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 | 42nd Arcadia Invitational
April 10-11, 2009
Arcadia High School, Arcadia CA
Discus Preview
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The platter matters at Arcadia
Two of history's best discus throwers take the ring Saturday
By Dave Devine, DyeStat/ESPN RISE senior editor
Mason Finley, a senior at Buena Vista High School in Colorado, and Anna Jelmini, a senior at Shafter High School in California, have a few things in common. Both patrolled the paint as imposing centers for their basketball teams at their respective high schools. Both sported jersey number 50 for those varsity squads. And both are among the all-time greats in another athletic discipline altogether—hurling a weighted disc from a tight circle into the wide expanse of a grassy throwing sector. Finley, with a monster toss of 222-01 last year, is the junior class record holder and #3 all-time on the boys’ high school discus lists. He’s already reached 207-0 this spring after a busy basketball schedule. Jelmini is history’s #4 prep discus thrower after her 183-11 last year at the Bill Kearny Invite, and has launched the platter 180-05 this young outdoor season. Those marks have both throwers ranked US#1 on the latest DyeStat Elite Rankings, and on Saturday, both will take to the distance-friendly ring at the Arcadia Invitational with eyes on the horizon and record hopes in their coiled arms
Finley's throws are difficult to contain
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 | Photo by Vic Sailer, photorun.net
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Finley is, by all accounts, a gentle giant. A humble, mellow, laid-back teenager who happens to be 6-feet 8-inches tall and 330 pounds. His presence at center for his Buena Vista b-ball squad undoubtedly altered the shots of opposing players driving the lane this season—he averaged 1.5 blocks per game, 7.5 points and 6.4 rebounds—but his presence in the throwing ring is even more imposing. Last year, the discus competition at the Colorado 3A state meet had to be relocated from the facility at Dutch Clark Stadium to Pueblo South HS to contain the junior’s lengthy throws. Finley’s 222-footer at the regional meet was more than 30 feet beyond the capacity of Dutch Clark’s sector.
"Not having enough room for me I thought was kind of funny," Finley told ESPN RISE scribe Jon Mahoney earlier this year. "You'd think a state meet would have enough room to break records."
While Finley didn’t improve upon his earlier 222-1 at the state meet (he threw 211-06 for the win), or during his victorious series at the subsequent Nike Outdoor Nationals, his consistency in whirling the disc out past 210 feet means the next big one is just a matter of time.
Of the #3 all-time mark which cemented his reputation, Finley told DyeStat senior editor Steve Underwood, “For the 222-footer I had a great wind, conditions were right, and my form was as good as it ever has been. When I threw the 222-foot throw I knew it was a big one, but I didn’t expect that large of a throw. I was very excited; the flight was so nice, it just floated almost to the end of the field.”
Jelmini trades hoops for full-time focus on the ring
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 | Photo by Mark Smith for DyeStatCal
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If anything, Anna Jelmini had the better hardcourt numbers among the two celebrated throwers—18.9 points per game and 2.7 rebounds per game as a junior—but she decided to hang up the hightops her senior year to focus exclusively on her throwing. It was a difficult decision, but the returns were almost immediate. At her first indoor shot put competition ever, the Simplot Games in Pocatello, Idaho in February, Jelmini vaulted atop the yearly high school ranks in that event with a PR of 51-05.00, the #1 put in the country and three-and-a-half feet further than any girl had thrown indoors at that point in the season. An accomplished shot putter, Jelmini acknowledged after stepping off the Simplot awards podium for her sole indoor victory that she was already thinking about the discus. Surveying the cavernous interior of Idaho State University’s Holt Arena, a facility which contains a full-sized football field, she wondered aloud about the feasibility of “indoor discus throwing,” figuring she could hit the grandstand from the far corner of the arena if she came in early the next morning when the stands were empty.
While Jelmini acknowledged missing the camaraderie of her Shafter basketball teammates during her foray to Pocatello, she was resolute in the conviction that her future lies in the throwing ring. She’s already competed for the United States internationally as part of a World Junior team which traveled to Poland last summer (where she finished 7th), and she’s signed to join the Sun Devils track team as a thrower at Arizona State University next fall.
“I have big goals in throwing,” Jelmini said after her Simplot Games triumph, “and even though I miss basketball, I’m shooting for the national records in the shot and discus outdoors this year.”
Arcadia, where the platter matters
At most track meets, the throwing events, often contested well outside the main venue, receive second shrift to the action on the oval. The Arcadia Invitational, however, has a stellar tradition in the throws, and has been particularly strong in the discus. If Mason Finley is seeking a locale to launch his assault on the national record, he can do no better than the field at Arcadia High, where the two marks ahead of his on the all-time list were both authored. The Arcadia facility has witnessed three National Records over the years, with Kamy Keshmiri (Reno NV) reaching a then-USR 224-03 in 1987, and Niklas Arrhenius (Mountain View, Orem, UT) demolishing that mark with a still-standing high school record of 234-03 in 2001. It’s that 234-foot behemoth Finley will be chasing, and if everything goes well he could add to the storied history of the discus at Arcadia on Saturday.
Jelmini, currently the US leader in the shot and the discus, will be contesting both events at Arcadia, but it’s her spins through the discus circle that are most likely to draw the attention. With bests of 50-11 and 180-05 already this year, Jelmini has a realistic chance at the stiff Arcadia meet records of 51-01.5 by Kirstin Heaston (Ygnacio Valley, CA) in 1993 and 180-02 by Seilala Sua (St. Thomas Aquinas, Ft. Lauderdale, FL) in 1996. The latter performance was a National Federation record when Sua launched it over a decade ago, but with that 183-footer in her back pocket already, Jelmini will surely have her sights fixed on the 15 year-old national record of 188-04 set by Suzy Powell in 1994.
With the always-hot action taking place on the track at Arcadia, fans are hard-pressed to peel away for a short walk over to the discus ring, but failure to do so this year will mean missing out on two all-time greats sharing the same circle for the first time, and possibly—if the winds are favorable and the throws are true—an even rarer accomplishment: a pair of newly-minted national records.
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