Putting Paige Sommers' Dominance in Context

Context 1: All-Time CA Pole Vault Top 100

You may have heard that Paige Sommers is good at pole vaulting. The Westlake senior has broken the national high school outdoor record twice this spring, tying the absolute high school record with her PR of 14' 9" (Chloe Cunliffe cleared the same height indoors in 2019). So how good is she?

Sommers holds 18 of the top 100 vault performances in California history, including 11 of the top 32. Due to the pandemic, she wasn't able to vault as often as she may have liked during her final two seasons, which is why Rachel Baxter has far more marks on this list. Making the best of a bad situation, Sommers was able to focus on quality over quantity: she has the top three marks all-time in the Golden State, 4 of the top 6, and 5 of the top 10. Those numbers are likely to change over the next few weeks before she calls it a high school career and heads on to Duke.

Some more interesting facts: Sommers did not post a mark of less than 11 feet during her first 2 high school seasons, only has 2 marks less than 11 feet in her whole career (both times taking first for team points before moving on to the next round), and hasn't jumped less than 12 feet since 2019.