Local Sports

Girls track stars ponder what might have been

April 25, 2020

As the eight fastest girls in Indiana make their way around the turn of the 200-meter final, Kiyah Yeast kicks into high gear and moves to the front of the pack. She leans forward into the finish line, cracking a smile as she looks to either side and realizes that she’s won the race, adding to the 100-meter title she claimed earlier in the evening.Just a few yards away on the infield, Center Grove teammate Taylor Jarosinski is putting the finishing touches on a convincing victory in the pole vault, merely competing against herself now as her vanquished foes watch in support as the bar goes higher and higher. In the adjacent high jump pit, Whiteland’s Isabella Jackson watches as her lone remaining opponent fails for the third and final time to match her most recent successful leap.Yes, the 2020 girls track season held boundless promise for Johnson County, with three local individuals harboring legitimate state championship aspirations and several other coming in with their hopes set nearly as high. But the COVID-19 outbreak chipped away at those golden dreams, first with incremental postponements and then finally with the pronouncement early this month that the entire spring sports season was being wiped away.By the time that door finally slammed shut for good, most people had long expected it.[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]"You started to see the writing on the wall, so it almost made it hard to get excited about stuff because you just had a feeling it was going to go away," Center Grove coach Wes Dodson said.Knowing that the season was probably never going to get going was a little less painful than having it yanked away in the middle, Dodson conceded, but it couldn’t completely numb the sting of losing what could have been the Trojans’ most successful season ever.After all, Center Grove had arguably the state’s top sprinter in Yeast, the Louisville-bound senior who finished third in the 100 last spring and had placed fourth in the 200 preliminaries before an injured hamstring forced her to limp to ninth in the final. There was also Jarosinski, who vaulted to a runner-up finish at 12 feet, 9 inches — a full foot higher than anyone else who was returning this season."It’s really easy to look at and say, ‘Man, maybe this was the year we were going to beat Warren in the regional.’ I basically told everybody I thought we were going to place top five in the state; we got eighth last year, and I thought we were really in a good place to be in the top five, and that’s obviously really disappointing."Jackson, who like Jarosinski is still just a junior, was third in the high jump last year and fifth in the 300 hurdles as a freshman. She also has to wait another year for her next — and last — shot at reaching the top of the podium."It’s maybe not as hard because she’s got another year," Whiteland coach Brandon Bangel said, "but I’ve also been in this business long enough to know that these opportunities don’t come along very often, so the more chances she has to win it, the better for her — and this obviously takes away an opportunity in the high jump and possibly the 300 hurdles. You never know year to year what’s going to happen."Jackson says she’s trying to work through the disappointment and keep training for whatever competition might be next, whether that comes this summer or not until 2021."It’s definitely hard," she said, "because looking forward to the state meet is what pushes me all year, and not having that’s definitely tough, and not knowing when I’m going to be able to compete again is tough, but I’ve just got to continue to have a positive mindset and work hard like I still have a season."I feel like going into my senior year, I’m going to be ready to compete and be much more eager to get back out on the track again — and hopefully get some state titles."Jackson has been running on open tracks when she can find one, as well as lifting weights on her own at home, doing the workouts that Bangel has sent her. Exercising without any coaches or teammates to push her has been tough, but Jackson has been trying to make the most of the situation, using visions of 2021 success to propel her forward.The same goes for Jarosinski, who can’t vault anywhere but has been doing hill sprints at Craig Park in Greenwood as well as working with short 3- or 4-foot pole fragments called "stubbies" to maintain the feel of running with a pole in your hands — which, she says, "is actually more helpful than you think."Also helpful has been film study."I have probably over 500 videos of myself vaulting from meets and practices and stuff," Jarosinski said, "so going back and watching those over and over again and just trying to feel it as I do it; visualization is huge, just to keep my head in the game and kind of keep the movements as muscle memory."Jarosinski and Jackson will both be back in their respective high school uniforms next spring, and they’ll go into their senior seasons as either a clear state favorite or one of a select few on the short list of contenders, depending on the event.Yeast, on the other hand, won’t get another chance to chase a high school sprinting crown; she’ll be competing next year at the University of Louisville. Though she’s glad to still have four more years of racing in front of her, Yeast leaves behind a coach who knows it might be quite some time before he has another runner of her caliber."You don’t get a girl like that every other day, especially at Center Grove," Dodson said of Yeast. "Her records are going to stand for a long time."Jackson and Jarosinski were hoping to set or improve upon a few records of their own this season, but they’ll now have to wait another year to do so. They’re using the disappointment of this lost season to fuel them until then — knowing that all of their fellow competitors are in the same boat but not all will maximize the extra time off."This is a time when we can either fold and be upset about it and stop training, or we can rise above and use it as motivation to come back stronger next year," Jarosinski said. "It’s a trying time, and the athletes that choose to work through it are going to come out better, and the ones that don’t are going to suffer."

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