By Gargoyle sports staff

Posted Monday, March 12, 2007, The OG, sports

UNTIL THIS YEAR, the Uni High girls track team didn't compete in pole vaulting.

But that was before senior Paige Martin came along.

“I've been kind of obsessed with pole vaulting for a while, but I'd never had the chance to compete,” Martin told the Gargoyle in September. “So I decided to compete this summer.”

Paige Martin competes last summer in

Greensboro, N.C. (photo courtesy Paige

Martin) (click to enlarge)

Martin trained two or three times a week and participated in meets on the weekends. The practice paid off in late June with a sixth-place finish at the 2006 Youth Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Greensboro, N.C. Martin vaulted 9 feet, 6.25 inches at that meet.

Now the effect has carried over into the 2007 Uni indoor track season.

As the Illineks' first female pole vaulter, Martin has already qualified for the state's most prestigious winter-season track meet, the Illinois Prep Top Times Indoor Classic — the indoor equivalent of the IHSA outdoor state meet.

Martin qualified for the March 30 IPTT event by vaulting 9 feet, 9 inches at Saturday's Charleston Girls Indoor Invitational.

She placed third in Class A and exceeded the IPTT qualifying mark by 15 inches. In fact, Martin broke the meet record of 9 feet, 3 inches along with the other girls in the top three.

Also at Charleston, Uni's 3,200-meter relay team of junior Shivani Khanna, sophomore Elaine Gu, senior Aria Collopy, and junior Ruthie Welch placed fourth in a Class A field of 27 teams. The Illinek squad ran a season-best time of 10 minutes, 30.4 seconds — 17.54 seconds faster than the IPTT qualifying time of 10:47.94.

The performance was actually icing on the cake for the 4x800 squad, which had qualified for the IPTT Indoor Classic three days earlier with a time of 10:41.6 at a University of Illinois Armory meet.

Last year, the 4x800 team of Khanna, Gu, Josie Chambers (now graduated), and Laura Hazlett (since moved) finished ninth out of 16 qualifying teams at the IPTT event, running 10:29.12.

Individually at Charleston, Khanna and Welch each made the IPTT cut in the 800 run. Khanna placed sixth out of 56 runners with a time of 2:34.07, while Welch finished just a split second behind her teammate, earning 7th with a time of 2:34.08. The qualifying time was 2:34.14.

In the overall Charleston standings, Uni placed 20th out of 55 teams (both Class A and AA), and 10th out of 33 Class A squads.

Although nobody else among the Illineks qualified for IPTT during the Charleston meet, several Uni athletes turned in notable performances.

Sophomore Lizzy Warner placed 5th out of 30 runners in the 400 dash. Warner turned in a time of 1:05.36 — just 1.42 seconds away from qualifying.

In the 1,600 run, Gu finished ninth out of 56 runners (5:58.05), while freshman Elizabeth Russell placed 14th (6:08.63). The IPTT qualifying time is 5:40.14.

In the 1,600 relay, the Uni squad of Warner, sophomore Rachel Skoza, Khanna, and Collopy placed 11th out of 29 teams. Their time of 4:39.08 was about 10 seconds shy of the IPTT standard of 4:29.64

Three days earlier, on Wednesday, both the Uni girls and boys teams participated in a meet at the U of I Armory. Unlike a typical meet, such as the Charleston Girls Invitational, the Armory times aren't official. But if the event was any indication of how the boys team will do throughout the season, then there is a lot to look forward to.

The boys 3,200 relay squad of juniors Austin Rundus and Jacob Olshanksy and sophomores Isaac Chambers and Malcolm Taylor ran a time of 8:59, which missed the boys Class A IPTT qualifying mark by about 11 seconds.

Last year, the 4x800 team of Rundus, Taylor, and then-seniors Kangway Chuang and Cameron Cropek placed fourth out of 12 qualifying teams at the IPTT event, running 8:25.27.

Meanwhile, the 1,600 relay team finished strong as well, with Rundus, Olshansky, Chambers, and Taylor clocking in at 3:48.8, about 5 seconds off the pace for the IPTT.

The Illineks will participate in the Charleston Boys Indoor Invitational on Saturday.

The IPTT Class A Indoor Classic will be held for all qualifying male and female athletes at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington.

INDOOR TRACK: OFFICIAL MEET RESULTS

(The times at most of Uni's indoor meets are unofficial and not included here)

March 10: Charleston Girls Indoor Invitational

TEAM FINISH: 10th out of 33 (Class A); 20th out of 55 (both Class A and AA)

INDIVIDUAL RESULTS (all results are against Class A competition):

— 55m dash: Rachel Skoza, 35th (out of 55), 00:8.50; Rachel Harmon, 48th, 00:8.85

— 200m dash: Cheyenne Stewart, 27th (out of 32), 00:32.19

— 400m dash: Lizzy Warner, 5th (out of 30), 1:05.36

— 800m run: Shivani Khanna, 6th (out of 56), 2:34.07 *; Ruthie Welch, 7th, 2:34.08 *

— 1,600m run: Elaine Gu 9th (out of 56), 5:58.05; Elizabeth Russell, 14th, 6:08.63

— 55m hurdles: Paige Martin, 14th (out of 37), 00:10.11

— 4x200m relay: Uni (Harmon, Katherine Allen, Angie Jin, Skoza), 29th (out of 34), 2:09.56

— 4x400m relay: Uni (Warner, Skoza, Khanna, Aria Collopy), 11th (out of 29), 4:39.08

— 4x800m relay: Uni (Khanna, Gu, Collopy, Welch), 4th (out of 27), 10:30.24 *

— Pole vault: Paige Martin, 3rd (out of 10), 9 feet, 9 inches *

*Qualified for Illinois Prep Top Times Indoor Classic, March 30, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington

ILLINOIS PREP TOP TIMES INDOOR CLASSIC QUALIFYING STANDARDS

— Girls 55m dash: 00:7.84

— Girls 200m dash: 00:28.44

— Girls 400m dash: 1:03.94

— Girls 800m run: 2:34.14

— Girls 1,600m run: 5:40.14

— Girls 55m hurdles: 00:9.74

— Girls 4x200m relay: 1:55.54

— Girls 4x400m relay: 4:29.64

— Girls 4x800m relay: 10:47.94

— Girls pole vault: 8ft, 6in

— Boys 55m dash: 00:6.84

— Boys 400m dash: 00:53.14

— Boys 800m run: 2:04.64

— Boys 1,600m run: 4:42.14

— Boys 3,200m run: 10:20.64

— Boys 4x200m relay: 1:37.94

— Boys 4x400m relay: 3:43.14

— Boys 4x800m relay: 8:48.64

— Boys long jump: 20ft, 6in/6.24m

— Boys triple jump: 39ft, 9in/12.11m