When it’s go time, Panthers’ Luke Martinez knows how to bring it home
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Luke Martinez wishes it wasn’t this way; the Schuylkill Valley junior wishes he could pop a big jump on his first or second sprint down the runway during meets, but that hasn’t been the case.
He needs to feel a little heat to bring out his own fire.
“My first five jumps are (generally) OK,” he allows. “My last jump, I give it everything, and that’s when I jump my best. . . I need to get more consistent with that.”
It would be easier on the heart of Panthers jumps coach Todd Reinhart if Martinez could throw a big number out there and make everyone else chase. Hasn’t worked out that way.
It didn’t last week at the Firing Victory Meet where Martinez trailed heading into his sixth and final plunge into the sand.
“I really have to bring it,” he thought as he found his mark on the runway. “I have to bring everything.”
He moved his starting point back a few inches, to make sure he didn’t foul; he’s done that a few times when trying to launch his 5-11, 155-foot frame just a few inches deeper into the pit.
“I was feeling it,” he said of that fourth-down pressure. “This is my last chance, bring it home.”
Martinez brought it. Weeks of working to sharpen his takeoff, the consistency on his sprint, the accuracy off his launch point and holding his form as he sails through the air coalesced into the largest leap of his young life: 21 feet, 10 inches.
One inch beyond his previous personal best, 11 inches beyond the rest of Berks’ long jump field.
“He doesn’t want to lose,” said Reinert. “He dug deep and was motivated to not settle for third and fourth. He gets very excited for that last round; he has the drive to get it done.”
Luke Martinez, in just his second full season of high school track, and after missing two seasons due to COVID, was a county champ.
“I was super-excited,” he said. “I loved it.”
Martinez could get even more excited this weekend at the District 3 Track and Field Championships at Shippensburg University. He has a chance to bring home a pair of gold medals, in the Class 2A long jump and the pole vault.
He’s seeded first in the pole vault after recording a 13-6, his best ever in a major meet, to finish second at the Firing Meet. He’s seeded No. 2 in the long jump.
“I feel pretty confident,” Martinez said. “I’m excited for the weekend. It should be fun. In the beginning of the season (my goal in the long jump) was 20, then I got 21-9: Whoa, I didn’t expect that. I’d be happy with anything over 22.”
Martinez is just happy to be out running and jumping and soaring through the air. For two years he wasn’t able to. His freshman season in 2020 was suspended due to COVID-19. Because of the lingering pandemic he wasn’t eager to get back into the classroom, so he enrolled at a cyber school in 2021; that meant he couldn’t practice and compete with Schuylkill Valley’s track and field team.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t work on his skills, even if it was unknowingly. He and his friends were just having fun on a trampoline in the backyard, doing flips. That proved beneficial to Martinez when he returned to the pole vault last season. It helped his confidence and mid-air body control as he worked to clear the bar.
Turns out his experience as a diver the previous year helped, too. The same body control and mid-air flips that helped him earn a fifth-place medal at the District 3 Swimming and Diving Championships as a freshman carried over to the pole vault.
Martinez has always been a natural athlete. He remembers Reinert, his second-grade gym teacher, conducting a jumping competition in class. Reinert set up a 10-foot landing mat for the kids; Martinez cleared it.
“I was the only kid to jump over the whole mat,” he recalls with pride.
He discovered the pole vault in junior high. He thought it looked fun and threw himself into that event. Now he considers it his favorite.
“It’s more interesting,” he said.
He loves launching himself off the pole, flipping in the air and trying to throw himself over the bar; he did 13-9 the other day at practice. He’s cleared 14-0, but that was over a bungee cord, not a bar. He believes he can do that in a meet, maybe even this weekend.
He finished fourth at districts last year, still a novice at the event, clearing 12-0. That excited him.
He’s learned so much more since. At practice each day he bounces back and forth between the long jump and pole vault runways, located next to each other just outside the stadium. He’ll work with Reinert on his jump techniques and Panthers coach Dan Shuman on his pole vaulting. Occasionally, co-head coach Terry McKechnie will summon him to the track where he runs the lead leg in the Panthers’ 4×100 relay.
Along with William Johnson, Mike Goad and Nii Larkai he has a chance win a medal at districts in that event, too.
“We all fight to work with him,” joked Reinert.
After practice Martinez heads home and watches videos of Olympic performers, trying to pick up tips. He knows he’s still a novice in his sport, just starting out, really.
“I just want to perform well,” he says, looking ahead to the weekend. “I want to get higher and get further and just beat what (I’ve done). The medals? Obviously that’s a goal, but I would personally like to get as far and high as I can. Just continue to get better and grow.”
“I tell him, every week is like another learning experience,” Reinert said. “Every week he’s gotten better at this little thing and that little thing. He put it all together at the county meet and was able to jump his best at the most important time of the year.
“He wasn’t kicking butt at the junior high level. He’s really evolved in the last year or two into a district and state medal threat. He’s really grown into his body and gotten a lot more powerful and faster. It’s all coming together at the right time here.”
