Mia Manson opened her outdoor season with three wins, and a state-leading mark in the pole vault.
Mia Manson eyed the long red runway in front of her. At the end of it was her challenger: A bar that stood 12-feet, six-inches in the air. While the bright Colorado sun beat down on her face she squinted her eyes and focused on the task at hand: clearing the bar.
She dug her spikes into the track until it felt that she had her grip on her pole, the track, and the world, which, for a brief moment, ceased to spin. Her eyes glanced upwards once more, and she was off, sprinting down the runway with her pole leading the charge, like a jouster heading towards their fate. She lifter her knees and kept her head, shoulders and hips aligned as her blonde curls flowed behind her.
Manson caste her pole downwards and into the box as she approached it, planted it, and lifted herself off the ground for takeoff. Her pole bent like smile and she was surrounded by nothing but air. She kicked her legs above her head and fought gravity for a brief second as she twisted up, and over the bar. Then, in a fraction of a second that lingered like an hour, she let her pole go and drifted over her challenger - the bar -
unscathed, before crashing back to earth.
When she hit the mat, Manson had cleared 12-6, good enough for a state-leading mark in the event, and the win. And that wasn't her only victory of the day at the Coyote Warrior Invitational in Lafayette Saturday. While nearly everyone's brackets were being busted in a true March Madness, the only madness at the meet was the laundry-list of performers who entered the state rankings, led by Manson.