Leap into history: Barry’s state title in long jump is Unity’s first track champion in more than 40 years

CHARLESTON, Ill. — The carryover from the preliminary round of the Class 1A long jump put Mendon Unity sophomore Saylor Barry at the top of the leaderboard with three jumps to be made in Saturday’s finals.

She didn’t jump any farther, but no one else did either.

In fact, she outjumped the field Saturday at Eastern Illinois University’s O’Brien Stadium and would have walked away with the state championship with her leap of 17 feet, 9 inches. But her best leap of the weekend — 17 feet, 11 inches — put her at the top of the podium and made program history in the process.

Since her best jump came Friday, Barry had to wait until her final competitor had finished to see if that lead would last.

“I was pacing back and forth waiting for the guy to announce the numbers,” Barry said. “I was trying to stretch and keep my mind from thinking about it. I realized after the last girl jumped what it was. I was just so happy.

“I was jumping up and down, then I realized I still had my last jump. It didn’t go so good, but I was so happy it was OK.”

Barry is the Unity girls track program’s first individual state champion since 1980 and only the third ever. Terri Orr won the 200-meter low hurdles in 1980 and Jerri Miller won the discus in 1974.

Miller, Orr and Ronna Duesterhaus were the only Unity track athletes with three or more state medals until Saturday. Barry is now part of the mix, but she is the first to ever win three state medals in the same year.

Barry finished sixth in the 100-meter dash in 12.42 seconds and sixth in the 200 dash in 25.66, running both events in the afternoon heat after attempting all three of her jumps in the morning.

“Kind of a long day,” she said.

But Barry was prepared for it, and prepared to take on a long jump field stacked with talent.

“There are a lot of really good girls in the field,” said Barry, who was ranked sixth in the field coming into the weekend. “So I kind of figured maybe they were off that day and they were going to come back in the finals. I still didn’t know anything about how it might play out.”

So she had to stay confident.

“Last year I struggled with scratching, and that lowers your confidence for the next jump,” Barry said. “I ended up not scratching any today, which is good.”

And the trip to the state championships became a fulfilling endeavor.

“The experience of going to state and making it to the finals was great,” Barry said. “Staying all weekend with my friends and my coaches and enjoying the moment with my family was a lot of fun.”