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First Posted: 7/17/2013
With caution.
That’s how the Hanover Area track and field coaching staff guided Olivia Jendrezjewski to two state medals.
Her back aching with every painstaking triple jump and every high jump landing, Jendrezjewski went beyond expectations for an athlete that missed her junior season. She won district gold in the high jump and triple jump, placed eighth in the triple jump, and earned a silver medal at the PIAA Class 2A State Championship.
Those efforts earned Jendrezjewski The Times Leader’s girls track Most Valuable Player award.
“She’s probably the best jumper we’ve ever had at Hanover Area,” Hawkeyes coach Al Weston said. “She’s the type of athlete you never forget. What she did this year was amazing.”
An athlete who often participated in dance, gymnastics, and track and field all in the same day, Jendrezjewski fractured her back in gymnastics during her sophomore year. The pain was too much to bear during her junior season, forcing her to sit out and wear a back brace for three months. The pain still existed as a senior but she pulled through it to one of the more memorable postseason runs in school history.
“It progressively got worse,” she said. “And then last year I couldn’t jump, it knocked the wind out of me and everything. This year, it still hurt me but I did my best.”
Credit the Hanover Area coaching staff — Weston and field coach Carl Daubert — for making all the right moves in practice to get her ready for Shippensburg.
“Even this year, with her back being the way it was, we modified a lot of the workouts just to protect the back,” Daubert said. “We didn’t do a lot of jumping and actual landings. We stayed out of the sand. We didn’t want to bang that back up.”
Jendrezjewski scathed by with just the bare minimum number of jumps. In the high jump, she won the district by 2 inches with a 5-foot, 4-inch jump. In the triple jump, she jumped 37 feet, 5 ¼ inches on her first official leap. With a state qualifying standard (and eventually a district title) around her belt, Jendrezjewski didn’t need any more tries.
“I essentially told her during the year, if you take one more jump before states, it’ll be districts,” Daubert said. “”She’d already jumped her qualifying jump to get to districts. That’s what she did. She went to districts, took one jump. It was a break. So she had to come back, she took a second jump, it was a 37 and we said ‘okay we’re good.’”
“You want to keep them healthy for Shippensburg,” Weston added. “That’s the big dance there. It was a smart move by coach Daubert to jump her once before the state meet.”
They ran into the same quandry at PIAAs. Jendrezjewski used four of her six jumps. Through four, she owned a 35-foot, 10-inch jump. She didn’t exercise her final two jumps and finished in eighth place.
“We were wrestling with ‘do we let her keep trying to jump’,” Daubert said. “Essentially it’s her call. I told her it’s not worth injuring yourself to the point where you’re in a back brace for another three months.”
Jendrezjewski’s signature moment came in her second-place high jump at states. Her and Lakeview’s Courtney King were the last two standing after the 5-4 mark. Both cleared the 5-5 mark. Jendrezewski flew over the 5-6 on her first try. With the state title in the balance, King followed suit. Both jumpers hit the bar at 5-7, and King won the tiebreaker.
“I didn’t really see much of a difference in winning states and finishing second,” Jendrezjewski admitted. “This is just as good. I ended up breaking my school record again. All year I was trying to get 5-5, and I couldn’t get it. At states, it was a good time to do it. And I got 5-6.”
If all goes right, her back won’t be an issue for Jendrezjewski. She plans on jumping for the Lebanon Valley College — no pun intended — Flying Dutchmen next spring. This month, she is expected to have surgery to correct her fractured back at the University of Pennsylvania.