Welcome to TrackTown USA, Lily Lowe.
Not long after she started competing in the high jump in youth meets in Kentucky, Lowe set a visit to Eugene, Ore., high on her long-term goal chart.
Her progression through high school and into her sophomore year at the University of Hawaii indeed landed her a spot in the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and the opportunity to perform at storied Hayward Field this weekend.
“Now that I’ve made it, I just can’t wait to experience the atmosphere everyone talks about,” Lowe said during a recent practice session at UH’s Ching Complex before embarking on the trip to Oregon. “I’ve been looking forward to this probably since I was in sixth grade — since I first heard about it.”
The NCAA championships opened Wednesday and Lowe had a chance to soak in that atmosphere prior to representing the Rainbow Wahine on Saturday to close out UH’s athletic year. The high jump is scheduled to start at noon Hawaii time.
Lowe is the first UH athlete to qualify for the NCAA championships since Alex Porlier Langlois competed in the shot put in 2015. She’s also the first high jumper to make it to Eugene since former Wahine volleyball standout Amber Kaufman won the national title in 2010.
“It means a lot to the program,” first-year UH head coach Tim Boyce said. “For everything to come together and for her to have this opportunity is really cool.”
Lowe nearly qualified for the NCAA championship last year, but fell short in a jump-off for the final berth at the NCAA West Preliminary meet to cap a promising freshman year.
When she returned to Manoa for the fall semester, Boyce suggested expanding her training and competition program with the aim of enhancing her specialty.
“As part of her training we’ve integrated her more into the sprint/hurdle/jump group and she ran a number of 400s and 4×400 relay legs,” Boyce said. “It’s done things to take some of the complete emphasis off of high jump a little bit and just work on making her a better athlete.”
Along the way, Lowe and Boyce continually worked on refining her technique, including an eight-step approach with an emphasis on starting slow before accelerating into an explosive burst over the bar.
She posted a season best of 5 feet, 9.25 inches last year and the sprint work along with a new weight training routine that incorporated plyometrics into the regimen powered her to new heights throughout her sophomore year.
Lowe reached a long-time goal when she cleared the 6-foot mark at the prestigious Mt. SAC Relays on April 21 and set another personal best while winning the Big West championships on May 12.
“It was really emotional because 6 foot is a barrier that I had set for myself,” said Lowe, who gravitated to the high jump when she won a state championship in the eighth grade. “When I was young, I was like, ‘I really want to jump 6 foot one day’ and I feel like had that goal in mind for so long and I had always been so close to getting it and never did.
“Once I cleared, I was like, ‘I need to go home and reassess my goals and see what I want to do next.’ I honestly had my eye on conference and trying to win that and I got a PR by a centimeter.”
Lowe’s winning mark of 6-0.5 at the Big West championships is tied for eighth in the nation this season. Georgia’s Tatiana Gusin and Cincinnati’s Loreta Blaut are tied for the top spot at 6-2. Kaufman still holds the school’s outdoor record of 6-4 set in 2009.
Lowe, a four-time state champion at Calloway County High in Murray, Ky., acknowledged some freshman jitters when she fell short at the regional meet last year, but managed to more effectively channel those nerves as a sophomore and claimed a spot in in the national championship field by clearing 5-10.75 at the NCAA West Preliminary Round in Sacramento, Calif., on May 24.
“(The NCAA preliminary meet is) a very pressure filled event just to get to Eugene … but she responded to that pressure quite well,” Boyce said. “Now she’s there, she’s at the meet, she doesn’t have to worry about qualifying. Now it’s just a matter of performing and doing what she’s done all year.”
