Charleston’s Olivia Conn won three events in a tri-meet Tuesday night at Effingham High School.
More impressively, the CHS junior easily won the triple jump on her first-ever competitive jump. By 4 feet. Which is already the fourth-best distance for this event across the Apollo Conference.
“Olivia did amazing in the triple jump for her first time ever doing it,” said CHS assistant girls track and field coach Sarah Gisondi. “We are excited to see what she does for the rest of the season.”
Conn ran, jumped and leaped 32 feet, 7 inches – an inch shy of 4 feet farther than the runner-up in the triple jump.
CHS head girls coach Chris Hawk said that Conn had taken her first full speed jumps in practice just the day before, on Monday. “We just started working with her on the triple jump in preparation for next year,” Hawk said. “But we might be re-thinking our plans.”
Conn also set two other personal records – in winning the 100 meters in 14.0 seconds and in finishing second in the 200 at 28.7 seconds.
Conn’s leap of 15 feet, 11 inches won the long jump by a foot but it was still well shy of her persona best. Conn had soared 17 feet last week in winning at the Mattoon Invitational.
Ila Richter, meanwhile, used a strong finish to anchor a winning 4×800 relay team that included Whitley Wood, Savannah Wines and Grace Edwards. The CHS squad finished in 12 minutes, 9.7 seconds.
CHS set 15 personal records to finish second at the Tuesday meet. Effingham compiled 108 points, followed by CHS (57) and Altamonte (19).
Charleston has several second-place finishes as well:
• Mackensie Williams finished runner-up in both the discus and shot put, going 97 feet, 9 inches and 27-0.5, respectively.
• Malia Hodges finished the 400 in 1:06.3.
• Samantha Fehrenbacher clocked 57 seconds in the 300 intermediate hurdles.
• Richter went 2:42.2 in the 800.
• Sydney Livingston went 4-8 in the high jump.
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