Observer-Reporter Athlete of the Week
Name: Ryan Kent
Grade: Senior
School: Belle Vernon
Sport: Track and field
Kent’s week: In the last two weeks, Kent has proven himself as one of the best throwers in the state. He’s collected multiple gold medals at three different invitationals. Coming off sweeping the javelin, discus and shot put at the Fayette County Coaches meet, Kent won all three events again at the Mid Mon Track Classic last Monday and concluded his week by taking the discus and shot put at the prestigious Baldwin Invitational on Friday.
That gave him five gold medals this week and eight total in the last two.
“I went into those meets pretty highly seeded, so the expectation was to hopefully place very high, but I wasn’t expecting to come away with that many gold medals,” Kent said. “It was really exciting to me, because all the work I had put in during the offseason was really starting to show.”
At Baldwin, Kent threw the discus 172-6 beating second place Charles Gibson of North Allegheny by 18 and a half feet. He won the shot put with a throw of 55-4.5 beating Kiski Area’s Nicolas Anderson by more than four feet.
He placed third in the javelin.
“I actually won javelin at Baldwin last year, so now I have three first places there for all three throwing events and that’s pretty cool,” Kent said.
Making a change: It’s hard to believe now, but Kent almost didn’t participate in track and field in high school. He was also a standout football player on the offensive and defensive lines and figured he’d focus solely on that in high school. A win in the discus at an eighth grade meet at Latrobe helped him see he had a future in track and field.
“I’m pretty sure if I didn’t win there I probably wouldn’t have continued with track,” Kent said. “That was a turning point in my career. I was a pretty good football player, so I really thought I was going to go to college to play football. I was football, football, football until that happened. That kind of opened my eyes that I could win in track.”
Kent was part of Belle Vernon’s back-to-back state champion football teams in 2023 and ’24. But after last season he made the tough decision to not play football his senior year to focus on throwing.
Ranking the events: Kent has obviously succeeded at all three throwing events. When asked to rank them he put discus at the top of the list with shot put and javelin behind them.
“I was a discus thrower before I was a shot put thrower,” Kent said. “I really didn’t focus on shot put the last three years. I was mainly throwing discus, which is why I have made WPIALs in that event in all four years of high school and made states my sophomore and junior year.”
This year Kent is qualified for WPIALs in all three throwing events and ranks near the top of Class 3A in both discus and shot put.
Shippensburg bound: Kent will continue his track and field career at Shippensburg. Originally he said his visit to Shippensburg was going to be for academics, but after talking with track coach Dave Osanitsch, he scheduled an athletic visit and found that it was the perfect fit.
“It was a real family vibe,” Kent said. For me that means a lot. I really wanted a team that had open arms. When I was there I didn’t want to leave. I remember getting into my car and telling my parents that I was upset I had to leave. I knew at that moment Shippensburg was for me.”
Compiled by Jerin Steele