Freshman Clara Fan finished her first high school track season with a lot of firsts:
- Clara is the first Monta Vista freshman to qualify for the California state meet since Coach Flatow started coaching MVTF 12 years ago…we are not sure if or when an MV freshmen ever qualified for State.
- By qualifying in the high jump, Clara is also the first field event athlete from MV to make it to State in the last 12 years.
- While not a first…Clara now has the second highest jump in Monta Vista’s 60 year history.
The high jump at State is kind of epic, and is a challenge to all the competitors. The opening height for the trials day is set at 2″ below the entry mark of the 12th competitor; this year, Clara was in a tie for 12th competitor so the entry mark was 5′-3″. This is only 2″ below Clara’s PR that she had set less than a week before. For some of the entrants, 5′-3″ is a personal record! That’s a tough start. In this case, 12 of the entrants, including Clara, did not clear the opening height. Five more went out at 5′-5″, and only four more cleared 5′-6″ as the 12 qualifiers were selected using a tie-breaker. The next day, at Finals, the carnage was even more extreme as only eight of the 12 finalists cleared the opening height of 5′-4″, only three cleared the next height of 5′-6″, and no one was able to get over 5′-7″–the winner was Hannah Slover from Los Gatos, who was the only athlete to be clean over both 5′-4″ and 5′-6″.
Track and field at state is a different kind of beast…athletes at all levels are performing in front of bigger crowds than they have ever seen before, while competing against elite athletes from the biggest and deepest pool of high school talent in the country. The California state meet all-stars would destroy the fields of many college invitationals! And in high jump, athletes have the added challenge of a starting height that is above where they usually come in to get their first few easy jumps to get settled and confident.
The 2022 California state high jump champion won with a mark 1″ above Clara’s personal record, and Clara is a freshman! Clara’s coaches both believe that there are things we can work on next year which can lead to higher PRs (and a new school record?), but also some more margin when we return to the state meet.
A key to success at the state meet can be the confidence when facing those high opening heights. Now that Clara has participated at state as a freshman, in the future she will understand what is waiting. And going forward, with improved strength and improved technique from another year working with Coaches Dobbins and Hartman, Clara will have a greater margin over the big opening heights. Yes, we believe that 2022 is only the start of Clara’s track career!
Congratulations, Clara, and to coaches Dobbins and Hartman! What a great season.
