Lindsay Regan Article

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.nj.com/hssports/expresstimes ... 142850.xml

Lindsay Regan

Easton's sophomore vaulter raises bar for whole country

Saturday, June 19, 2004
By BRUCE BURATTI
The Express-Times

During the fall and winter months, Lindsay Regan is a cheerleader encouraging applause for Easton Area High School's football, basketball and wrestling teams.

But when February steps aside for March, April and May, who cheers for Regan, a sophomore pole vaulter who won her first PIAA Class AAA championship three weeks ago and is ranked No. 3 in the United States among scholastic girls?

Let's put it this way, there were nearly 8,000 screaming for her at Shippensburg University when the 16-year-old wunderkind held everyone spellbound during her climb up the vaulting ladder at the state meet May 29 on the infield of Seth Grove Stadium. Everyone hung on Regan's every attempt, and the crowd got louder every time the Forks Township athlete moved the bar up, up, up until it reached 13 feet, 4\ inches. Everyone was fully involved in her morality play.

She flashed her effervescent smile and we all smiled with her.

While the state meet was her crowning achievement, many of Regan's accomplishments this spring were under the cloak of anonymity. Her personal best vault of 13-2 at the Lehigh Valley Conference Championships, an event held on the far eastern end of J. Birney Crum Stadium, was viewed only by other vaulters, a few officials, a reporter or two and even fewer fans.

"It doesn't bother me," Regan says. "My teammates root for me all the time. They've always been supportive."

Regan's vault at the LVC Championships on May 11, in essence, made her queen for a day. It was the best vault by a girl in the country this spring until Danielle O'Reilly of Shawnee, N.J., cleared 13-3 the following afternoon at the Olympic Conference Championships.

Her District 11 and PIAA championships and eventual No. 3 ranking in the U.S. combined to boost Regan to The Express-Times Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year Award. Her main competition for the honor came from her sister, Courtney, who finished second in the PIAA pole vault, and Freedom's Lauretta Dezubay, who won the state 3,200-meter title.

The Regan sisters and O'Reilly have a history. O'Reilly was once a member of Mike Lawryk's Vertical Assault Club in Bethlehem, and Lindsay beat the southern New Jersey vaulter to win the Penn Relays title in April. Now another vaulter, Sarah Landau of Geneva, Ill., who won the Illinois state title by also clearing 13-3 last week, has entered the national picture.

"Don't know her," Lindsay Regan says. "Most of the top girls I've vaulted against in national meets, but (Landau) I'm not familiar with."

At just 16 -- the embryonic stage of an athletic career -- it would be presumptuous to call Regan the face of the future in women's track and field. Athletic resumes, after all, are not measured in straight up-the-graph progressions but rather are jagged pictures of peaks and valleys. It's how athletes handle the sure-to-be confronted valleys, along with other unforeseen factors, that determine a career's roadmap.

Still, Lindsay has a lot going for her, to say the least. She's energetic, charismatic, photogenic and has tremendous presence. Regan also shows no apparent phobia for the camera lens -- and we mean this in a complimentary sense -- while having a true understanding of seizing the stage. There's a good chance she'll be seizing a much bigger one in the future.

She also intelligent -- a straight "A" student who mixes in a toughness with her visible athletic gifts.

"She's one tough cookie," Easton coach Frank Messa says. "I can remember in one of our meets, Linds hit the bar and it really banged her up pretty badly. She was going up and it hit her on the hip and it came right up and bounced off her shoulder, face, then conked her in the head. But she got right back up and vaulted again like it never happened."

Who knows what the future holds but Regan has her eyes clearly on the prize.

"I want to become the first high school girl to clear 14 feet," she says. "That's my goal."

It's stated not with any degree of defiance or showy declaration. It's merely said matter-of-factly and without rancor. Lindsay is just 6 inches away from the U.S. girls high school record of 13-8 set last year by Kira Kosta of San Joaquin, Calif.

Lindsay's effort of 13-2 ties her for 10th all-time since the U.S. High School Federation began recognizing the girls pole vault in 1999.

What Regan can be most proudest of is her consistency. She's cleared 13 feet in three of her last four competitions, which she sandwiched around her 13-2 LVC effort. She ended each meet with three attempts at 13-4\, which would give her the U.S. sophomore record, barely missing at least five times at that height.

Yet, heaven can wait. Regan concedes that, had she cleared 13-4\, she wouldn't immediately set the bar at 13-9 for a chance for a place in the U.S. Federation record book.

"No, I'd put it at 13-6 next," she says. "I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I'd rather be more consistent at the lower heights than go for the record before I was ready."

What separates Regan from her competitors? If you break down the stages of the pole vault, she is a little more than ordinary in every phase except one. Even her size, 5-foot-5, 114 pounds, is below average.

She generates good but not blazing speed on her approach down the runway. Her plant in the vaulting box is fundamentally sound but not exceptional. She's strong but does not excessively muscle the pole.

And even she admits the weakest phase of her vault is the final one, the moment her hands leave the pole -- which occurs at the apex of her vault -- to the time she lands in the pit.

Where Lindsay separates herself from the field is in the phase vaulters term "the swing," that nanosecond from the vaulter's plant to the time her hands let go of the pole. Regan starts her climb with an accelerated knee drive, where, at about two-thirds of the way into her ascent, she suddenly executes a "snap" that drives her momentum straight up and over the bar, much like a golf shot that hits the 200-yard mark then suddenly explodes into a higher second climb through the air.

Her gymnastics background is part of this "snap," but other factors are involved, too, not the least of which is her ability to put herself at the total mercy of the pole.

Another pivotal person in Regan's success is John Kerbaugh, Easton's pole vaulting coach. Guidance from two sources could conceivably be a recipe for disaster, but the relationship works well. Kerbaugh, who generally defers to Lawryk, is to be given credit for stepping back when the situation warrants it but is there, too, when Lindsay needs coaching expertise.

Lawryk was asked, hypothetically, if Regan were six feet tall, had a male vaulter's strength and her midair mechanics, how high would she be going. Lawryk, who has coached her the past three years, answered without hesitation: "Seventeen feet. Easy."

Even Chelo Canino, a Princeton vaulter who recently finished sixth in the NCAA Championships and is also a member of Lawryk's Vertical Assault Club, is awed by Regan.

"Lindsay's just a carnival act," Canino says. "Her swing is what puts her at the level she's at now."

Stacy Dragila of the U.S. is the world's No. 1 women's vaulter, recently clearing a world outdoor record 15-10. But Dragila doesn't serve as Regan's role model.

"I've never met her but I do remember something she said in a story I read about her," Lindsay says. "She said you sometimes have to get worse before you get better. I think there's a lot of truth in that."

Regan's inspiration, however, comes from Jenny Green, a freshman vaulter at the University of Nebraska, who recently finished third in the NCAA Championships by clearing 13-9\.

"We met when she was still in high school last year and she was very supportive of me," Lindsay says. "We still e-mail each other and she's always encouraging me."

Still, the goal of 14 feet looms ahead of her over the next two years. And while the sky might be the limit, Regan's ascent up the pole vault standards seems to have no boundaries.

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn ... 800170.htm

Posted on Sun, May. 30, 2004

Regan years: Sister act dominates pole vault

DAN LEWERENZ

Associated Press

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. - The Regan Years have just begun, at least in the pole vault.

Courtney Regan, of Easton, reluctantly passed the Class AAA girls pole vault title to her younger sister on Saturday, inaugurating what is likely to be a new era for the event at the PIAA track and field championships.

Lindsay Regan shattered the old record of 12 feet, 3 inches, set three years ago by Erie McDowell's Emily Tharpe, easily clearing 13-0 for a new record.

What's more, she's just a sophomore.

"I think she'll set the national record," Courtney Regan, who finished second at 11-6, said of her sister. "It's crazy - she has so much natural talent."

Lindsay Regan has set the same goal for herself. The national high school record is 13-8, set in 2001 by Shayla Balentine, of California's Morro Bay High School, but Regan hopes to beat that by the end of her junior year.

"My goal is to improve a foot a year, and I'd like to go 14 (feet) next year and then 15 (feet)," she said. "But that is asking a lot."

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.nj.com/hssports/expresstimes ... 153220.xml

Regan sets state pole vault mark

Sunday, May 30, 2004
By MICHAEL BLOUSE
The Express-Times

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. -- She was the star of the show, Lindsay Regan was.


The star on the grandest of stages.

No other athlete at the PIAA Track and Field Championships -- boy or girl, from sprinter to shot putter, Class AAA or Class AA -- captured the crowd's attention like Easton Area High School's nationally-ranked pole vaulter.

On a sun-splashed Saturday, Lindsay Regan, a sophomore and the youngest of three pole-vaulting sisters, cleared 12 feet to secure the gold medal then vaulted a meet-record 13 feet that left a capacity crowd of 7,700 applauding in absolute amazement.

"I loved the crowd," she said. "They're cheering and yelling and clapping like 'You can do this.' And I'm thinking 'I don't know if I can.' This was a day I'll never forget."

And it's a day the Regan family will never forget.

Courtney Regan, a senior who won the pole vault at last year's state meet, picked up a silver medal with a vault of 11-6.

After the other 26 competitors in the pole vault finished at 11-3 or lower, it was an all-Regan event.

Courtney missed on three tries at 12 feet. Lindsay captured the state crown by clearing the mark.

Then, the serious stuff started.

Moments after Lindsay Regan cleared 12-6, meet announcer Robert Schellenberg informed fans there was a new state record. (Emily Tharpe of McDowell held the mark at 12-3.) Most fans then turned their attention to the pole vault pit and started a rhythmic applause with each attempt.

The Red Rover cheerleader missed twice at 13 feet but popped right back up with a smile after each try. Showing a flair for the dramatic, Lindsay Regan brushed the bar ever so slightly on her final try -- as the crowd oohed and ahhed -- the bar remained 13 feet off the ground and the oohs and ahhs turned into a 30-second celebration.

Lindsay Regan decided to set the bar at 13-4\ and try for the national sophomore record.

It didn't happen, but she was hardly disappointed.

"Yes, 13 was my main goal because most people in Pennsylvania haven't seen a girl hit that height," said Lindsay Regan, whose personal-best was a 13-2 at the Lehigh Valley Conference championships. "I have to admit, I was a little nervous on my final try at 13."

"It's tough to finish second," Courtney Regan said, "but it's good it was Lindsay who beat me. I don't want to say I expected second, but Lindsay's been doing 13 all season and I've done 12. I'm perfectly content with second since Lindsay was the one getting first."

[RoySloppy]

lindz and court are probably the two hardest working girls i have ever met. it shows in how high they jump and they will continue to do well, with court going to princeton next year and lindsay having two more years in high school. its not uncommon for them to be the last two jumping at the end of practice, when everyone else has stopped. good job girls

[Bruce Caldwell]

Good Job Lindsey and Courtney Regan

Bruce Caldwell

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.mcall.com/sports/highschool/ ... sports-hed

Easton's Regan looking to vault to greater heights
Easton junior's quite calm while going for 3rd straight indoor title.

By Kim Jaick
Special to The Morning Call

Two weeks ago, Easton High's Lindsay Regan was tumbling with members of the school's cheerleading squad while squeezing in a pole vault practice.

But cheerleading season is over and Regan, a junior, has devoted the last 14 days to gearing up for today's Pennsylvania Track & Field Coaches Association state championships, where she hopes to leap her way to her third straight pole vault title.

She heads into this morning's meet, being held at Penn State University, as the No. 1 seed.

Regan is not too nervous about it, either.

''I know so many of the girls at states that there's not as much pressure as there probably should be,'' she said.

That's partly because two other District 11 vaulters â€â€

[JPOLE162]

Linds is awesome.....VA FOR LIFE! 14' in the near future

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.mcall.com/sports/all-reganap ... sports-hed

Reaching for the sky
Easton junior Lindsay Regan has gold medals and state records, but she wants more.

By Stephen Miller
Of The Morning Call

The numbers matter to Lindsay Regan. They drive her to run faster, train harder and jump higher. They compel her to work on her weaknesses, weaknesses that untrained eyes don't notice.

Regan's numbers â€â€

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.nj.com/hssports/expresstimes ... xml&coll=2

Another centerpiece is Lindsay Regan, who set the state record as a sophomore (13 feet) in the pole vault, but no-heighted last year in the competition held in the rain. The UCLA-bound Regan, who has been bothered by a back injury recently, cleared 13-6 at last year's District 11 Championships, which ranks her tied for the No. 7 spot all-time in the event in U.S. history.