Apr 30, 2016 5 min read

McMURRAY – This is how you know you’re having a good day at the local track meet: you break the triple jump record on each of your three attempts.

Even more impressive is when that record was set by Brianna Liebold of Chartiers-Houston.

In 2006.

Koryn Jozwiakowski of Fort Cherry flew past the mark each time, establishing the record with a personal-best jump of 38-4 on the way to being named girls Field MVP at the Washington-Greene County Coaches Track Meet Saturday at Peters Township High School.

“I’ve done pretty decent here,” said Jozwiakowski, a senior who is headed to the University of New Hampshire next fall to jump and study genetics. “My coach told me the record is 37-5 and I told him I was going to get that today. I was hyped up. My first jump was 37-11 and I said, ‘OK, I got it.'”

Jozwiakowski has the longest triple jump in the WPIAL this year (38-4) and is in 19th place all-time. Only one WPIAL female, Nakita Lewis of South Park, has broken the 40-foot barrier (41-2 1/2) and she did it in 1998. That might be a bit out of reach, considering the season is winding down and there are few opportunities remaining. But the second-place distance of 39-11, set by Ursula Payne of Union in 1987, is less than two inches away. Much of the credit for Jozwiakowski’s improvement came when she made some adjustments to her technique.

“We cleaned up some stuff,” said Jozwiakowski, a four-time WPIAL qualifier and champion last year, and two-time state qualifier who was fourth last season.

“Last year, we were having an issue with my feet in the sand. My left foot would be something like five inches behind my right so I was losing distance.”

Nick Wolk’s preseason preparation is pretty simple. The Peters Township junior will run about 16 miles per week, then slowly scale back the workload as the track season progresses. It’s all about endurance for the distance runner who won the WPIAL Class AAA cross country championship last October and took fourth at the state meet.

He needed the endurance Saturday.

Wolk, who will run track and cross country at Pitt next year, competed in the 1,600-, 3,200- and 800-meter runs, as well as the 1,600-meter relay for the Indians. He finished first in the three individual events and Peters Township took fifth in the relay.

He ran a personal-best 4:21.46 in the 1,600 and grabbed gold medals in the 3,200 and 800 to earn boys overall MVP.

“I was just trying to stay relaxed,” Wolk said of the 3,200-meter run. “I was a little bit tired from the mile and the 800. I knew I had the 4×4 to run at the end, so I was just going for the win. I was going to let it go as slow as possible.”

Manasi Jadhav knows the pain of competition.

And it has nothing to do with winning or losing.

Jadhav, a junior from Peters Township, competes in the jumps and sprints with one herniated disc and two slipped discs in her lower back, not the optimal condition to the pounding one’s back takes in these events.

“I hurt my back in competitive gymnastics around seventh grade,” she said. “I quit gymnastics in eighth grade because it got so bad that I was probably going to need surgery if I kept going. Sometimes, I have so much adrenaline that it doesn’t hurt, but afterward, it hurts. It was from the wear and tear. My doctors don’t really want me to jump. They’re OK with me sprinting but they don’t want me to jump.”

Jadhav hit a 36-1 to take third place in the triple jump, three inches off her PR. Her long jump of 16-4 1/4 earned her fourth place and she also finished sixth in the 100 dash. She ran anchor on the fifth-place 400-meter relay team.

“My chiropractor thinks I’m too young to get surgery,” she said. “I might have to have it done later.”

Devon Brown always thought his path to a championship would be in the discus.

The Fort Cherry junior excelled in the event a year ago and continued to throw personal bests during the offseason, but an elbow injury sidetracked him.

It turned out that Brown was even better in the javelin. He threw a personal-best of 172 feet in a dual meet at McGuffey this season and continued his strong spring Saturday.

Brown won boys field MVP honors by taking first in the javelin with a throw of 162-0 and first in the discus with his fourth throw sailing 130-10.

“I’m comfortable. My elbow started to feell good today, so that’s a relief,” Brown said. “Going into qualifiers and the WPIAL championships, I feel pretty good. The javelin throw didn’t feel great, but I feel like once I start getting a hold of some I’ll be in good shape.”

McGuffey, which won four events, took home the team title in Class AA boys and Canon-McMillan earned the award in Class AAA. On the girls side, Fort Cherry finished first in Class AA and Peters Township was first in Triple-A.

Chloe Grzyb of Peters Township won the track MVP in girls and Eric Selby of Ringgold earned the honor for the boys.