Congratulations Danielle
Here's a nice article that came out Saturday, before the meet. It looks like the meet was the Varsity Classic at the Armory.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports ... 897810.htm
Posted on Sat, Feb. 07, 2004
She's a pole apart in the vault
Shawnee's Danielle O'Reilly has the state mark and is aiming higher.
By Josh Egerman
Inquirer Suburban Staff
In class, her eyes drift to the ceiling. Eight feet high. I can clear that easily, she says to herself.
On a playground, she walks past a basketball rim. Ten feet. Piece of cake, she thinks.
Driving on the highway, she sees the road sign and the thought is a little different.
"The bridges, where it says 13-6 clearance. It's 'I know someone who can do that,' " Shawnee senior Danielle O'Reilly said.
That someone has always been a boy. By Monday night, that someone could also be her.
On Jan. 29, she cleared 13 feet for the first time, breaking her own state record and matching the best vault in the nation this season by a high school girl. Monday at the Varsity Classic at the Armory in Manhattan, she hopes to move the bar to 13-5, a half-inch higher than the national high school indoor record set last year by Kira Costa of Fresno, Calif.
"I want to go for the national record, 13-41/2. That's the next goal, and after that there will be more goals," O'Reilly, 18, said. "It depends on how I feel in practice and how comfortable I get on the pole, but I think I can do it."
That O'Reilly is in a position to set national records less than three years after taking up the sport is a testament to both her talents and the event's relative infancy as a sport for girls.
The National Federation of High School Associations started tracking the national record for girls' pole vault in 1995. According to an NFHS survey, 25 states recognized the event in 1999. In the 2004 survey, that number grew to 38 states.
The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association had the event at the state championships for the first time in spring 2001, O'Reilly's freshman year, but it wasn't divided by group and it didn't count toward team scoring. The following spring, it was divided by groups, but still didn't score. Last year, it was a full-fledged event for the first time. Although there are several meets during the indoor season where pole vault is contested, the event is not part of the indoor state championship meet, for girls or boys.
"Now that it's counting, it'll be a real event in high school just like it is for the boys," O'Reilly said. "Girls are going to know it's available to them. I don't think they really know yet."
But, they're starting to get the word, and that is, in part, due to O'Reilly's success and the attention she has received.
Shawnee had a spring track meeting last week and three girls told her they want to give it a try.
"A girl came up to me and was like, 'Are you the one that pole vaults? I'm going to do it, too,' " O'Reilly said. "She's like a little sophomore and she's going to come out and do it and there are two other freshmen who are going to try."
When O'Reilly began, she had to be recruited by Mike Yurcho, a track assistant who coaches the pole vault. He went to the school's gymnastics coach looking for a pole vaulter or two and found O'Reilly, who was planning on running for the track team.
"I'd seen it on TV, but I never really paid attention to it," O'Reilly said. "I didn't know anything about it. I don't know if I even knew girls did it."
She found the sport awkward at first, but after a couple of months, she had gone over 10 feet. She was frustrated staying at that height all season, but was hooked on the sport.
As a sophomore, she cleared 12-6. Her growth was stymied last year by a bout with mononucleosis, but by the summer, she was back up to 12-6.
She began training at High Performance Athletic Company, an indoor facility in Mount Laurel, when it opened last Feb. 28. Now coached by her father, Danny, she trains there twice a week, being pushed by a few of the boys and pulling along the girls.
"I saw Danielle go high and I was like, 'Whoa, we [girls] can really do this,' " said Samantha Adams of Mickleton (Gloucester County), a senior at Padua Academy in Delaware, where she holds the state record of 9-9.
The boys, too, have taken note of O'Reilly's heights.
"It's really impressive to see her do it," said Vineland senior John Gage, who cleared 14-0 last spring, but has been slowed by injuries this season. "She's always been one of the best in Jersey and this year she's just taking off."
When Gage said one of the best in the state, he was referring to girls. But this year, she's simply been one of best, regardless of gender. In South Jersey, only three boys have cleared 13-0 at a meet this season.
She sees the boys as competition at practice, but she is waiting to be pushed in a meet.
"When you get to the good meets where the good vaulters are, that's the competition," said O'Reilly, who has made official college visits to North Carolina, Villanova and Buffalo. "I'm looking forward to Monday. There'll be good people there. Monday's a good opportunity and if it (setting the national record) doesn't happen, then I'll just try again."
If she gets the record, it will be just another mark. Just because she might be the best high school girls' pole vaulter in the nation - ever - is no reason to get an inflated ego, she said.
"I don't even think of it as a big thing. It's just normal. Everyone says, 'She's so nonchalant about it.' But I don't want to be cocky about it," she said. "That's just how I am. I just keep working. That's how I keep going higher."