MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Tuesday was not an easy day for a lot of West Virginia athletes. Especially seniors.
It was then that Gov. Jim Justice canceled school facilities for the remainder of the academic year, and thus the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission was all but forced to cancel the rest of the state basketball tournaments and the spring seasons. Tennis, baseball, softball and track and field, all gone.
That was not an easy pill to swallow for Morgantown’s best discus thrower, senior Kylee Gao.
“When it first happened, [coach Steve] Blinco was supportive, so I wasn’t too worried about it,” Gao said. “But as the month progressed, I figured the season would be over. When they sent out the email about the season being canceled, it kind of hit me that I wouldn’t see the season and my senior season was just eight practices and that was the end of it. It was heartbreaking.”
Gao, a four-year standout with the MHS throw team, had been looking forward to graduating at the state track meet like her peers before her.
“I’ve been to state meets the last two years, and I’ve seen my friends graduate so I was excited to do that,” she said. “The fact that I won’t get to is heartbreaking.”
Gao has been honing her skills since the 6th-grade at Suncrest Middle, never giving up on the sport she loves. It’s through the year-round training that comes along with being a top-tier thrower that she equally fell in love with competitive weightlifting which took her to the 2020 Team USA Junior National Championships where she placed 2nd in her weight class. Her training system is rigorous: She’s in the gym four days a week and hits the weights hard. She’s maxed out at 330 pounds for three sets of two in squats, can clean and jerk 96 kilos (211.6 pounds) and can snatch 66 kilos (145.5 pounds).
“A big part of it is that you have to be supportive of your team,” she said, “and everyone has to be supportive of you. Having those people around me through the highs and lows has helped me, too.”
And the best part? She started weightlifting in the 10th-grade.
Through all of this, Gao has garnered attention from the university in her backyard, West Virginia. Her weightlifting coaches all worked at WVU, which helped to get her foot in the door. But even with that, her mind isn’t on college right now – it’s still focused on her final high school season being taken away.
Gao was looking to redeem a 4th-place finish at states in 2019. She was in the gym constantly working in the hopes to have a better showing this year.
“When I pictured my last meet or throw of my career, I always imagined that it was going to have to count,” Gao said. “But having that taken away from me is awful. I don’t even know how to describe it. Since I had [junior nationals] in February, I was lifting with the WVU [lifting] team. So I didn’t get to spend much time with my track team. They had an indoor meet late February, early March and I didn’t get to go to that, and I wish I would have done something different.”
To Gao’s teammate, senior Jayden Dooley, the spring season getting canceled was inevitable. But it was still gut-wrenching when the call was made.
“I thought, ‘Surely it wouldn’t hit track. That’s far away,’ Dooley said. “Then they kept pushing school back and I thought, because everyone was talking about it, track would get put in summer. So I had hoped we’d start at the end of April and we’d go into late June. And when they kept extending school I knew it was going to happen.”
Dooley’s track and field career began five years ago in the 8th-grade, but a year later she decided to play for the Morgantown girls’ basketball team, putting off track for one year. She found her way back, though, and never left the circle again. Even though she’s not the only athlete forced to come to grips with senior season being nixed, it’s still hard to imagine this is how things end – especially when there are no plans to throw in college.
“We can’t believe it. We’re all just kind of shocked,” Dooley said. “There were no seniors last year, so there was only room for the remaining people to get better. This year was going to be a really good year, especially for the throwers and now we don’t get that opportunity.
“I’ve been keeping to myself. We had a group text about it, but honestly, it’s kind of devastating. I like to process things by myself, but it’s hard for everyone. Ever since states last year, we took a week off and have hit the gym three days a week ever since. It’s hard for us, all the hard work we’ve put in.”
The two seniors’ throw coach, Alden Martinez is also heartbroken.
“We were still hoping [the season would happen],” he said. “We have so many seniors who have put in so much work. Now there’s this pandemic, and for most of us, it’s disappointing because we love track. We had high expectations. We thought we’d do better [after last year] and get a state title, [and] an individual state title for Kylee. It’s devastating.”
It comes as a surprise, but Gao, too, has decided college track and field isn’t in her future. Although she went to one of the Mountaineers’ indoor meets and is comfortable with the staff, she wants to focus on academics above all else. She will be sticking with competitive lifting, though.
“I don’t think I’m going there for college [or] throwing in college, mainly because my family and I value academics more than my athletics,” Gao said. “It’s not because WVU is a bad school, I’m not saying that at all, it’s just better for me if I stick with focusing on academics.”
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