NCAA Declaration List

[rainbowgirl28]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/otherspor ... oma11.html

UW's Kate Soma is the NCAA indoor vault favorite



By MOLLY YANITY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Kate Soma stands 5-foot-1. She's blonde-haired, bright-eyed and the personification of the word "adorable," but she'd just as soon show you the scar on her left hand as flash her smile.



This is the NCAA's best pole vaulter, a sweet girl who gets some serious air, a young woman who demands that she live in the moment, but one who can't wait to fulfill her ambition.



Soma has the highest vault of the indoor season at 14 feet, 3 1/2 inches. She won the 2004 Pac-10 outdoor title, is a three-time All-American and is the newly crowned Mountain Pacific Sports Federation champ.



She also leads a record-setting University of Washington contingent that is 12 strong into this week's NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championship meet in Fayetteville, Ark., where a national title is well within her reach.



But Soma insists we don't get ahead of ourselves here.



"It doesn't really matter until I actually win. Everyone is like, 'You're ranked first.' Well, rankings don't mean anything. It doesn't matter until that day because anything can happen on that day," the Portland native said.



That is experience talking.



At the NCAA championships in 2003, Soma sized up the bar at 13-9 1/2. She rushed toward it, thrust down her pole and, instead of catapulting upward, she crashed to the ground as the pole snapped in half, slicing into her hand.



The injury left her with 10 stitches and forced her out of the competition. Her previous jumps landed her in seventh place and earned her a spot on the All-America team. But the injury also kept her out of the U.S. Senior Nationals and left permanent physical and mental marks.


"(Doctors) said if (the cut) was just a little bit more this way, I wouldn't have been able to move my fingers," she said. "So, when something like that happens, you just take one year at a time."



And each year, Soma has done nothing but improve, a development that she attributes to vaults coach Pat Licari. Licari credits Soma's hard work.



"She's much shorter than her competitors and she makes up for that with just really good technique," Licari said. "Her form and technique are superior. She has pretty good speed, which helps her. She works hard in the weight room, hard on getting faster and then again on the detail to the actual technique."



At the indoor nationals, Soma has finished 12th and fifth, and is the favorite to win this weekend. Outdoors, she has gone 16th, seventh and second in consecutive years.



"You always want to win, but my goals before were like, 'I'm going to be an All-American, I'm going to finish in the top eight,' " Soma said. "I've never gone into the season with the mentality that I'm going to win a national championship and that's a totally different mentality than I've ever entered as season with.



"New goals with new heights," she said.



This is where adorable turns into ferocious.



Despite her height, Soma is ripped with muscle. Despite being 115 pounds, Soma is tough. Despite her unassuming manner, she's competitive as all heck.



"Add all those things up -- she's only five feet tall in a sport where height helps," Huskies head track and field coach Greg Metcalf said. "She wasn't highly recruited; folks weren't throwing scholarships at her. Nothing has really been handed to her. She has earned everything she's gotten. Now she's incredibly confident, and she has always does well in the big meets."



During last year's outdoor season, Soma duked it out with UCLA's Chelsea Johnson. Soma beat Johnson for the conference title, but the Bruins vaulter bested Soma at the NCAAs, leaving her the runner-up.



Johnson suffered a hamstring injury this fall and competed in just one indoor meet -- the MPSF championships -- this season.



"I'm friends with Chelsea and I knew she was going to be redshirting a while back," Soma said. "We were talking and she'd said, 'If I'm not competing, you better win.' And I was like, 'Even if you are competing, I'm winning,' "



Soma was a Level 10 gymnast as an 11-year-old. She broke the Huskies' pole vault record her freshman year and continues to push it further out of reach. Four years ago at the Pole Vault Summit, she got her picture taken with Olympic gold medalist Stacy Dragila; this year at the Summit, Soma competed against Dragila.



Lofty accomplishments all, but this stuff is simply a blast for Soma.



Three of her vaulting teammates -- two of whom are also her roommates -- will make the trip to Arkansas, as Carly Dockendorf, Ashley Wildhaber and Stevie Marshalek will all compete in the 17-woman field.



"They're all super-competitive," Metcalf said. "They come to practice, work hard and are just outgoing, personable young women, but they get ticked off if they don't clear a bar they think they should."



Soma tells you about her roommates and how much fun she has. She tells you about her "Dinosaurs" class, and her Bible studies. And then she starts thinking about the NCAAs again.



"In pole vaulting, you aren't competing as much against other people as yourself," she said.



Then she sighs, like just maybe you're not supposed to believe that, and adds, "Obviously at a national meet, you are competing to win and no one is going to complain about coming out on top. ... Your world is kind of turned upside down when you realize you're capable of more than I ever thought I would be."

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/200 ... 188740.txt

NU pole vaulter sets sights on NCAA meet
BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star



Ray Scotten belongs in a Mountain Dew commercial.




You know those 30-second spots where guys parachute out of an airplane or fly off a snowboard ramp while slamming some Dew?

Those are Scotten's people.

"I was kind of one of those crazy kids that was doing back flips all over the place, just being obnoxious and climbing on everything," Scotten said. "I've been hurt in the gymnastics room several times just playing around."

But the Nebraska junior pole vaulter â€â€