When Brownstown’s Lyla Huffman broke the middle school pole vault record as a seventh-grader with a vault of 7 feet, 10 inches, she knew she wanted to break it one more time before moving on to high school.
At the conference meet a couple of weeks ago, which was the final meet of the season, Huffman accomplished that goal.
She pole vaulted 8-0, earning third place at conference and re-breaking her own record — one that originally had stood since the 1990s.
“It felt pretty great,” Huffman said. “I didn’t expect myself to break it since it was my first year doing it, so I surprised myself. I did want to break it again this year, and I did the last meet of the season, so that felt nice.”
Increasing your height in pole vault comes down to technique and also mental fortitude.
“Whenever I go up, I have to squeeze my whole body and try to get my back over it,” Huffman said. “I do struggle with keeping my feet straight, and I get in my head a lot, too, so I have to focus because it’s a mental game, too.”
Huffman didn’t do track until seventh grade, and when she first started, her coach thought she would be good at pole vault, but Huffman wasn’t sold.
“I was pretty scared when I first did, but it’s actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it,” she said.
In addition to doing pole vault, Huffman runs the second leg in the 4×100 relay.
As Huffman gets set to graduate from middle school and head to Brownstown Central High School, she said she would love to do pole vault since she’s good at it, but Huffman’s main sport is softball.
She has been playing softball since 8U, and this past season, her team went a perfect 15-0. She plays shortstop, center field and catcher.
No matter where high school sports take her, Huffman is happy to know her name is up on the record board at BCMS, at least for the time being.
“I like it,” Huffman said. “We all know someone else is going to break it here and there like I did, but I feel pretty good about being up there.”