Verona, New Jersey –Pole vaulting is more than your ordinary leap of faith. You’ve got to charge down a narrow track, plant a pole that weighs just a fraction of your weight and hope that it will catapult you safely over a bar suspended several feet in the air. Without focus, and a strong core, it’s just not going to happen.

But Samantha Intili makes that happen on a very regular basis. A member of the Verona High School Winter Tack team for four years, she is a team captain this year and played a big part in Verona’s first-ever state sectional championship for the girls team with her pole-vault performance. Intili placed fifth that championship in the pole vault, with a jump of 8’6″. She also placed at at the conference and county championships, and qualified to compete at the state-wide Meet of Champions. For her efforts, Intili is the Verona Sports Boosters Senior Athlete of the Week.

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NEW YORK — Greg Gallagher dashed down the runway, planted the pole and vaulted in the air inside the Armory, flying toward the bar perched 15 feet, 6 inches off the ground. That bar shook a bit on his way over, but it stayed up.

The Iona Prep senior from Elmsford crash-landed on the pad and clapped his hands. He had just equaled his personal best and with it, won the event Tuesday at the prestigious Eastern States Championships.

“It really feels good to win here, having a lot of competition, bar starting high,” Gallagher said. “It gives me a little preparation for states and nationals.”

This 78th version of the Easterns was indeed a tuneup for several area track and field athletes bound for the state/Federation meet Saturday at Cornell and another chance to compete for several who aren’t.

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2012 is a leap year, meaning that February, the shortest month, has an extra day, bringing the year to 366 days. This notable event comes only every four years. Which means you have an extra 24 hours. So what will you do with yourself? How about heading to Disneyland for 24 hours straight, catching a movie, or spending the day skiing?Lookups on the Web are taking a leap, including “leap day activities,” along with the quadrennial questions: “what is leap year,” “why is there a leap year” and “history of leap year.” Here, your guide to the day.

 When is it? An extra day is added to the month of February every four years. This year, Leap Day is on Wednesday, February 29.

 Why we need Leap Day: Usually, our year is 365 days long. Except that it’s not: A full cycle of seasons is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds long, or about 365.25 days. Over time, the extra quarter of a day adds up, and without Leap Day, the calendar would be one day out of sync with the seasons. After 30 years, it would be about a week off, and after 100 years, it would be nearly a month off.
Bing Quock, the assistant director of Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences, explains, “Leap Day is added as a correction to the calendar so that it stays in sync with the seasons … that way, the seasons start on the same day from year to year to year.”

 The history of Leap Year: Leap Year has been around for 2,000 years, Continue reading →

INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA Division II Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Committee has announced the participants for the 2012 NCAA Division II Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Championships. Student-athletes qualified for the championships by reaching the automatic and provisional standards established for each event.

The championships will be held March 9-10 in Mankato, Minn., at Myers Field.  Minnesota State University, Mankato will serve as host of the championships.

Event 26 Men Pole Vault

Name Year School Seed Mark

1 Shane Shockey SR Findlay 5.20m

2 Bryan Gennett SR Bellarmine 5.17m

3 Colbie Snyder JR Pittsburg St. 5.13m

4 Dan Novak JR Minnesota State 5.11m

5 Vince Frawley JR Grand Canyon 5.10m

6 Eric Frawley JR Grand Canyon 5.07m

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The men and women of Brockport’s track and field team took the field at Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, N.Y, Sunday, Feb. 26 for the SUNYAC Championship meet. Both men and women made good showings, but all eyes were on an elite few.

Junior Zach Ferrara stole the limelight again with his record-breaking performance in the men’s pole vault event. Ferrara, who has already set the school record twice this year, did it again on Sunday, but this time it meant much more. Ferrara’s height of 16 feet 4.75 inches not only broke his own school record, but also broke the record for the SUNYAC meet and the conference.

“All I can say is that this one is the most meaningful,” Ferrara said. “All the hard work has finally paid off and now I’m looking forward to upcoming meets and hopefully I’ll keep reaching new heights

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TOMS RIVER, New Jersey — Erin Knabe is not the type of person who lets adversity slow her down or keep her from accomplishing her goals.

So when she tore the meniscus in her right knee while hurdling in practice prior to the start of the season last spring, Knabe, now a senior at Voorhees High, used the injury as motivation. The setback merely ignited her competitive juices.

‘‘I was disappointed but I just kept working out right up until the day before my surgery (in May),’’ said Knabe, whose main event is the pole vault. ‘‘I had to miss the whole season, but I worked my butt off by running and biking. There was no way I was going to let it stop me from achieving my goals in my senior year. I was determined to come back and be even better than I was before I got hurt.’’

Knabe has done exactly that.

After making 11-0 in the summer at the Beach Vault in Seaside Heights, Knabe had been stuck at 11-0 this entire indoor season.

But that changed Saturday when her remarkable road back hit new heights at the 34th girls NJSIAA Meet of Champions at the Bennett Center.

On her first attempt at 11-6, Knabe soared over the bar without even grazing it as she landed on the mat with a long-awaited new personal best.

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THE bar has literally been raised to a new high – but Holly Bleasdale is more than ready for the ­challenge.The pole vault sensation heads for the Olympics on the trail of the great Yelena Isinbayeva, who looks unbeatable, having raised her indoor world record to 5.01 metres in Stockholm six days ago.Double Olympic champion and world record holder Isinbayeva, 29, is a clear favourite to land the gold medal this summer.She has twice beaten ­Preston-born Bleasdale, 20, in ­recent weeks – but the British ­indoor record holder is far from downbeat.Bleasdale said: “Having ­someone like Yelena in my event is a very good thing because it gives ­everyone a target to aim at.“She is the perfect role model and everyone looks up to her. My aim, of course, is to get better and better and break her world record.”Isinbayeva is ­certainly the one they all have to beat in London, with Bleasdale one of her ­strongest challengers.Bleasdale cleared 4.87m in Lyon last month – Continue reading →