Highland sophomore Jett Black has regained his mojo and seen improvements on his way to the Division II state meet in boys pole vault.

No event is more specialized than the pole vault. What makes someone want to run down a lane with a fiberglass pole, stick it in the ground and launch himself or herself more than 10 feet in the air?

But that doesn’t mean the Mt. Ararat junior is comfortable using a flexible pole to vault into the sky and over a horizontal bar. “There’s definitely fear,” he said. “For me ...