By Michael Newman

Wheaton, Ill --- The meet at the Wheaton-Warrenville South Field House was suppose to be a low keyed quad meet between Oswego East, Glenbard West, Plainfield Central, and the host Tigers. But for Luke Winder (Plainfield Central HS, Plainfield), it was a little more than that. It was about getting his Pole Vault groove back.

Last Saturday at the Windy City Pole Vault Summit, Winder finished a disappointing third behind Tim Ehrhardt (Lake Park HS, Roselle) and Tyler Ginger (Olympia HS, Stanford). Ehrhardt’s winning clearance of 15-7 displaced Winder at the top of the Illinois leaderboard. Thursday night was the time to get that position back.

Winder bided his time as other athlete’s were making attempts at lower heights. Mike Koehne (Wheaton-Warrenville South HS, Warrenville) was the athlete to go out missing three attempts at 13-0. Winder took off his sweats and had the bar raised to 14-0. He was ready to enter.

The junior cleared 14-0, 14-6, and 15-0 on his first attempt. It was a different strategy than he used last Saturday when he entered at 14-4, passed at 14-7, made 14-11, and waited until 15-7 to vault. The Pole Vault runway was his office Thursday and he was doing work.

Instead of the natural 6 inch progression to 15-6, he had the bar raised to 15-7. He wanted to tie Ehrhradt’s mark achieved last Saturday. Pop! He cleared on his first attempt. He was on tonight. Next was to have the bar raised to 16-0 where encountered a little difficulty. He failed on his first two attempts at that height. On his third attempt, Winder cleared the bar by nearly 6 inches. He had the highest vault in Illinois for the season and had set a PR in the event for both indoors and outdoors. However, he was not done yet.

There was still action going on around the track. All eyes were on the Pole Vault pit in the center of the fieldhouse as the bar was raised to 16-5. He missed his first attempt at the height. The second attempt was golden as he barely cleared the bar. That was his ninth vault of the evening. It was also his last of the night.

Winder’s 16-5 clearance is the seventh best vault in the United States this indoor season. If you want to look at it historically in Illinois, Winder has the sixth highest performance of all time indoors in the Pole Vault. The highest belongs to Mitchell Erickson (Marian Catholic HS, Chicago Heights) when he vaulted 16-8 at the Illinois Prep Top Times Meet in 2008.

In regards to family bragging rights, he surpassed his brothers Jake (16-3) and Josh (16-0) in regards to indoor high school PR’s.

Luke will have two meets to go after the Erickson record. Plainfield Central is scheduled to compete at Lockport next Saturday. If he is invited, Winder could compete at the Illinois Top Times Meet on March 23.