Apr 17, 2015 4 min read

Tradition never graduates.

The phrase is popular among Fort Cherry’s track and field team, and for good reason. After the graduation of former PIAA javelin champions Jessie Merckle in 2012 and Jenna Lucas in 2014, the Rangers are hoping to keep the program’s pride and success intact. The Rangers’ list of accolades includes nine individual WPIAL titles and three state championships.

Despite not having a home track, Fort Cherry still possesses some of the top competitors in WPIAL Class AA.

At the top of the list is junior Koryn Jozwiakowski, who took second place in the triple jump at the WPIAL Championships last spring. She qualified for the PIAA meet, but finished 18th.

Those performances motivated Jozwiakowski to reach new distances this season. At the WPIAL Championships last May, gusts of wind and pouring rain saturated Baldwin High School’s track. Competitors ran for cover and many events were postponed, but not the triple jump. Jozwiakowski was leading Brownsville’s Maris Seto entering the finals, but she came up short. The two finished with the same distance (34-11½), but Seto was declared the WPIAL champion.

“The weather was awful. It was really hard to stay warm and find places to warm up,” Jozwiakowski said. “It was hard for me to go from the side, where all the mud was, to the runway jumping, especially since I wanted to get a personal best.”

After coming up short in Shippensburg at the state championships, Jozwiakowski turned her attention to 2015.

Jozwiakowski, who also is a standout in volleyball, began training for the indoor track season in November, focusing on weight training and injury prevention. Outside of technique in her chosen events – the triple jump and high jump – she worked on agility and strength training. The Rangers’ coaches also asked her to try running the hurdles again.

The dedication has shown in every meet this spring. Jozwiakowski has the WPIAL’s top mark in Class AA in the triple jump (37-3) and the high jump (5-0). Both are school records and were set Tuesday against Chartiers-Houston.

“She has worked really hard,” Fort Cherry head coach Ben Maxin said. “That one day at WPIALs has been her motivation. She’s been chomping at the bit since then and she’s hitting full stride.”

The Rangers’ girls track team entered the season with 28 competitors and was searching for another hurdler to join sophomore Hannah Greene, who placed 15th at the WPIAL Championships in the 300 hurdles last spring. Maxin and his coaching staff turned to Jozwiakowski, who ran the event as a freshman before injuries limited her to the jumps.

It was an idea she did not always welcome.

“Whenever my coaches asked me to run the hurdles, I said, ‘No way, I’m not doing that,'” Jozwiakowski joked. “I got disqualified in my first meet for running around a hurdle instead of going over it. It’s grown on me, though. It’s something to do while I wait for the jumps.”

Jozwiakowski has the seventh-best mark in Class AA in the 100 hurdles (16.6) and is the leader of a group that is hoping to continue FC’s sterling reputation. The Rangers have several competitors, including Greene and Kacie Besterling, who could make an impact in the championship meets.

On the boys side, Scott Strnisa’s work in the field events is helping fill the void left by Zak Dysert, who took second place in the WPIAL in the discus. Sophomore Scott Miller is undefeated in section meets in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. Senior Brelan Skinner has surpassed 21 feet in the long jump after missing the state championships a year ago.

The pieces are there to continue bringing gold medals to McDonald.

“We have to keep the tradition alive,” Maxin said. “We’ve established a great tradition here and some of these younger kids are stepping in. They know what exists here and that we take a lot of pride in our program. They are grasping the idea that they need to uphold that tradition.”

Just two years ago, one of those younger girls was Jozwiakowski. She heard about Merckle winning a state title and saw Lucas becoming one of the top javelin throwers in the WPIAL. Curiosity sparked her steady improvement. Younger athletes striving to match the accolades set by upperclassmen is what feeds a program that lacks facilities but is rich in tradition.

“With all the success Jessie and Jenna had, it kind of brings in a lot of freshman who say, ‘Wow, I want to be as good as them,'” Jozwiakowski said. “That’s what motivated me to do track. Now, I have a goal of getting first at WPIALs and then getting to states again.”