Sophomore pole vaulter Codi Mattix entered his season with a personal best of 4.90 meters, like many of his other teammates. Always hoping for improvement, he had no idea how the season would go for the pole vaulters and jumpers as a whole.
With junior pole vaulter James Nixon and redshirt freshman Derik Peterman starting the season in about the same position as Mattix, the trio have combined for “massive” progress throughout the course of the season.
“So far this year, it’s been a huge improvement,” Mattix said. “I’ve been over 5.18 (meters) now, and just last weekend, (Nixon) jumped 5.05. (Peterman) has jumped 5.06, so as a whole, it’s been insane improvement. Just all around, it’s been awesome, and we feed off each other’s energy.”
In addition to having competitive marks in the NCAA, Mattix is ranked third in the Big Ten, with Peterman behind him at seventh.
Along with the pole vaulters, MSU has several other jumpers highly ranked in the conference on both the men’s and women’s teams. Freshman jumper Ashley Stacey — who won the indoor Big Ten championship in the triple jump this season — currently is ranked third the conference in the long jump at 6.09 meters.
Part of a five-way tie for second in the high jump, sophomores Kevin Jackson, Cliff Miller and Kurt Schneider are at the top of the rankings with 2.10 meter marks. For the women, junior jumper Becca Buchholtz also is ranked second at 1.79 meters.
“There’s a lot of regional qualifiers already,” Buchholtz said. “I know the jumpers have already more jumpers passing the regional mark this year than we had go to regionals last year, so that’s really exciting just to see everyone take off and to see all the hard work we’ve put in all year to come out on the track.”
With the NCAAs being the ultimate goal, assistant coach Chris Bostwick said the jumpers’ improvements from the beginning of the season have put them in a solid position to remain competitive in the nation.
“We’re pretty deep,” Bostwick said. “You (can) look at the pole vault and the NCAA marks we’ve got there. We’ve got three male high jumpers right up in the mix in the NCAA, and we’ve got some long and triple jumpers that we haven’t even let compete yet who are quite possibly the best in the country.”
This weekend, MSU will travel to Bloomington, Ind., for the Indiana Invitational — the Spartans’ only scored meet of the season aside from the Big Ten Championships. Being scored, there is more emphasis on the team as a whole because everyone relies on each other for solid jumps and earned points, Bostwick said.
“You want to jump your best, but you’re really there just to compete and to score points,” Mattix said. “So if you jump your lowest bar this season but you win, then you still did something good.When it comes down to it, it’s just points for your team and not really about you anymore.”
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