Fort Collins – Arapahoe’s Michelle Ripple does not want to waste any time just breaking the state record in the pole vault – she wants to smash it.
Ripple broke her school record as well as the meet record with a vault of 11 feet, 3 inches Saturday at the Runners Roost track and field invitational at French Field, a 28-team, multistate meet that lasted nearly 10 hours.
And though Ripple is the first to admit that the record of 12-6 3/4 set last year by Lewis-Palmer graduate Kate Colvin is a foot taller than her best vault, it does not mean that she will lower her sights.
“My goal is 13-1, which is 4 meters. … The state record has been broken every year for the last four years by a half-inch or a quarter-inch. It just keeps creeping up, and I want to break it by 6 inches and put it out of reach for a little while,” Ripple said.
Ripple, who is captain of Arapahoe’s state champion cheerleading team, has reason to believe she can make such strides. After finishing fifth at state as a freshman with a height of 9-6, Ripple’s sophomore year was slowed by an ankle injury. But she placed second at state as a junior by adding nearly 2 feet to her best vault, and she hopes that kind of improvement will continue this season.
“I definitely didn’t jump my best. I hoped to get 12 (feet) today, but this is only the third meet,” Ripple said.
Teammate Chelsea Chen also had her way with records. Chen’s long jump of 17-11 1/2 set a school record, meet record and qualified her for state.
All told on the girls side, 31 state-qualifying marks were reached and five meet records were set, including the 3,200 meters, where Rocky Mountain’s Dani Parry scorched the field with a time of 11 minutes, 00.79 seconds.
Rocky Mountain easily won the girls team title, with Chaparral and Littleton rounding out the top three.
Parry and J.T. Scheuerman of Littleton, who set meet records in the 200 and 400 meters by finishing better than a second ahead of the pack in both races, were named athletes of the meet.
Scheuerman helped Littleton win the boys title, ahead of Cheyenne Central from Wyoming and Longmont.
In the boys 100-meter dash, Loveland’s Trae Pflueger separated from a fast pack that included defending 4A state champion Sulaiman Sayyid, who finished fourth.
Pflueger’s time of 11.04 on Saturday will not drop any jaws, but a new focus on sprinting mixed with a brutal training schedule could put him in the mix come state meet time in late May.
“I didn’t wrestle this year and I trained indoors. … I try to out-train everyone. I show before everyone else and I leave after everyone else. The coaches have to tell me to lay off or I’ll kill myself,” said Pflueger, who placed sixth at state as a junior wrestler.
