Feature

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BY CRAIG CRAKER
ccraker@oaoa.com

Pole vaulting is all about a hundred little things being lined up perfectly to launch the vaulter high in the air and over the bar.

On Saturday, Summer Sutherland had something out of whack.

Rather than ditch her attempt, the Crane High School junior stuck the pole in, soared into the air and cleared 11 feet.

It wasn’t picture perfect.

In fact, she corkscrewed over the bar.

Her athleticism and strength helped her do something not many can do.

A few minutes later, she cleared 11 feet, 6 inches — a height good enough to finish second at the Class 2A state meet last season, if she would have participated.

One reason Sutherland didn’t vault at state last season is because she picked the sport up last summer and had never competed in an event until the Comanche Relays in Fort Stockton on Saturday.

“As far as going over a bar for the first time, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Crane head coach Henry Anderson said. “I don’t think anyone has.”

Sutherland started doing drills last summer, working with her boyfriend Chad Aguilar and his dad Tony Aguilar.

She’s a quick learner, which has helped her go so high so soon.

“As many years as I’ve been vaulting, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Chad Aguilar, who won the Class 2A state title last season and now competes for Abilene Christian University. “Last year at state track I saw a girl go 13-7, but she’s been vaulting a while. To see someone that has been vaulting maybe a half a year and come out and jump 11-6 ... it was real amazing.”

It hasn’t hurt that Sutherland has been studiously watching Chad compete the two years they have been dating and had memorized many of the skills she would eventually put into practice.

“It wasn’t very hard,” Sutherland said. “I caught on really quick from watching Chad. I just had to put it into practice.”

Now, Sutherland must sharpen her skills to have a chance at a state title.

“It comes down to techniques,” said Anderson, who has been working with vaulters for 25 years. “She’s picked up so many of the hardest things, it is just technical things now. In the pole vault you have to have the feel and she already has it. The sky is the limit.”

Sutherland didn’t vault last summer, she just worked on drills — over and over and over.
All that work is paying off.

“I was very surprised,” Sutherland said. “It was way shocking and so exciting. No one was expecting it.”

Sutherland already has broken her own personal record, clearing 12 feet at practice on Thursday, thanks to a pair of new poles.

“She’s still learning and has a whole lot to learn,” Aguilar said. “She still doesn’t really know what to do when she gets up on top on the pole. Once she figures that out, there is no telling how high she will go.

“This is just the beginning of her pole vaulting career. That 11-6 won’t be anything by the end of the year.”

 

Somewhere in there I think I read where this girl, in her first competiton, cleared 11-6.
If that is the case, you took far too long to get to the meat of the story here.

 

Mr Craker,

One clunky line ... She didn't "pick up the sport ..."

You'd say that she "had never tried the event" (if it's just pole vault you're talking about). If it's track in general -- which I don't think is what you're getting at -- you'd say that she never "went out for track." I'd sorta like it if you said that the only pole she ever picked up was a sailor on the SS Pulaski, but I digress.

YD&OHS, etc