Logan Pfibsen (IL) goes after junior high state record

[rainbowgirl28]

http://mywebtimes.com/ottnews/archives/ ... &id=259937

JUNIOR HIGH TRACK AND FIELD: Raising the bar: Pole vaulter aims for state record

J.T. PEDELTY, jtpedelty@mywebtimes.com, (815) 431-4083

STREATOR -- He backtracks, counting his steps, then settles for a few seconds and takes a deep, readying breath.
And then a full sprint down the runway, 80, 90, maybe 100 feet. He thrusts the fiberglass pole clutched in his hand into the plant box and goes skyward, whipping through the air and toward the crossbar that is suspended 11 feet above where his feet were were firmly planted just a fraction of a second before.

Then he is over, soaring, flying freely for the briefest of seconds before gravity does what it does best, tugging the 14-year-old down suddenly and crashing him into the soft padding of what those in the sport call "the pit."

His name is Logan Pflibsen, and he is heading to State in the pole vault. But the Streator St. Anthony track and fielder is setting the bar a little higher.

Pflibsen is hoping to challenge for the junior high state pole vaulting record this weekend when he travels down to East Peoria's Eastside Centre for the 2006 IESA Track and Field State Championships. His high vault Saturday at the sectional held at Streator High School Athletic Fields was 11 feet even, a full 24 inches above the state-qualifying height of nine feet, but 10 inches short of the current IESA Class A record.

He's reached 12 feet in practice, and he's made 11 feet 6 inches in competition before ... but not on Saturday.

On Saturday -- with onlookers crowded around the interior fence and cheering him on -- Pflibsen first cleared the state-qualifying height of nine feet with little trouble, then tried for 11 even.

His first attempt sees Pflibsen crash into the bar and down into the pit, and as he gathers himself he stares at his hands with slight but obvious discomfort. Something went wrong.

"You've got to apply everything," Pflibsen said, "do everything right to have a good (vault). If you do, it's awesome. But if one thing's wrong ..."

After a successful soar at 11 feet and miss at 12 feet -- two inches above the current state record -- the bar is lowered to 11 feet 6 inches and something else goes wrong. The pole bends backward a bit too far, and Pflibsen is brought crashing down not to the soft padding of the pit, but onto the grass which runs on either side of the narrow blacktop runway.

He gets up quickly and is OK, but even this routine day has shown why the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina in 2002 declared the pole vault the most dangerous event of those it has researched, saying that since 1983 an average of one person a year has died performing track and field's exciting but dangerous high-flying act.

"At first I was a little leery about him doing it," said Logan's mother, Nancy, who has since been reassured by Logan's natural ability in the event as well as the coaching he's received from his coaches, offseason private lessons and at the National Pole Vaulting Summit in Reno, Nev., over the winter. "But it doesn't really matter what I say about it. He doesn't have any fear, he wants to do it, he's very athletic, and he's really taken to it.

"It's one of those things where I think the danger might be part of what attracted him to it."

Pflibsen -- who was the only pole vault competitor at Saturday's 13-school sectional -- certainly seems to have some daredevil in him.

"Last year my coach asked if anyone wanted to try the pole vault, and I was like, 'Sure, I'll do it.' And I liked it right away," he said.

"(The danger) is part of it. All the coaches I've had have been kind of nervous about it, which makes it a little more fun."