ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Kaylyn Davis, Lakeland track and field
KAYLYN DAVIS, Lakeland track and field
At the District 2 Class 2A Championship meet, Davis won a gold medal in the javelin with a throw of 117 feet, 1 inch, bronze medals in the 100-meter hurdles (16.73) and the 300 hurdles (48.64), and ran as a member of the fourth-place medal-winning 1,600 relay team to help Lakeland win its first girls team championship since 2015.
Family: Father, Greg; mother, Marissa; sister, Karli.
Age: 16.
Other sports: Basketball.
Hobbies: Attending concerts.
Favorite sports teams: New York Liberty; Iowa Hawleyes; Golden State Warriors.
Favorite food: Steak. My dad makes a good steak.
Favorite subjects: Biology, anatomy, and physiology.
Athlete you admire: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. She is absolutely insane on the track. Her world record and the athleticism she has to achieve such great success are amazing. I have seen her switch to the 400, and she is amazing at that too. Her persona is great. She carries herself so well and is a devout Christian who always talks about her family and how grateful she is for everything she has in her life. She is so humble and a good role model, as well as an amazing athlete.
Do you have any superstitions: Not really. Nothing like an I don’t wash my socks for the entire season sort of thing. I try to have a good meal the night before a meet or game. I try to stick to a certain warmup ritual and have a routine with my stretching and running.
How and when did you get started in track and field: When I was really little, my dad was a track coach, so he always said I was going to run track, and that was like when I was 4 years old. I joined track in my seventh grade year at junior high. It took a little while for me to find my best events. I ran the hurdles and added the javelin when I moved up to varsity and figured out my place in the sport.
How did you choose the hurdles and the javelin: For the hurdles, it was a last-minute thing. I started in the mid-distance events, but I really couldn’t do them, and I wanted to quit. My dad encouraged me to stick with it, but he didn’t want me to do the hurdles because he thought I would get hurt. After I exhausted all of my event options, I did try the hurdles, and it just felt right, so I stuck with it. With the javelin, I was looking for other events to do. In junior high, we didn’t do the javelin in the meets, but I thought it was a really cool event. We bought a javelin, and I started practicing when I was in junior high and started doing it when I moved to the varsity level.
Being so new at the javelin, how have you had such great success: It has been a lot of work. The javelin is a very technical event. Everything has to click for a really good throw to happen. In my freshman year, I was just trying to get the hang of throwing and get the nerves out when I threw. I was really disappointed with my performance at districts last year (92 feet, 11 inches). In the summer, I went to the school to practice, went to JavFest, and worked with some really good coaches. Barry (Krammes) and coach (Jeff) Gorski and I learned technique drills and ways to improve my run-up to my throw. Once the season rolled around, I focused more on my technique to get the throws and distances that I was looking for.
This season, you had a throw of 109-3 at the Godek Invitational and then set a school record. How great was that: That was really awesome. I kind of surprised myself. I threw really bad the meet right after the Godek Invitational, and I worked and constantly threw for the next day or two because I really wanted that school record. I remember that Friday against Holy Cross, I threw 90 feet and 107 on my first two throws. I started to get rushed because I had another event I had to run, so I just had to pop one more, and that wound up being my school record throw. I remember hearing 118-3, which I thought was 108. I saw my friend Anna Liuzzo, and she came running to me, shouting that it was 118 feet. I literally jumped into her arms and was so excited.
That throw made you the top seed for the District 2 Class 2A meet, so how did you handle the pressure: I have really bad anxiety with things like that because I feel compelled to live up to high expectations. I just blocked out the negative thoughts, trusted myself, and trusted the training. I just went out and did what I knew I was capable of and was determined to have good throws.
After winning a gold, you added medals in the hurdles and relay to help the team win the championship. How great was winning: It’s a really great feeling because most people think of track as only an individual sport, which is kind of true, but it is also a team sport. Just to be able to go out and perform and help our team earn the victory feels amazing. I can always look at that and say I contributed to that championship. Some schools may be strong in certain areas or have more athletes than us, but if you really want to win the team championship, you have to have everyone in every area score. We had people score in the throws, the hurdles, the jumps, the relays, the distance, and mid-distance. We hit all the nails on the head to do what we did.
How excited are you to go to Shippensburg for your first state meet: Looking at it, I am just really shocked that I made it. I am really excited and am going to enjoy it and do my best because this is my first year competing, and I understand that I have two more years to work and continue to improve.
