http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010 ... igh-preps/No bar appears too high
Westview senior Ross maps out record-breakers
BY STEVE BRAND, SPECIAL TO THE UNION-TRIBUNE
TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010 AT 12:02 A.M.
PEGGY PEATTIE / UNION-TRIBUNE
Westview senior Kortney Ross set the San Diego Section record in the girls pole vault last year when she went 13 feet, 4 inches while winning the state championship. This season, Ross has her sights set on going 14-4 which would give her the national high school record.
Kortney Ross has this pretty much figured out.
The Westview High senior says this year she can improve a foot in the pole vault to 14 feet, 4 inches, setting the national high school record. After four years at the University of Oregon, she plans to own the NCAA record at 15-4.
By the time the 2016 Olympics roll around, she thinks she can go after the world record, which she estimates will be close to 17-4.
Listening to Ross talk you realize this doesn’t appear to be another pipe dream from one of those lunatic pole vaulters who has spent too much time falling from the height of a two-story building into a little foam-rubber pit.
Oh, yes, about all of those heights ending in four. Ross set the San Diego Section record at 13-4 last year en route to capturing the state title, so she likes that number.
Asked about her first goal of breaking the high school record, she couldn’t come up with a single good reason it can’t happen.
“I know (the record) is 14-1, but it doesn’t matter because I‘m going 14-4 anyway,” Ross said. “Last year I started at 10-8 in my first meet and this year I went 12-5 in the same meet. I know I can’t improve two feet every year, there is a limit, but 14-4 can happen.
“Ideally, it’ll be warm, no wind and plenty of competition when I do it, but it could happen any time. My two best performances last year were days I felt terrible.”
Arriving late for the Escondido Invitational, she was forced to rush her warm-up and would not have been surprised to no-height. Instead she soared 13 feet, passing the 12-9 section record of Rancho Bernardo’s Kate Mattoon.
At the State Championships in Clovis, again her warm-ups portended disaster, yet once the competition began there was no one better.
Ross may talk and even think like a pole vaulter, which is why they are considered the most eccentric of the free spirits on a track team, but you look at her and her performances in other events and you quickly realize she has special qualities.
For starters, she’s 6 feet tall, which allows her to use a longer pole and higher grip.
And then there is her speed. She won the Valley League 200-meter dash and was among the section leaders in the 100-meter hurdles.
Competitive? She qualified for state by finishing second in the section meet despite battling the flu and then in the State Championships matched defending champion Emily Mattoon of RB and Santa Margarita’s Claire Hawkins vault for vault until she tried a personal best 13-4.
On her second attempt, Ross brushed the crossbar about as much as you can without bringing it down, looking up in disbelief when she landed in the pit.
“I hit it pretty good,” she said with a chuckle. “I landed in the pit and thought ‘Oh my God, it’s still up there.’ Then I scrambled out.”
Until the competitor exits the landing pit, the vault is not official.
Moving the bar up to 13-6, Ross acknowledged her three tries weren’t very good because of the adrenaline she had flowing through her body by that time.
No one would blame her if she focused only on the vault, but that’s not Ross, who is getting some coaxing by Wolverines coach Jamal Felton to think in terms of trying a heptathlon some day.
Ross said it won’t be this year, but, if Oregon needs her to do that, she would try as long as she was able to train for the “distance” race, the 800-meter run, which is the final event of the grueling seven-event competition.
“She could do that, in fact I think it could be her best event,” said Felton, who will assume the head coaching duties for this year at Westview. “She has jumped 16-11 in the long jump without any coaching or training and I know she could throw the javelin.”
Felton said Ross basically could do whatever she wanted in virtually any event.
“She has God-given talent for one,” he said, “and she wants to be great — not good — great. She’s proactive. You don’t have to tell her what to do. She will create her own plan to make something happen.
“She can be a 14-foot pole vaulter, no, she will be a 14-foot pole vaulter. She has that natural speed and she’s working on her technique. She’s way more confident now, but it remains to be seen if she has that inner fire.”
Ross can answer that question if she comes anywhere near her goals.
Along with 14-4 in the vault, she wants to be in the 24s in the 200 (her best is 25.10) and she has a time of somewhere in the 14s in the 100-meter hurdles (her best is 15.18).
Unlike last year, when she dropped everything else, she’d also like to compete in at least those three events at the state meet.
Basketball, volleyball, soccer coaches — they all look at Ross enviously, but she has no interest in playing those sports competitively. She hasn’t since being introduced to track as an eighth-grader.
“I found out I was fast, faster even than the boys back then,” Ross said. “Sometimes I ask myself ‘why track?’ but I have so much energy and it’s a ton of fun, especially the pole vault.”
So, isn’t it scary to catapult oneself into the stratosphere?
“The only time it’s scary is when you’re unsure of yourself,” said Ross, who certainly doesn’t lack confidence. “You go too fast to think about it once you start your run. Because I’m tall, I have a little more trouble with technique than smaller girls, but there are advantages, too.”
If you’re thinking 17-4 one day, maybe 14-4 doesn’t look so high right now.
