North Jersey Female Athlete of the Week soars to take her place in family legacy
There was no doubt Jenna Monaco was destined to be an athlete. The question was how good would she be and in what sport.
Dad, John, was a state champion wrestler at Clifton High School and a three-time Division III national champ at Montclair State University, who later coached at Clifton, while mom, the former Noreen King, was a soccer and track star at Bergenfield High School who still holds the school record for the 100-meter hurdles. She later starred at Montclair State as well, where the couple met.
Jenna's brothers and sisters are or were all distinguished athletes, with Kara running track at Dumont and later cherring at Rutgers University, brother, John, was a talented hockey player and Kelly is finishing her junior year at the University of Connecticut after starting as a center back for the Big East runner-up soccer team last fall.
Yet Jenna didn't do a lot of competitive sports as a kid, limiting herself to two years of competitive cheer in middle school.
"I was always running around doing cartwheel after cartwheel,'' said Jenna Monaco, who has become one of the most versatile track and field athletes in North Jersey seemingly as soon as she started Dumont High School in the fall of 2022.
"I liked the pole vault because Kara had set the pole vault record at Dumont and I wanted to beat her record,'' said Jenna, who was 6 when Kara cleared 9-6 in 2014.
"When I said I wanted to do pole vault, mom immediately signed me up for lessons at the Barn,'' said Jenna. "So I started taking lessons with Saint.''
For the uninitiated, the Barn, or its more formal name, the Hudson Valley Flying Circus in Warwick, N.Y., is a legendary training site where most of the top pole vaulters in the Northeast have trained for nearly 20 years and Saint is Tim St. Lawrence, a member of the Rockland County Track and Field Hall of Fame, who has been around vaulting his whole life.
"He's the best and I learned quickly and loved it right from the start,'' said Monaco, who tied her sister's record in her first outdoor meet a year ago. Two weeks later, trying to break the mark, after winning the Bergen C division, she knocked the bar off the standards and got nailed right in the face by the hard plastic on her way down, ending up with a knocked out tooth, a lot of blood and a little fear.
"But my aunt's a dentist, so I had surgery that night and was back at the Barn the next day,'' said Monaco.
Her next meet was a week later at the Bergen Meet of Champions, where she admitted to some butterflies.
"I was a little scared, but after my first jump, I was okay,'' said Monaco, who broke Kara's record twice en route to a then-personal best of 10-1 and fourth place. Her PR is now 11-2 and she was the highest finishing freshman in last year's State Meet of Champions and the top soph last winter.
She's not content to stick with just the pole vault, with great success in both the 100 and 100 hurdles, both events her mom excelled in school. And in the last month, again with the advice of Coach Saint, she's added the long jump, going 18-3 1/4 in her third meet and breaking a school record set in 1983 by her mom's college teammate, Eileen O'Connor.
"I like being a multi-athlete, but pole vault is still my favorite,'' said Monaco, who ranks third in the state in group 2 this season. "It's the most challenging and rewarding event for me.''
They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. That King/Monaco combination has led to a terrific harvest.
Jenna Monaco
Sport: Track and field
School: Dumont
Class: Sophomore. Age: 16
Accomplishment: Won four events at the Big North American track meet, and broke a 41 year old record in the long jump to lead the Huskies to an undefeated league title.
Also nominated: Savannah Czornomor of Passaic Tech, Briana Darling of Hackensack, Makenzie Crowe of Wayne Valley, Gia Liu of Ridgewood, Morgan Gurdak of Wallington, and Averi Galioto of Old Tappan for softball; Miracle Scott of Leonia, Uma Rajan of Dwight-Englewood, Julia Tozduman of Lyndhurst, Lexy Samperi of Hasbrouck Heights, and Kara Langbaum of Wayne Hills for track and field; and Kaitlyn Verdesca of Waldwick and Julia Graceffo of Mahwah for lacrosse.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bergen Record Female Athlete of the Week: Jenna Monaco, Dumont
