the East boys fell to 16th-ranked Bloomington South 93-39. The Olympians were missing two of their top athletes — thrower Rhett Myers and hurdler Kevin Williams — because of other obligations.
“Obviously, we want to win,” East boys coach David Miller said. “That’s our goal. We have a lot of new guys, and it was good to see everyone compete. I think we’ll probably shuffle some guys around and try to put guys in their best races.”
Steven O’Neal led the Olympians with wins in the long jump (20-1½) and 400 (51.9). Trent Weaver took the 100 (11.6) and anchored the winning 4×100 relay team (45.3), and Aaron Kruchten captured the shot (50-0).
“Steven O’Neal is a kid who scored some points last year, and we knew coming in he’d be one of our leaders,” Miller said. “He had a great day. Aaron Kruchten did great in the shot put. Isaac Richardson and Paul Bean did well in distance. Those are guys that we knew were going to have to be leaders and score a lot of points, so I think they stepped up to the challenge.”
