Oregon City’s Sophia Beckmon took to the podium with a solemn mood on Saturday morning at the OSAA Class 6A state championship track and field meet.
Did she not win the Class 6A long jump? Of course she did. She was over two feet ahead of Tualatin’s Elizabeth Graham in second place.
But with a mark of 20 feet, nine inches as her best jump of the day, Beckmon knew she could have done more.
While she was happy to win one last OSAA gold medal, the state’s best-ever long jumper — who’s best mark of 22-4 is just an inch off the national record — wanted to go out with a bigger performance.
“It does mean a lot to me. It’d nice to go out and PR again like last year.”
Beckmon said she had two issues on Saturday that made her struggle to get out of her own head: the cold weather at Hayward Field and the large group of competitors. Beckmon admitted that she prefers hot weather to jump in — when she set the state record of 22-4, it was 95 degrees at Jesuit High School — and Eugene was just getting into the high 50s when the long jump started.
This season, the OSAA didn’t break the field competitions into heats, instead opting to have all competitors go in one large group. So instead of Beckmon competing as a group of eight, she was one of 17 with a long break between jumps.
“When I was actually on the runway, I started feeling really good,” she said. “And then a couple of jumps back it was just all over the board because of how big a group it was. I wasn’t expecting it to be one whole heat with 17 girls. It was kind of hard to stay consistent. I knew consistency was going to be the biggest problem today. And that shows because I scratched a couple of times. It felt good overall. It just didn’t happen today.”
After jumping 20-9 in her first attempt, the day looked to be strong for Beckmon. Her second jump of 20-1.5 was met with an eye roll and a look of confusion to her coaches. Then she scratched on the third jump.
“As soon as I didn’t trust my instincts, it just all kind of fell apart,” she said. “I usually have a routine and then I clap and I, like, warm up and I couldn’t get that done today with how many girls there were.”
Beckmon fouled three times on Saturday. After one jump, she walked over to her coaches as she struggled to stay focused.
“Today specifically, I think it was mainly just more mentally. I was in my head a lot trying to figure out what to do.”
Tualatin’s Graham was second with a jump of 18-3.75. Anika Sukumar was third with 17-10.75.
Since she hardly ever has a competitor who is close and pushing her in the long jumps, Beckmon said she has had to learn how to push herself.
“It’s mainly just me against me. I don’t really think about other people. Usually it’s kind of just how I’m feeling. When it comes to the outside world other than track I’m always like a people pleaser. When it comes to this sport I’m like the most selfish person ever. I’m by myself all the time when I’m on the runway. It’s more of just a mind game.”
While the long jump didn’t end with a magical personal record performance, the afternoon did get better for Beckmon’s other events. She placed second in the 100-meter dash in a new personal best 11.32 seconds (just 0.02 away from Margaret Johnson-Bailes’ old record of 11.30 set in 1968). She took second in the 200 meters in 23.16 (0.05 off her personal best). The Oregon City girls 4×100-meter relay team placed third in 48.26.
— Nik Streng, nstreng@oregonian.com, @NikStreng
