Sailing over at 14-feet, Bronco Ashley Callahan sets pole vault record

Back when Ashley Callahan was getting out of gymnastics, her friend was headed to the track to give pole vaulting a try.

Callahan opted to meet her there, but there was a problem.

“I had no (idea) where the pole vault pit was,” Callahan said.

She found it after a brief return for gymnastics freshman year at Rancho Bernardo High.

Ashley Callahan is headed to San Diego State.

(Courtesy photo)

Callahan headed right out to the pole vault pit.

“Pole vaulting was nothing like I’d ever experienced,” said Callahan, now a 5-foot-7 senior. “It was rough.

“I don’t regret leaving gymnastics because pole vaulting is where I should have been all along,” she said.

Callahan’s resume includes winning the state title in the pole vault with an effort of 13-feet, 4-inches.

The coronavirus wiped out her dream of back-to-back state titles and there is no state championships this spring either.

She is currently second in California behind Westlake’s Paige Sommers, who has gone 14-8.5 this season.

Callahan is also the first girl to clear the 14-foot barrier in the pole vault in San Diego Section history.

The day she broke the section record, Callahan eclipsed Del Norte’s Allison Leigh, who was No. 1 in San Diego with a 13-7, with a vault of 13-8.

Opting to push the bar up to 14-0, Callahan stood on the runway and marveled at the scene in front of her.

“The bar was a long way up there,” she remembered thinking. “I got a lot of the bar going over, it bounced around a lot but never came down.

“I spent the entire fall watching the bar jumping around, hoping it wouldn’t fall,” she said.

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Goal reached, Callahan has moved her sights up to 14-3 before she graduates next month.

“I’m glad I hit 14 feet so early,” the San Diego State-bound Callahan said. “I have a few more meets to get the 14-3.

“With a little adrenaline, maybe I can get it.”

Rancho Bernardo coach Roger Endreson applauded her for surviving despite missing out on months of training in 2020 as well as overcoming some nagging early-season injuries this year.

“She is always focused on the runway,” Endreson said. “She missed out on back-to-back state titles, so who knows where she’d be right now if the virus had never hit.

“You could see the excitement on her face when she nailed that 14-footer,” Endreson said.

Callahan’s next career move is taking up with longer poles, going from her last one that was 13-7 with one that is 14 feet.

“I can barely bend these new poles,” she said. “It was a little more difficult on the runway with a bigger pole.

“I did 9-6 in my first track meet, and that seems like such a long time ago, but it really isn’t.”

When she captured her state title in 2019, the enormity of the victory did not sink in until the ride home from Fresno.

“I couldn’t remember what place I got or how high I went,” Callahan said. “I went to Fresno just to be consistent.

“I couldn’t believe I’d won,” she said. “Back at school, most people at my school don’t know what the pole vault is. They’ll ask me if it’s the sport where the stick goes in the box and helps you over the bar.”

Having gone from spending as little time as possible standing on the runway to now studying the conditions before each vault, Callahan’s approach has dramatically changed.

“Usually, things get real quiet on the runway,” said Callahan, who prefers the tailwinds at Del Norte and dislikes the headwinds at Mt. Carmel. “I zone out.

“There are so many starting guns going off at a meet, if you can’t block out the noise it will get to you,” she said. “On the runway, I am the only person in the stadium.”

And the only one standing on the winner’s stand in San Diego.