Megan Kirschling Fourth at Penn Relays High Jump Championship

There was a smile on Megan Kirschling’s face after her final jump at the Penn Relays Thursday.

The senior had finally had her moment at Franklin Field, after being denied a chance last year, and came away with a fourth-place finish overall and a second-place finish among American jumpers.

But there was frustration, too, a flash in her eyes of what, but for the slightest brush of the bar on her final attempt, might have been.

“It’s bittersweet,” Kirschling said. “I had that last jump.”

That final jump came at 1.73 meters—just barely over 5-8—a height she surpassed last weekend at the Woodbury Relays, and it looked for a moment like she’d made it again.

But the bar bounced loose as she crashed into the mat, and with it, her shot at the American best.

To that point, it had been a four-way battle between Kirschling, Taylor Morgan of Upper Dublin, PA, and a pair of Jamaicans—Wolmer Girls’ Shanice Hall and Edwin Allen’s Kimberly Williamson, the defending champion, who would eventual reclaim her title with a jump of 1.83 meters.

Getting to jump alongside some new competition was an interesting wrinkle, Kirschling said.

“Everyone has their own style,” she said. “It amazes me when they do it—they just hop right over.”

Along with the 23,075 fans, it made for an afternoon of butterflies, as Kirschling did her best to block out the crowd, which whooped as heats of the 4x400 relay flew by on the track.

“At first, I was really nervous,” Kirschling said. “Once I was through, it felt really good.”

Jumping opened at 1.6 meters, a hair under 5-3, and though she called the jump “atrocious,” Kirschling breezed over the bar. She wouldn't miss until the bar went up three more times to 1.73 meters, clipping the bar hard on her first attempt.

Kirschling was one of the few to make it through the first several heights unscathed, and more than a third of the field had fouled out by the time the bar got to 1.69 meters (5-6.5).

Besides the crowd and an occasional chill breeze stirred down from the closed end of Franklin Field, Kirschling also had to deal with transitioning from the Sprinturf end zone to the al-weather high jump runway. Her tape mark put her a few feet to the right of the base of the second N in Penn, about eight yards deep in the end zone, and Kirschling actually had to adjust herself a bit farther back after her initial run-through.

While moving between the two surfaces wasn’t an issue, trying to find the right speed was.

“It takes you a little faster,” she said of the turf.

In between jumps, Kirschling huddled at the 12-yard line, rolling her quads and trying to stay warm under gray skies.

West Deptford head coach Mark Drummond, who watched from a flagged-off coaches’ box behind the action, said that despite not being able to equal her 5-10 jump from the Woodbury Relays, Kirschling still pulled off a great performance.

“I couldn’t be happier for her, especially with the way things went last year, not even being able to jump here,” Drummond said. “She represented herself and the school amazingly.”

And given the college women’s competition saw a winner at 5-10, Drummond said Kirschling can take heart in knowing she’ll be able to compete right out of the gate as a freshman at next year.

“She knows she’s right there with almost anybody at this point in the season,” he said. “I know she’s not happy right now, but when she really thinks it through, she’ll be pleased with what she did.”