May 28, 2016 4 min read

SHIPPENSBURG – It was the feeling of disbelief that motivated Koryn Jozwiakowski during winter workouts.

When the weather was unseasonably warm in December and January, the Fort Cherry High School senior was outside at the nearest available track with her jumps coach, Kevin Center, working on every aspect of the triple jump.

At the top of the list: mentally preparing for the inevitable frustration of a championship meet and most importantly, landing.

It was Jozwiakowski’s long pony tail that cost her a gold medal at the PIAA Track & Field Championships last May. As she landed in the sand pit on a jump that potentially would have won the gold on her first attempt, Jozwiakowski’s pony tail made an impression in the sand almost two feet behind where her front foot landed. It led to a fourth-place finish.

With the ponytail trimmed significantly and the New Hampshire recruit looking very much like a veteran of the state meet, Jozwiakowski won the Class AA triple jump title with a jump of 37-9 on her third attempt Saturday at Shippensburg University.

It is the fourth state title in five years for Fort Cherry.

Jozwiakowski was the leader after a jump of 37-2 on her first attempt and she took a considerable lead after leaping seven inches farther in her final jump of the preliminaries.

“Everything kind of clicked,” Jozwiakowski said of the winning jump. “I had good speed through my phases. I fixed my landing a little bit so that I wouldn’t have the issue with the hair and I stayed straight. When I popped out of the sand, I thought, ‘OK, that’s close to a 38, so I was happy with that.'”

Trimming the pony tail helped, but it was the offseason workouts that really spurred Jozwiakowski to beat last year’s jump by almost a foot. She came in as the second seed behind Lindsay Bauer of Salisbury Township, but Jozwiakowski was the favorite after her first jump.

She improved on that first attempt of the preliminaries by five inches before hitting 37-9, landing in the sand pit with her back heels and rocking her body forward to avoid a bad mark.

Jozwiakowski and Center ensured a bad landing wouldn’t cost her again.

“Today, she did everything she’s supposed to do to a T,” Center said. “If (Bauer) had jumped a 38, I think Koryn would have pulled through and made it happen, to be honest. That’s how I wanted it to end.”

He wasn’t the only one. Bauer, who jumped 38-8 at the District 11 Championships, fouled twice and jumped 36-5 in the preliminaries to reach the finals.

Some athletes might root for their opponents to fail. Not Jozwiakowski. She wanted Bauer to hit 38 feet. Though Bauer jumped 37-5 to secure second place, she fell short in her final attempt of the finals.

“I was gunning for her,” Jozwiakowski said. “I wanted her to jump a 38 because I always do well whenever I have competition and I have someone who jumps farther than me. That gives me all the motivation and adrenaline.”

Jozwiakowski only has to look in the mirror at the back of her head for motivation.

She jumped 37-3¼ in her first attempt of the finals and fouled on the second, but her competition failed to reach 37-9.

Her final jump wouldn’t determine whether or not she would take home the gold medal, but she had one number in mind: 38. Jozwiakowski fouled on the final attempt, causing her to laugh as she walked out of the pit, but with her family and coaches cheering from the bleachers, she was finally able to raise her arms in victory.

“I was really just trying to go for it that time,” Jozwiakowski said. “I wanted to get into the 38s and I knew I had it won, so I had nothing to lose, but I fouled by a lot. I thought, ‘I’m going to bail out on this and take the gold.'”