Orange & Borton Reach Nationals Better Than Ever After Injuries
June 09, 2026 | Track & Field
By MARK MOSCHETTI
SEATTLE – One. Last. Chance.
For Sara Borton and Saydi Orange, that's what their University of Washington track and field seasons were coming down to.
One. Last. Chance.
Through the past couple years, both had overcome so much. Senior pole vaulter Borton dealt with a torn ACL in her left knee that required one surgery, and then a cyst on that same knee that required another one.
In the case of redshirt junior javelin thrower Orange, it was another kind of ligament – the ulnar collateral ligament in her throwing elbow – that tore, also requiring surgery.
Their respective recoveries were long, arduous and sometimes painful. At times, both admitted to thinking about hanging it up.
Neither of them did.
Now, they're off to Eugene, Oregon for the NCAA Championships. The four-day gathering at Hayward Field begins Wednesday and concludes Saturday.
Both will compete on Thursday. The women's pole vault begins at 5:35 p.m., and will feature not only Borton, but also teammates Hana Moll (the defending champion and national leader), twin sister Amanda Moll, and freshman Veronica Vacca.
Orange will be over at the javelin runway for a 6:15 p.m. start.
Collectively, they will be part of a group of 16 Huskies – nine women, seven men – heading to Hayward.
"I'm just going out there focusing on one bar at a time, soak it all in along with some of the best athletes in the world," said Borton, coming off a career-best vault of 14 feet, 6¼ inches in a jump-off at last week's NCAA West First Round meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas, for the final qualifying spot. "Just really enjoy picking up the pole, running, getting my feet down, jumping, and finishing, like going through a roller coaster."
For Orange, having thrown a career-best 175-6 on her final attempt at that same meet in Fayetteville, it was different words, but effectively the same mindset.
"It's my first time going to nationals, and my family is going to be able to make it. I'm just excited to go out there and have fun and compete in the sport that I love."
CHANGES AND CHALLENGES FOR BORTON
Many people resist change. Just as her college career was getting started, Sara Borton embraced it.
A native of Lewis Center, Ohio, about 20 miles north of Columbus, Borton chose to attend Tennessee and had a respectable freshman year in 2022, vaulting as high at 13-10.
But after the season, the Volunteers made a coaching change, and that got Borton to thinking.
"I was like, 'You know what? This is good for me,'" she recalled of her feelings at the time. "I had talked to Toby Stevenson (UW associate head coach / jumps coach), so I just reached back out to him. He had (former NCAA Record-holder) Olivia Gruver at that time, he had recruited Sarah Ferguson, who was one of the best out of high school, and he had Nastassja Campbell coming.
"I knew it was such a good group coming, and he showed he can develop athletes," the 23-year-old Borton added. "I just wanted to be a part of it. I also wanted to be in Seattle – it's very pretty out there."
It was the right fit. In Borton's very first Husky meet, she cleared her first 14-foot bar, going 14-0½ at the UW Indoor Preview in January 2023. She finished fifth at NCAA Indoors with a personal-best of 14-5¼ to become a first-team All-American.
She and Campbell subsequently shared the Pacific-12 outdoor title. Then at NCAA outdoors, Borton tied for sixth at 14-1¼ for another place on the podium and another First Team All-American award.
All of that from someone who started out as a gymnast (a somewhat common thread among female vaulters), didn't like pole vaulting when she tried it in middle school, then decided to it give another try during her sophomore year at Olentangy Orange High School.
"I had one of the top clubs in Ohio right down the street from me – not even a mile away," she said. "I was very lucky to have that. Jimmy Rhoads (who's also heading to NCAAs for the Huskies) also went there, and some other top NCAA athletes went there.
"I picked it back up and I loved it. It didn't come easy, but I loved the challenge."
Borton fell just short of returning to nationals both indoors and outdoors in 2024. Then during November of that year while preparing for the 2025 indoor season, her world was torn apart when she tore the ACL in her left knee (her non-launch leg) while jumping over hurdles during a routine practice session.
"I felt really good that day. I was going over the fourth hurdle and I remember landing and feeling like two things in my knee were supposed to meet and it just so happened that they both slid. It almost sounded like a tree in the woods just snapping," she said. "I don't know if anyone heard it, but I heard it in my head. I looked over at my coach and said, 'OK, that was weird.'"
Borton kept going – she was actually heading for the next hurdle, "and something just stopped me. When I turned around, I went to step closer to my coach with my left knee, and I collapsed. My knee just started bending on its own and I couldn't straighten it. I just got super-emotional sweating, and I couldn't control it.
"That's when I knew something happened to my knee."
REBUILDING HER CONFIDENCE
Borton had surgery shortly thereafter and knew it would be a 12-month recovery and rehab journey.
By last fall, she was gradually feeling strong again. There was a point where she started having some pain, but shrugged it off, saying, "Part of the recovery is having to push through some pain."
Just to make sure, she got an MRI and learned she had a cyst "that was all wrapped up in nerves and my hamstring tendon." She had a second surgery last December to get it removed.
"After that, I had so much relief and felt great," she said. "But then again, it was trusting my knee. … It was very hard mentally."
As is often the case, restoring confidence is even more challenging – and time-consuming – than restoring a broken body part.
"The doctor tells you you're cleared and you go out and try to do everything you did athletically," Borton said. "Going to sprint, you just don't feel as strong or stable in your body. That was the biggest mental part."
Stevenson had no doubts at all.
"As soon as she was healthy enough to run with her knee, she took one jump, and I knew from the first jump of the season that she'd be back," he said. "It was just a matter of convincing her and her convincing herself that she still has the capability to do it."
Borton was ready to go by the time of the season-opening UW Indoor Preview on Jan. 16 and placed second at 14-0½. She matched her career high of 14-5¼ at the Don Kirby Elite Invitational on Valentine's weekend in Albuquerque, then placed 10th at Big Ten indoors..
Borton hovered in the 13s during her four outdoor meets this spring and placed 10th at the Big Tens with a 13-10½. Her first 14-footer of the season didn't come until last Saturday at the NCAA West First Rounds in Fayetteville when she cleared 14-2½ on her second attempt.
That left her tied with Texas Tech's Kashlee Dickinson for the 12th and final qualifying spot to nationals. The fewer-mises tiebreaker didn't resolve it, so it would go to a jump-off at 14-6¼ -- the bar both of them had missed on all three attempts just minutes earlier.
"I thought I was out," Borton said. "I thought, 'Wow, I got 13th; I missed by one spot.' I got up (from the pit) and Coach said, 'Stay locked in; we might have a jump-off.'"
At that point, Borton knew she couldn't stick with the pole she had been using because it wasn't giving her enough height.
"It was a gamble, but I said, 'I already know I'm not going to make it on this pole, so I need to go up, and that will give me a chance.' I had nothing to lose."
Dickinson went first, but missed. Then Borton, now with her bigger pole, took off down the runway on an 80-plus degree Arkansas afternoon.
"I was so confident. I just gripped the pole and I said that I have to just drop my shoulder. I can't be looking at the bar and just trust that my body is going to go over it."
Her body went over it, beating her previous career high of 14-5¼, which she had achieved twice (both indoors).
"I remember falling (to the mat) and thinking, 'I can't believe I just cleared the bar.' I see the bar up there and I didn't touch it. I went, 'Wow – I can't believe it!'"
Stevenson totally believed it.
"I spoke to her before the competition and said, 'Hey, we're going to coach the daylights out of you. But I want you to bring that Sara Borton-kind of energy. Just be you and go for it.'
"She rose to the challenge. She was focused and energetic," Stevenson added. "It was like, 'Come hell or high water, I'm making it to nationals.' And she did it."
The four-vaulter NCAA contingent – Borton, the Moll sisters, and Vacca – will be the largest in Husky history.
Borton is planning to soak it all in … one try at a time.
"You get on the runway and you have to be so present," she said. "Each rep is so satisfying. When you hit the right move and jump right before the pole hits the back of the box and you go to swing, the feeling is like a roller coaster when your heart drops into your stomach, and you go, 'Wow – I just did that.'
"It's so thrilling. It's fun."
ORANGE FINDS HER JOY WITH THE JAV
Officially, Saydi Orange is a javelin thrower.
But as she prepares to make each attempt, she's actually playing the part of three other kinds of athlete.
"You have to be strong like a football player, flexible like a gymnast, and fast like a sprinter," said Orange, a graduate of Kentridge High School in Kent, southeast of Seatle. "It requires all aspects of being a good athlete. It pushes me, and I like to be pushed."
Undefeated in high school competition as a senior in 2022 and the two-time Washington Class 4A (large school) state champion, Orange has had a knack for flinging it far from the time when she was breaking her middle school and high school records.
No wonder she decided to give up her other favorite track events.
"I did hurdles and sprints in middle school," Orange said. "Hurdles was fun, but I just didn't have the same love for it. I played a lot of sports growing up, but I didn't love them like I love javelin."
An attendee of different Husky sports events during her teen years, choosing to attend Washington was a natural fit for Orange. In the spring of 2023, she set the UW freshman record with a throw of 162, feet, 7 inches at the NCAA West Prelims in Sacramento a few days after placing eighth in the Pac-12 Championships
Orange opened her 2024 sophomore season with another PB, this one a mark of 162-9 at the Stanford Invitational, far enough to win the collegiate division. It also would have been far enough to qualify her for the NCAA West Prelims.
But she never got there.
REPAIRING HER ELBOW – AND HER MINDSET
Three weeks after Stanford, Orange made another trip to Northern California for the Mount Sac Relays in Walnut, a meet that typically attracts some of the top competitors from around the country in all events.
It happened on her very first attempt. Orange fouled, but in the process, she tore the ulnar collateral ligament in her right elbow – her throwing elbow.
"I tried to keep throwing, and I threw two more," Orange said. "But I couldn't control the jav because my UCL wasn't attached. I was in a lot of pain. It was really tough."
After the subsequent surgery, Orange endured those moments of self-doubt that often descend upon athletes recovering from a major injury.
"I was like, 'I'm never going to heal, I'm never going to come back, I'm never going to throw the same, it's over,'" Orange said. "But I had good people around me, family and friends, and they kept saying, 'You've got this, you can come back, Just work hard, keep doing rehab, keep the faith that God will provide for you.'"
Orange, now 22, said her intent was to return by the 2025 season, "but I just wasn't ready. There was still a lot of pain, so I decided to wait that out and redshirt another year."
While her elbow healed, so did her perspective.
"I learned a lot about myself," she said. "I learned that track isn't my whole life. It's just something I love to do, and I'm not defined by how I perform. It gave me a lot of confidence. I said that no matter how I do, I'm blessed because I'm out here doing what I love and having fun with it, and that's all that matters."
This spring, Orange brought that mindset with her to the Stanford Invite on April 3 – nearly two full years after her painful mid-April day at Mount Sac in 2024. Husky teammate Ashley Schroeder set the tone with her very first throw, a school-record mark of 175-11. Orange fouled on two of her three preliminary attempts, but the one that counted went 161-3, easily putting her into the finals for three more throws.
The first of those three was one for her personal book. It landed 173 feet, 8 inches away – or 52.93 meters, breaking the "holy grail" of 50 meters (and 170 feet) for the first time.
"I cried – I always cry; I'm so emotional," Orange said of that moment. "I'd been struggling to break the 50-meter mark for so long, and I shattered it."
"I had nothing to prove to anyone, but I felt I proved to myself that day that I was back and throwing better than I'd ever thrown," she added.
Washington throws coach Jesse Chapman couldn't have agreed more.
"It wasn't a huge shock for me as a coach, knowing how hard she has trained and how easy she is to work with," he said. "She's a very cerebral athlete, very in tune with her body and what she needs to do technically. She still has more in the tank."
After placing fourth at the Big Tens in Lincoln Nebraska on May 15 with a 169-5, Orange was easily into the field for the NCAA West First Rounds in Arkansas on the last weekend in May. But even with her sterling mark from Stanford, the only thing that would count in Fayetteville would be a top-12 finish, no matter how far she or anyone else had thrown leading up to that meet.
Orange started with a 164-8 – another 50-meter mark at 50.19, but one which might be on the bubble since many of the leading throwers were in the fourth and final flight (Orange was in Flight 3). Her second one went only 143-4, so she was down to just one more try.
"I started getting into my head a little bit," she said. "Before my third throw, Chap called me over and said, 'You know what to do. Just relax and do what you do – don't overthink it.'"
Added Chapman, "For her, the conversation was, 'Just slow it down and hit the position. You don't have to throw it a mile – just throw what you're capable of.' … Instead of looking for a massive throw, just technically execute and the massive throw will come."
So Orange went out and did what she does – and launched one 175 feet, 6 inches (53.51 meters), taking her all the way to the top of Flight 3 and to the top of the overall standings. The only way she would not make the trip to Eugene is if all 12 throwers in Flight 4 were to mark even farther.
Five of them did, with three in the 180s, led by winner Valentina Barrios Bornacelli of Missouri at 188-2. The other seven finished a foot or farther behind Orange, who wound up sixth overall.
"I just relaxed, I knew what to do, and I just let it happen," Orange said, adding, "It only takes one."
Yup: It only takes one Especially when the season comes down to …
One. Last. Chance.
SEATTLE – One. Last. Chance.
For Sara Borton and Saydi Orange, that's what their University of Washington track and field seasons were coming down to.
One. Last. Chance.
Through the past couple years, both had overcome so much. Senior pole vaulter Borton dealt with a torn ACL in her left knee that required one surgery, and then a cyst on that same knee that required another one.
In the case of redshirt junior javelin thrower Orange, it was another kind of ligament – the ulnar collateral ligament in her throwing elbow – that tore, also requiring surgery.
Their respective recoveries were long, arduous and sometimes painful. At times, both admitted to thinking about hanging it up.
Neither of them did.
Now, they're off to Eugene, Oregon for the NCAA Championships. The four-day gathering at Hayward Field begins Wednesday and concludes Saturday.
Both will compete on Thursday. The women's pole vault begins at 5:35 p.m., and will feature not only Borton, but also teammates Hana Moll (the defending champion and national leader), twin sister Amanda Moll, and freshman Veronica Vacca.
Orange will be over at the javelin runway for a 6:15 p.m. start.
Collectively, they will be part of a group of 16 Huskies – nine women, seven men – heading to Hayward.
"I'm just going out there focusing on one bar at a time, soak it all in along with some of the best athletes in the world," said Borton, coming off a career-best vault of 14 feet, 6¼ inches in a jump-off at last week's NCAA West First Round meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas, for the final qualifying spot. "Just really enjoy picking up the pole, running, getting my feet down, jumping, and finishing, like going through a roller coaster."
For Orange, having thrown a career-best 175-6 on her final attempt at that same meet in Fayetteville, it was different words, but effectively the same mindset.
"It's my first time going to nationals, and my family is going to be able to make it. I'm just excited to go out there and have fun and compete in the sport that I love."
CHANGES AND CHALLENGES FOR BORTON
Many people resist change. Just as her college career was getting started, Sara Borton embraced it.
A native of Lewis Center, Ohio, about 20 miles north of Columbus, Borton chose to attend Tennessee and had a respectable freshman year in 2022, vaulting as high at 13-10.
But after the season, the Volunteers made a coaching change, and that got Borton to thinking.
"I was like, 'You know what? This is good for me,'" she recalled of her feelings at the time. "I had talked to Toby Stevenson (UW associate head coach / jumps coach), so I just reached back out to him. He had (former NCAA Record-holder) Olivia Gruver at that time, he had recruited Sarah Ferguson, who was one of the best out of high school, and he had Nastassja Campbell coming.
"I knew it was such a good group coming, and he showed he can develop athletes," the 23-year-old Borton added. "I just wanted to be a part of it. I also wanted to be in Seattle – it's very pretty out there."
It was the right fit. In Borton's very first Husky meet, she cleared her first 14-foot bar, going 14-0½ at the UW Indoor Preview in January 2023. She finished fifth at NCAA Indoors with a personal-best of 14-5¼ to become a first-team All-American.
She and Campbell subsequently shared the Pacific-12 outdoor title. Then at NCAA outdoors, Borton tied for sixth at 14-1¼ for another place on the podium and another First Team All-American award.
All of that from someone who started out as a gymnast (a somewhat common thread among female vaulters), didn't like pole vaulting when she tried it in middle school, then decided to it give another try during her sophomore year at Olentangy Orange High School.
"I had one of the top clubs in Ohio right down the street from me – not even a mile away," she said. "I was very lucky to have that. Jimmy Rhoads (who's also heading to NCAAs for the Huskies) also went there, and some other top NCAA athletes went there.
"I picked it back up and I loved it. It didn't come easy, but I loved the challenge."
Borton fell just short of returning to nationals both indoors and outdoors in 2024. Then during November of that year while preparing for the 2025 indoor season, her world was torn apart when she tore the ACL in her left knee (her non-launch leg) while jumping over hurdles during a routine practice session.
"I felt really good that day. I was going over the fourth hurdle and I remember landing and feeling like two things in my knee were supposed to meet and it just so happened that they both slid. It almost sounded like a tree in the woods just snapping," she said. "I don't know if anyone heard it, but I heard it in my head. I looked over at my coach and said, 'OK, that was weird.'"
Borton kept going – she was actually heading for the next hurdle, "and something just stopped me. When I turned around, I went to step closer to my coach with my left knee, and I collapsed. My knee just started bending on its own and I couldn't straighten it. I just got super-emotional sweating, and I couldn't control it.
"That's when I knew something happened to my knee."
REBUILDING HER CONFIDENCE
Borton had surgery shortly thereafter and knew it would be a 12-month recovery and rehab journey.
By last fall, she was gradually feeling strong again. There was a point where she started having some pain, but shrugged it off, saying, "Part of the recovery is having to push through some pain."
Just to make sure, she got an MRI and learned she had a cyst "that was all wrapped up in nerves and my hamstring tendon." She had a second surgery last December to get it removed.
"After that, I had so much relief and felt great," she said. "But then again, it was trusting my knee. … It was very hard mentally."
As is often the case, restoring confidence is even more challenging – and time-consuming – than restoring a broken body part.
"The doctor tells you you're cleared and you go out and try to do everything you did athletically," Borton said. "Going to sprint, you just don't feel as strong or stable in your body. That was the biggest mental part."
Stevenson had no doubts at all.
"As soon as she was healthy enough to run with her knee, she took one jump, and I knew from the first jump of the season that she'd be back," he said. "It was just a matter of convincing her and her convincing herself that she still has the capability to do it."
Borton was ready to go by the time of the season-opening UW Indoor Preview on Jan. 16 and placed second at 14-0½. She matched her career high of 14-5¼ at the Don Kirby Elite Invitational on Valentine's weekend in Albuquerque, then placed 10th at Big Ten indoors..
Borton hovered in the 13s during her four outdoor meets this spring and placed 10th at the Big Tens with a 13-10½. Her first 14-footer of the season didn't come until last Saturday at the NCAA West First Rounds in Fayetteville when she cleared 14-2½ on her second attempt.
That left her tied with Texas Tech's Kashlee Dickinson for the 12th and final qualifying spot to nationals. The fewer-mises tiebreaker didn't resolve it, so it would go to a jump-off at 14-6¼ -- the bar both of them had missed on all three attempts just minutes earlier.
"I thought I was out," Borton said. "I thought, 'Wow, I got 13th; I missed by one spot.' I got up (from the pit) and Coach said, 'Stay locked in; we might have a jump-off.'"
At that point, Borton knew she couldn't stick with the pole she had been using because it wasn't giving her enough height.
"It was a gamble, but I said, 'I already know I'm not going to make it on this pole, so I need to go up, and that will give me a chance.' I had nothing to lose."
Dickinson went first, but missed. Then Borton, now with her bigger pole, took off down the runway on an 80-plus degree Arkansas afternoon.
"I was so confident. I just gripped the pole and I said that I have to just drop my shoulder. I can't be looking at the bar and just trust that my body is going to go over it."
Her body went over it, beating her previous career high of 14-5¼, which she had achieved twice (both indoors).
"I remember falling (to the mat) and thinking, 'I can't believe I just cleared the bar.' I see the bar up there and I didn't touch it. I went, 'Wow – I can't believe it!'"
Stevenson totally believed it.
"I spoke to her before the competition and said, 'Hey, we're going to coach the daylights out of you. But I want you to bring that Sara Borton-kind of energy. Just be you and go for it.'
"She rose to the challenge. She was focused and energetic," Stevenson added. "It was like, 'Come hell or high water, I'm making it to nationals.' And she did it."
The four-vaulter NCAA contingent – Borton, the Moll sisters, and Vacca – will be the largest in Husky history.
Borton is planning to soak it all in … one try at a time.
"You get on the runway and you have to be so present," she said. "Each rep is so satisfying. When you hit the right move and jump right before the pole hits the back of the box and you go to swing, the feeling is like a roller coaster when your heart drops into your stomach, and you go, 'Wow – I just did that.'
"It's so thrilling. It's fun."
ORANGE FINDS HER JOY WITH THE JAV
Officially, Saydi Orange is a javelin thrower.
But as she prepares to make each attempt, she's actually playing the part of three other kinds of athlete.
"You have to be strong like a football player, flexible like a gymnast, and fast like a sprinter," said Orange, a graduate of Kentridge High School in Kent, southeast of Seatle. "It requires all aspects of being a good athlete. It pushes me, and I like to be pushed."
Undefeated in high school competition as a senior in 2022 and the two-time Washington Class 4A (large school) state champion, Orange has had a knack for flinging it far from the time when she was breaking her middle school and high school records.
No wonder she decided to give up her other favorite track events.
"I did hurdles and sprints in middle school," Orange said. "Hurdles was fun, but I just didn't have the same love for it. I played a lot of sports growing up, but I didn't love them like I love javelin."
An attendee of different Husky sports events during her teen years, choosing to attend Washington was a natural fit for Orange. In the spring of 2023, she set the UW freshman record with a throw of 162, feet, 7 inches at the NCAA West Prelims in Sacramento a few days after placing eighth in the Pac-12 Championships
Orange opened her 2024 sophomore season with another PB, this one a mark of 162-9 at the Stanford Invitational, far enough to win the collegiate division. It also would have been far enough to qualify her for the NCAA West Prelims.
But she never got there.
REPAIRING HER ELBOW – AND HER MINDSET
Three weeks after Stanford, Orange made another trip to Northern California for the Mount Sac Relays in Walnut, a meet that typically attracts some of the top competitors from around the country in all events.
It happened on her very first attempt. Orange fouled, but in the process, she tore the ulnar collateral ligament in her right elbow – her throwing elbow.
"I tried to keep throwing, and I threw two more," Orange said. "But I couldn't control the jav because my UCL wasn't attached. I was in a lot of pain. It was really tough."
After the subsequent surgery, Orange endured those moments of self-doubt that often descend upon athletes recovering from a major injury.
"I was like, 'I'm never going to heal, I'm never going to come back, I'm never going to throw the same, it's over,'" Orange said. "But I had good people around me, family and friends, and they kept saying, 'You've got this, you can come back, Just work hard, keep doing rehab, keep the faith that God will provide for you.'"
Orange, now 22, said her intent was to return by the 2025 season, "but I just wasn't ready. There was still a lot of pain, so I decided to wait that out and redshirt another year."
While her elbow healed, so did her perspective.
"I learned a lot about myself," she said. "I learned that track isn't my whole life. It's just something I love to do, and I'm not defined by how I perform. It gave me a lot of confidence. I said that no matter how I do, I'm blessed because I'm out here doing what I love and having fun with it, and that's all that matters."
This spring, Orange brought that mindset with her to the Stanford Invite on April 3 – nearly two full years after her painful mid-April day at Mount Sac in 2024. Husky teammate Ashley Schroeder set the tone with her very first throw, a school-record mark of 175-11. Orange fouled on two of her three preliminary attempts, but the one that counted went 161-3, easily putting her into the finals for three more throws.
The first of those three was one for her personal book. It landed 173 feet, 8 inches away – or 52.93 meters, breaking the "holy grail" of 50 meters (and 170 feet) for the first time.
"I cried – I always cry; I'm so emotional," Orange said of that moment. "I'd been struggling to break the 50-meter mark for so long, and I shattered it."
"I had nothing to prove to anyone, but I felt I proved to myself that day that I was back and throwing better than I'd ever thrown," she added.
Washington throws coach Jesse Chapman couldn't have agreed more.
"It wasn't a huge shock for me as a coach, knowing how hard she has trained and how easy she is to work with," he said. "She's a very cerebral athlete, very in tune with her body and what she needs to do technically. She still has more in the tank."
After placing fourth at the Big Tens in Lincoln Nebraska on May 15 with a 169-5, Orange was easily into the field for the NCAA West First Rounds in Arkansas on the last weekend in May. But even with her sterling mark from Stanford, the only thing that would count in Fayetteville would be a top-12 finish, no matter how far she or anyone else had thrown leading up to that meet.
Orange started with a 164-8 – another 50-meter mark at 50.19, but one which might be on the bubble since many of the leading throwers were in the fourth and final flight (Orange was in Flight 3). Her second one went only 143-4, so she was down to just one more try.
"I started getting into my head a little bit," she said. "Before my third throw, Chap called me over and said, 'You know what to do. Just relax and do what you do – don't overthink it.'"
Added Chapman, "For her, the conversation was, 'Just slow it down and hit the position. You don't have to throw it a mile – just throw what you're capable of.' … Instead of looking for a massive throw, just technically execute and the massive throw will come."
So Orange went out and did what she does – and launched one 175 feet, 6 inches (53.51 meters), taking her all the way to the top of Flight 3 and to the top of the overall standings. The only way she would not make the trip to Eugene is if all 12 throwers in Flight 4 were to mark even farther.
Five of them did, with three in the 180s, led by winner Valentina Barrios Bornacelli of Missouri at 188-2. The other seven finished a foot or farther behind Orange, who wound up sixth overall.
"I just relaxed, I knew what to do, and I just let it happen," Orange said, adding, "It only takes one."
Yup: It only takes one Especially when the season comes down to …
One. Last. Chance.
Players Mentioned
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