Oak Ridge High School incoming senior Tyler Burns recently competed at the USA Track and Field pole vault competition held at the Lodi Farmers Market. He and Turlock’s Nathan Garibay were the only athletes who cleared the bar at 15-6. Garibay won the high school boys division at 16-1.
At a state meet at Buchanan High School earlier this year Burns took seventh place at 15-5. The top six finishers earned medals.
Oak Ridge assistant coach Rob Fairley, who ran the Trojans’ track and field and the cross-country programs for years until stepping down to an assistant this past school year, said Burns is similar to Austin Laut, a 2015 Oak Ridge graduate who won the CIF title in boys pole vaulting the same year. Laut recently graduated from Yale University.
In Burns’ sophomore year at Oak Ridge, he had a personal record of 14 feet. This spring he had a PR of 16-3 that was accomplished at the Sierra Foothill League meet toward the end of April. Burns is a quarter-inch short of breaking the school record that Laut set in 2015 at 16-3¼.
