State track preview: Amherst pole vaulters soar to new heights

Pole vaulting at Amherst High School is much more than a sport. It's a culture.Juniors Cole Lugar, Grady Pellittieri and Alex Sixbey are the latest generation of Amherst vaulters. All three are coming off personal-record performances at last week's Division II regional meet at North Royalton as they head to this weekend's state meet at Ohio State.Lugar vaulted 15-4 to win the regional championship with Pellittieri right behind with a mark of 15-0. Sixbey took home the girls regional title with a mark of 12-4, tying the Lorain County record set by North Ridgeville's Veronica Waugaman in 2021.Lugar and Pellittieri compete at noon Saturday, while Sixbey's competition starts at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. All three have state meet experience. Lugar advanced last year while Pellittieri and Sixbey both qualified as freshmen in 2024.The trio has great coaching in its corner in more ways than one. Alan Roark has been the Comets pole vault coach since 1990. Both Pellittieri and Lugar's fathers — Dominic Pellittieri and Mike Lugar — pole vaulted for Amherst and both assist with team practices. Dominic Pellittieri was the 2001 Division I state champion (15-0) and 2000 state runner-up (15-0) and still holds the county record at 16-0.5. Mike Lugar was All-Ohio as a senior, placing fourth (14-3) at the 1996 Division I state meet.Cole Lugar finished sixth at the Division II state indoor meet at 14-2. Sixbey was 11th at the 2024 Division I state meet at 11-6. Grady Pellittieri was just coming off a tough battle with mono and didn't clear the opening height at 12-6.Regardless, the trio has put in two consecutive seasons of work between indoor and outdoor track and are hitting its stride."There's definitely a lot of pressure, but I'm not going to let it get to me this year," Lugar said. "It's a fast surface. It's going to be a good time. Regionals was a great experience. I got a lot of sleep the night before. I was well-hydrated. I was not nervous at all. I knew that I was going to do well. I was very confident."Renewed confidence for all three has been paramount, especially for Lugar and Pellittieri after each no-heighted at the Division I state meet — Lugar in 2025 and Pellittieri in 2024 — and didn't place."My dad has definitely been a great role model," Lugar said. "He helps out so much, breaking things down for me. Video, all of that. There's a legacy here. We want to keep that going. I want to win it (this weekend). I want to win it all."Lugar and Pellittieri both started pole vaulting in the seventh grade. The hook? Just following their dads, who offered their services as coaches."I've been doing a lot more drills, straight pole stuff and hammering my plant," Pellittieri said. "I've been working a lot on the invert on the pole. That's really helped me tremendously a lot with my jumps recently."Last year I was more focused on how big of a pole (weight capacity) I could get on and jump. This year I didn't worry about how big of a stick I was on. I was more so going for let's shorten things down. The mindset has been let's really work the form. I went down a pole (size) and went with a shorter approach. That really helped me to get my block higher."This weekend I think that I have a chance going down there and winning. I want to see if I can do that."It's been a tougher road back to state compared to many for Sixbey, who had to sit out her sophomore track season due to a stress fracture in her back after placing 11th at the 2024 state meet as a freshman with a mark of 11-0."I'm going to put all my hard work into this because I've worked hard to come back from what happened," she said. "I just want to have fun doing what I enjoy and have a last good meet. The important thing down at state is to stay relaxed. You know how to do what you're doing. You just have to tell yourself that so you don't get ahead of yourself and start stressing out and do funky things. You just need to stay calm."Sixbey is a former Level 8 club gymnast for Great Lakes Gymnastics in Avon Lake, competing there nine years through the eighth grade. She first began her transition to pole vaulting in the seventh grade."Gymnastics has helped me stay disciplined, for sure, and has kept me on track and working hard," she said. "It taught me to work hard every single day because in gymnastics you have to do the same thing. It just helped to prepare me for this."Sixbey's been on a good roll lately, breaking her school record each of the last two weeks."I'm very proud with how hard they've worked this year," Dominic Pellittieri said. "We've been going at it since November. Grady had mono during indoor season which kind of derailed him for six weeks. Cole had a later start because of some nagging football bruises. The stuff they've battled through to get where they are is impressive. I'm very impressed with their resilience and how the two of them work together. I know that they both want to win, but they both respect each other. It's very cool to see."Mike Lugar has been impressed with the progress of both boys, as well as with Sixbey."Those kids are so much fun," he said. "Believe it or not, Cole is just getting started. All year he has been transitioning to longer and bigger poles. We extended his approach as well. These changes take time to figure out. Cole is mentally ready. After last year at state he no-heighted and that hurt bad. It also fueled him. That fuel is dangerous in a good way. He is jumping on some real big poles. Grady and Alex both have chips on their shoulders as well."Mike Lugar set the district pole vault record at Amherst in 1996 with a jump of 14-9. Cole repeated the feat this year with a district record of 15-0, which was an automatic record because of this year's divisional realignment in Ohio."Those three compete against each other every day," Mike Lugar said. "They have no choice but to be good. We do tons of video analysis. Dom is really good with the style Cole vaults so I refer to him a lot. Alan is great with the top end so I go to him with that stuff. It's an all-around good atmosphere for learning."Roark has been coaching around the pole vault runway for quite some time. In addition to coaching at Amherst since 1990, he previously coached at Elyria Catholic (five years), Westlake (three years) and Elyria (two years)."Dominic and Mike are both doing very well and they've put a work ethic in their kids," Roark said. "It's no problem having Grady work and work and work. I have to tell him to go home. "Amherst has had a bunch of very, very good vaulters over the course of time. It took me 10 years as a coach to have one of my vaulters break into the school's top-10 list. I have had just bunches and bunches of great kids. Pole vault is a real nerd sport. They're usually honors students. They are usually great kids. These kids are totally willing to work. They're totally willing to get on big poles. It's amazing to have the resources to have the poles (15 foot poles, 16 foot poles, etc.)."One of the things I really enjoy about pole vault is that there's a big brain fight that goes on all the time from what's more efficient to what your brain thinks is obvious. You have to override what your brain thinks because it's usually wrong and not very efficient. To get from what your brain thinks is obvious to efficient sometimes it happens very quick but sometimes it takes you months to override a stubborn brain."Grady's gotten very good at inverting. That's been his battle. Cole's working on a front arm motion. He's going to jump very, very high once he fixes that. It's starting to show up. His brain is letting it happen."Roark has been impressed with the commitment he's experienced from the three juniors."They're great kids and they come from great families," he said. "Families have good work ethics. No problem at all getting them to do the work. They are all competitors. Alex had nine years of high level of competitive gymnastics. She did 11 feet in eighth grade and was No. 2 in the country (for eighth graders). She cleared 12 feet as a freshman and was No. 4 in the country (for high school freshmen). Then she had a couple of stress fractures that showed from all those years of gymnastics. They shut down her sophomore year, but now she's back."Gymnastics girls aren't sissies. They're tough. We think that she has a shot of hitting 13 or above on Sunday. That won't win it but it will get her on the podium. There's one girl out there (Granville senior Annie McCracken) that has cleared 14 feet (on April 17)."The Amherst boys have had seven pole vaulters clear 15-0 or better dating back to 1997, including Dominic and Grady Pellittieri along with Cole Lugar (Cole's dad, Mike, had a high school-best mark of 14-10). Sidney Walker (11-6) held the girls school record before Sixbey cleared 12-1 in 2024.The Comets' strong pole vault tradition should continue for the foreseeable future. Owen Lugar and Gino Pellittieri are Cole and Grady's seventh-grade brothers. They are ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the state for seventh graders with marks of 9-7 and 9-6, respectively."I have a pit in my backyard," Mike Lugar said. "They have been jumping for two years."Contact Paul Heyse at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.