Bearcat Track & Field News
New approach helps carry KHS’ Bolin to new height [04/08/2010]
By Kearney Hub - BUCK MAHONEY Hub Sports Editor
KEARNEY — In pole vaulting, like many sports, you sometimes have to take a step backward to go forward.
After starting the season clearing 14 feet at the UNK Indoor Invitational, Kearney High pole vaulter Paul Bolin only made it over the bar at 13-0 at the Kearney High Indoor.
Blame it on the pole.
“I was doing something with my approach,” Bolin explained. “I was trying to get more of a fluent approach so I could get faster so I could get on the bigger poles.”
Bigger poles, though harder to bend, have more of launching effect, helping vaulters go higher and higher.
At last week’s Columbus Invitational, Bolin rode one of those bigger poles to a height of 14-6, just two inches below his personal record set at last year’s state meet. His mark easily leads the pole vault in the first Kearney Hub regional track leaders charts.
“I’m starting to get everything put together,” Bolin said. “I think it’s going to be a good year.”
Bolin finished third at the state meet last year and is the top returning finisher this year. That finish has brought a little bit of pressure, he admits, to “stay on top and help get points for the team.” But he’s ready for that, and his goal is to stay among the best vaulters in the state.
He has his sights set on going higher because, he says, that’s the best part of pole vaulting.
“There’s no other event in track where you get to fly up 14, 15 feet in the air. … It’s very exciting just to be able to make your body fly that high,” he said.
In the initial Hub Territory track leaders’ charts, Kearney High’s Jacob Olson (1,600 and 3,200) and Brandon Landanger (110-meter high hurdles and 300-meter intermediate hurdles) are double event leaders.
S-E-M’s Jake Rohde tops three events with the best marks in the high jump, long jump and triple jump.
Gibbon’s Jericca Pearson and Holdrege’s Miranda Karn each lead two events in the girls listings. Pearson has the top performances in the 200 and the triple jump, while Karn tops the list in the 800 and the 1,600.