St.
Francis of Mountain View (CCS) senior-to-be Casey Roche continued his
dramatic summertime
improvement in 2006, with his third personal breakthrough since the
final high school competition. Roche, who ended the high school season
with a career best of 16-07, has since gone 16-09.25 at the Junior Olympics
Regionals, 17-00 at the Los Gatos All-Comers and then 17-05.00 at today's
USATF Junior Olympics in Baltimore.
The personal-best clearance
gives Casey a share of the 2006 state lead with recently graduated Scott
Roth of Granite Bay and moves him into a tie with Scott for third on
the all-time
California state HS list. He also is within
one inch of the state 11th-grade record 17-06.00 set by Acalanes High's
Brent Burns in 1986.
Casey's father (Casey Sr.)
was the vault coach at Stanford when Cardinal alum Toby Stevenson
rose to prominenece in the event. Track and field is in the genes for
this family... Young Casey's mom (Debbie) was an Olympic Trials finalist
in the 100m high hurdles in 1980, his grandfather (Gene) competed in
the hurdles and horizontal jumps at UCLA and his uncle (Mike) was an
Olympian in the 3000-meter steeplechase! Not too bad for the bloodlines,
eh? -- Rich Gonzalez, DyeStatCal
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