SHIPPENSBURG — Emily Leatherman’s legs ached after covering 2,000 yards in seven minutes, 17.98 seconds Saturday, faster than the 27 other girls who entered the unconventional event at Saturday’s Jack Roddick High School Invitational at Shippensburg University. Leatherman’s socks were soaked on the Seth Grove Stadium infield, a parting gift from the signature steeplechase water jump. Her ears still rang with the shouts of dozens of her peers from across the state who lined the track’s bend below the scoreboard to see the competitors clear the hurdle and make the splash into the puddle during each of the five full laps.
Leatherman couldn’t have been happier.
“It’s awesome,” the Carlisle senior said. “It’s the most fun track event I’ve ever done. You never see people gather around to watch stuff like this. They cheer when you jump well, and they boo when you jump badly, so you’ve got to perform.”
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Leatherman’s performance led to a gold medal at Saturday’s 97th Roddick Invitational. So did the efforts from East Pennsboro’s Jasmina Nicholson (high jump) and Mechanicsburg’s Maria Clark (discus) on a bright but cool and blustery day for Sentinel-area girls.
Leatherman had thought about the invitational and the rare chance to run the steeplechase since she finished second in last year’s 2,000-meter race, good enough to qualify for nationals last June.
“There really was more pressure because I did well last year,” she said. “I was like, ‘Aw, crap, now I actually have to do well this year. It isn’t for fun.’”
There was still room for fun for Leatherman, who passed Peters Township’s Sydney Shock about halfway through the race and held off the field. Shock finished second (7:22.26) while Wilson’s Avery Errico took third (7:33.03), and Cumberland Valley’s Kennedy Lauer and Meryn Boardman shattered the previous school record of 8:10.02 with their fourth- (7:42.06) and fifth-place (7:49.03) performances.
“I liked that it’s kind of something fun to do,” said Lauer, a sophomore whose training involved clearing a couple of hurdles at practice and getting a feel for the steeplechase’s lower, wider hurdles on the stadium infield Saturday. “Instead of thinking about running the whole time, there’s always a hurdle for you to kind of get over. Obviously you’re nervous you might fall, but it’s kind of a relief once you get over each hurdle.”
Like Lauer, Leatherman didn’t have much steeplechase-specific practice, but her experience in the event, as well as stretches that prepared her for both distance running and hurdle jumping, helped carry her to the win.
“It was good,” she said. “It was tiring. I always forget that it’s just so much harder to run when you have to jump over stuff.”
Record performance for Nicholson
“Jumping over stuff” has been more of an area of expertise for Nicholson, who won the Mid-Penn’s high jump title last year as a junior. Last week, she broke the East Pennsboro high jump record of 5 feet, 2 inches by clearing 5-3 in a win at Northern’s Arctic Blast Invitational.
The record lasted a week.
Nicholson soared over the bar at 5-4 Saturday, earning her the win over a field that included five other girls who cleared 5-2, including Northern’s Aubrey Stuckey.
“I don’t think I’ve had a jump that felt like that in a while,” Nicholson said of clearing the bar on her second attempt at 5-4. “It’s always been small things that I’ve needed to tweak, like my feet hang too low, or sometimes, even my hair just hits. But that one just felt like it was smooth sailing.”
It hadn’t always been smooth sailing for the Panther senior. She missed on her first attempt at 4-8.
“I think I was kind of in a funk a little bit before,” she said, “but after that, I think it was the overall motivator. It was ‘Try harder, run harder and get there.’”
Focusing on moving back and gaining speed, Nicholson cleared the bar on three of her next four attempts. After she clinched the gold, she moved the bar up another inch to 5-5 and felt good about her attempts despite the three misses.
“Five-five doesn’t seem impossible anymore,” she said. “I know last year, I was only a 5-1 jumper, so I’ve made a huge improvement from last year. It feels great.”
Clark rebounds for gold
A few hours before she stepped into the discus throwing circle just outside Seth Grove Stadium, Clark had just missed the cut for the day’s shot put final.
“It was one of those things that pushed me to do better,” the Wildcat senior said. “I hadn’t done so well with shot, but my coach has said it’s been one of the most competitive years he’s seen. I obviously know some of the other people, and I was happy to see them succeed, even if I didn’t.”
During the afternoon’s field events, it was Clark’s turn to succeed. She took a lead right away when her first throw sailed 123-2. Her third throw went 123-11. Lancaster Catholic’s Margaret Bila hit 123-10 in the same round, but no thrower was able to reach Clark’s best offering of the day.
“I didn’t hit quite the numbers I was hoping to hit,” Clark said, “but I had a good day and obviously some good tosses.”
More medals, notes
Boiling Springs’ Molly Kimmel raced to third place in the girls 100-meter hurdles, finishing at 15.77 from the inside lane on the final heat. She also anchored the Bubblers’ 4x100-meter relay, which won the second of five heats and finished 14th overall at 51.97.
Cumberland Valley’s Quincey Robertson broke 60 seconds to finish third (59.64) in the 400-meter dash.
Northern junior Anna Lehman took third place in the 800-meter run at 2:18.1 behind seniors Maddie Miller of West Chester Rustin (2:14.3) and Kate Moncavage of Southern Columbia (2:14.8).
Carlisle sophomore Ana Bondy opened the day with a third-place finish in the 3,200-meter run (11:07.61). She was seeded 12th (11:24.06).
With her 12th-place finish in the 1,600-meter run, Trinity’s Lila Shore posted a time of 5:14.55, breaking a school record of 5:16.49 set in 2014 by Emily Dethlefs.
Spring Grove won the team title with 54 total points.
Tim Gross is the sports editor at The Sentinel and cumberlink.com. Email him at tgross@cumberlink.com and follow him on Twitter at: @ByTimGross