Wow! What a fantastic spring season! This was by far our strongest year yet. We had 15 boys over 13’ and 15 girls over 10’. Some of you may remember when we were lucky to have 2 boys/ girls over those respective heights. Moving into the summer, I want to make sure the club fits everyone’s schedules as best as possible. We also have a full slate of summer meets lined up that should provide even more excitement. This is going to be a longer blog, but I urge you to at least read the section regarding the summer schedule. Lets break it all down!
A Spring to Remember
As I wrote above, this season was bonkers! We had a 17’er, 2 boys over 16’, 4 boys over 15’, 8 over 14’, and 15 over 13’. On the girls side, we had 2 girls over 12’, 9 over 11’ and 15 over 10’. QCVA added 2 new state champions to the books, 13 top 8 state finishes and 24 state qualifiers (11 Ohio, 12 Kentucky, 1 West Virginia). Here is a breakdown of our All-State athletes:
Girls
Claire Iaciofano (Ohio D1 Champ)
Samantha Ringhand (Ohio D2 Runner-up)
Anna Curtsinger (Kentucky A 4th)
Brooke Hollenkamp (Kentucky AAA 5th)
Boys
Grant Harrison (Ohio D2 Champ)
Curtis Rempe (Ohio D2 3rd)
Luke Schnieber (Ohio D3 3rd)
Noah Everett (Kentucky A 3rd)
Tyler Braun (Kentucky A 4th)
Wyatt Colonel (West Virginia AAA 5th)
Jonah Dangel (Ohio D1 7th)
Gabe Grinsteinner (Kentucky A 7th)
Paul Klosinski (Kentucky AA 8th)
In addition to all that fun, multiple club records were shattered all season (Not to mention, plenty of school records, but I don’t have the patience to count all those up):
Claire Iaciofano – 12’7” (QCVA HS, D1, Sophomore)
Samantha Ringhand – 12’1” (D2, Senior)
Grant Harrison – 17’0” (D2, Junior) Ohio D2 State Record
Luke Schnieber – 14’9” (D3, Freshman)
It is amazing how deep the club has become. It is easy to see that the competitive environment that QCVA has created in the Tri-state area has pushed its athletes to new boundaries. Once an athlete hits a milestone, it pushes the other vaulters to work harder and catch up, resulting in some BIG jumps. Many of those records above were almost a foot higher than the previous record, and that is largely because everyone was pushing each other all year. Thank you to all our seniors who set the tone for this year. Your leadership has helped build future for the younger vaulters.
***Summer Practice Schedule***
Upon looking over the results from this weeks survey, I have come up with the schedule for the summer. We will be bringing back workout/ conditioning day as well as adding new practice times. We will now have weekday practices that begin at 10 AM on some days and the latest we will have practice is till 8 PM. For beginners, we will be adding a Thursday evening practice. Reminder, beginners practices are intended to get vaulters ready to bend poles and to quickly learn our system so that they can join the regular practices in the fall. Below is the tentative schedule.
Again, this schedule is subject to change. An example of that would be if a practice consistently has only 1 to 2 vaulters in it. In that situation, that time slot may be removed. I am always open to suggestions for improvements to the schedule. If there is a group of 4 to 5 that are willing to commit to a particular time/ day that is not currently on the schedule, I am willing to consider adding that block. I will also be lowering the max class size from 15 to 12 for the summer since there are plenty of options.
Strength and conditioning practices are back again. These practices are designed to help athletes get faster and stronger for the coming year. These practices can be tough, but if athletes stick to them, they should see the benefits come indoor. These practices will vary from conditioning, to sprint work, to plyometrics, to weight training and more. Feel free to ask for more information.
Summer Meet Schedule
Our Summer series is back! We have a packed schedule for the summer, full of in-house meets, as well as travel meets.
Poles, Pies and Party!
This summer we are introducing our Poles, Pies and Party Meets (PPP Meet). These meets are for club members only and are intended to help vaulters get to know other vaulters in the club. The competition rules will vary depending on the meet (Info on each will be listed). After the competition has concluded, we will have pizza delivered and we will keep our doors open till 11pm. During the post competition time, vaulters are encouraged to meet others and take advantage of the other fun things we have at the club (Ping pong, Billiards, Pickleball, Darts, or just hang out). Here is a breakdown of the different PPP Meets. Meet 1 will require that all vaulters straight pole from 3 lefts using their nondominant hand. Meet 2 will be a 3 vaulter relay. During warmups, the athletes will interact with each other and form teams of 3. Once a team is formed, they will decide who will straight pole from 3 lefts, who will jump (bent pole) from 3 lefts, and who will jump from 5 lefts. The highest combined height will win. Meet 3 is our annual mystery bar competition. In brief, vaulters are not intended to know what heights they are jumping at. The hope is that if they don’t know what bar they are jumping at, they wont get nervous when jumping at a potential PR. The last one, Meet 4, will be the only one on a Saturday and will also just be a standard meet to wrap up the summer.
2nd Annual QCVA Prom
QCVA Prom is also back for its 3rd instalment. Registration for the meet closes 2 days before the meet so that all vaulters can be seeded and assigned their “dates”. For those newer to the club, QCVA prom is a meet where vaulters are assigned a “date” and they compete in a relay meet with that vaulter. The team with the highest combined height are crowned QCVA Prom King/Queen (or Kings/ Queens if they are both boys or girls). Top three teams round out our QCVA Prom Court. Vaulters are encouraged to dress up and even coordinate with their “dates”. Food, drinks and snacks are provided!
Full Schedule
We are also traveling back to our favorite summer meets. More info on those will be coming out in another post. We will have links to the meet registrations soon. As for our whole summer meet schedule, here it is:
June 14th – PPP Meet 1 (Non-Dom 3 Left Comp)
June 22nd – 2nd Annual QCVA Prom
June 28th – PPP Meet 2 (3Lsp, 3Lbp, 5L Relay)
July 5th – PPP Meet 3 (Mystery Bar Comp)
July 12th-13th – Grand Haven, MI Beach Vault
July 27th-28th – New Jersey Beach Vault (Coach Josh)
July 27th – Frankfort Hotdog Fest (Coach K) --Tentative--
August 3rd – Indiana State Fair
August 10th PPP Meet 4 (End of Summer Comp)
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