Injury fails to stop vaulter Injury fails to stop vaulter (June 10, 2005)

Lancer holds nothing back at state finals

By Scott Campbell

After having an up-close view of Kyle Mills-Bunge's heroics at the Central Coast Section finals, St. Francis boys track and field coach Mike Saso could be excused for not expecting a reprieve at the state championships.

"I thought I saw it all last week," Saso said of the star junior's injury-defying feats. "Obviously not."

At the state finals in Sacramento, Mills-Bunge had much more in store for his coach and other gawking onlookers.

Overcoming a left-groin pull that sidelined him in at first two, and then temporarily all three, of his events, Mills-Bunge survived a jump-off in the pole vault, a disqualification and then a reinstatement by meet officials to advance to the State finals.

That Mills-Bunge even took the field at Hughes Stadium was remarkable enough. The groin injury that occurred early in the section finals at Los Gatos on May 27 had already forced him to decline to compete in the state triple-jump preliminaries. But the junior nevertheless decided to gut it out in two simultaneous events in Sacramento, the pole vault and the long jump.

After two pole vaults sandwiched around one long jump, the pain became too great and Mills-Bunge took himself out of both competitions.

"After his second jump at 15-4, I told him not to jump again," said St. Francis coach Tom Tuite. "He took his shoes off, sat down; he was finished."

But after hearing that he had qualified for a three-way jump-off in the pole vault for the final entry to the finals the next day, Mills-Bunge decided to leave it all on the runway.

"It was a jump-off, and so I decided to come back," said Mills-Bunge.

After none of the three vaulters cleared the opening height of 15-4, Mills-Bunge dragged himself out for one last attempt once the bar was lowered to 15-1.

"I was singing Metallica songs in my head," Mills-Bunge said, describing how he steeled himself for the last vault.

That gut-checking effort proved enough to win the jump-off as Riordan's Joe Fazio, the CCS champion, missed on his attempt moments later.

An admiring teammate was especially impressed that a hampered Mills-Bunge was able to take down the Lancers' WCAL rival.

"That was crazy," said St. Francis sophomore Casey Roche, who also advanced to the finals by clearing 15-03.75. "Bunge making it in a jump-off with Fazio ... that was awesome."

But the drama was hardly finished for the beleaguered Mills-Bunge.

Meet officials disqualified him from the pole vault minutes after the jump-off, saying that Mills-Bunge violated the "honest effort" rule by not making all three of his attempts in the long jump.

"It was confusing to me," said Saso. "I was shocked, stunned."

But once Mills-Bunge was examined by a trainer who determined that the injury forced the junior out of the long jump, the tension lifted as he was reinstated and cleared to compete in the finals.

"It sucks," Mills-Bunge said of living through the up-and-down, "you're in, you're out" twists. "I wish I was just in."

Asked his thoughts on overcoming his injury to make it to the finals, Mills-Bunge said, "It's real bittersweet that I'm here and that's what my goal was, but I'm just hurting really bad and I can't compete as well as I wish I could."

Mills-Bunge managed to take the track again the following day, but failed to clear the opening height of 14-10. He finished in a three-way tie for ninth in California.

E-mail Scott Campbell at sports@mv-voice.com

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