2025 MO TF Event Preview: Overall Boys Pole Vault Outlook


Over the next several weeks, Missouri MileSplit will be doing a deep dive into the top returners for each event heading into the 2025 Track and Field season. We will have premium rankings pieces highlighting the top 100 returners in each classification as well as an overall outlook for each event for all non-subscribers. Let's take a look at the Boys Pole Vault.

Premium Content: Large Class Top Returners | Small Class Top Returners | All Returners Rankings

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Class 5 Outlook

The Class 5 pole vault will get a significant makeover this spring with the graduation of six of the top nine finishers at the State meet and only three career all-state medals among the collective field. Cape Girardeau Central's Kent Sheridan cleared 15 feet last spring and is listed at the top of the Class 5 list. He won the event eight times last spring before finishing third at the State meet. Sheridan should be among the favorites to win it all in his junior campaign. 


 Kirkwood's Jacob Poole, who cleared 4.49m (14-8.75) in Jefferson City, is the second best returner and snagged a sixth place medal at the State meet in his junior season. He and Sheridan will surely be battling it out at the top of the rankings this season.


Liberty North's Kurt Wallace comes in third among returners with his 4.40m (14-5.25) best. He cleared 4.27 meters (14-0) five times, the exact mark owned by the next three returners: Spencer Nunn, Asa Keim, and Mason Turley. Turley is the third all-state returner after earning a share of eighth place last spring. His 14 foot clearance came just at the right time. Wallace and Nunn both earned State meet experience this spring, as well, with 10th and 12th place finishes, respectively. Keim was third at his district meet, but was unable to clear his opening height at the Sectional 2 meet and thus missed out on a State meet berth this year. Nevertheless, expect to see several new names atop the state leaderboard in the Class 5 pole vault this year. 

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Class 4 Outlook

Early on Day 1 last May, Osage's Landon Childs climbed all the way to the top of the podium in impressive fashion in the Class 4 pole vault, earning the victory by 10 inches in his 4.73m (15-6.25) personal best. It was a mark that runner-up, Leo Flynn from Parkway Central, had cleared at the District 5 meet, but at the State meet, he settled for 4.48m (14-8.25). Osage is projected to ride the enrollment break line between Class 3 and 4 once again this spring, but when the assignments come out, we expect them to be in Class 4 once again, meaning these two talented pole vaulters will be able to go head to head once again in 2025.

Maybe the new hair style helped, or maybe it was just standard development, but Childs was a 4th place 4.17m (13-8.25) vaulter in Class 3 in 2023 and became a State Champion 4.73m ((15-6.25m) vaulter in 2024. And it's hard to to get any more special, because of the athlete/coach relationship. His Coach also shares the title "Mom". 


That 4.48m mark that Flynn posted at the State meet was only good enough for second because Bolivar's Maddux NeSmith had had two misses at 4.41m. Otherwise, NeSmith's personal best may have given him a silver medal of his own, but instead he earned the first bronze medal and will enter the 2025 season with that performance next to his name on the leaderboard. Three others head into the season with marks over 14 feet, though two of them may very well find themselves in Class 5 this year. Both Luke Mosley (Jefferson City) and Levi Casey (Capital City) hit 4.27m (14-0) this past season, but enrollment numbers appear to have them moving up to Class 5 this year. The other 14+ man is Smithville's Logan Hennegin, who climbed all the way up to 4.34m (14-2.75) and fourth at the State meet last year. Festus's Wyatt Johnson and North County's Brady Duncan were all-staters last season with their respective seventh and eight place finishes and both also cleared 4.11m (13-5.5) in 2024. 

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Class 3 Outlook

Class 3 boasts the top two returners in the entire state and should have everyone's attention on that first weekend of State meets, much like the Lightfoot/Nielsen battles did or the presence of Liberty's Rachel Homoly did in the recent past. Macon's Caelan Harland and Blair Oaks's Tomas Gonzalez look to close out stellar high school careers with national level performances in 2025.

Harland has been the face of Missouri pole vault for the last few years, ever since he burst onto the scene as an eighth grader and cleared 4.14m (13-6). He would go on to break the freshman state record in 2022 with his 4.62m (15-1.75) mark, surpassing the now-American record holder and 2020 Olympian, KC Lightfoot. Gonzalez was not very far back during that 2022 season, though, as he posted a MO No. 4 all-time freshman mark of 4.45m (14-7) to finish second at the State meet...to Harland. Two freshmen atop the State rankings was unheard of, but their subsequent two seasons have only added to their legacies and now, as seniors, the two rivals appear ready to lock horns one more time this spring.




36-1 on Missouri soil with his only loss coming in his second career high school meet, Harland is the prohibitive favorite with his 5.21m (17-1) personal best (a MO No. 3 all-time), is surely eyeing the state record of 5.61m (shared by the afore-mentioned juggernauts Lightfoot and Chris Nielsen), and will be looking to earn an unprecedented fourth State gold in a single event. Gonzalez, though, will be looking to pull off the upset. With three State silvers to his name now and a 4.88m (16-0) personal best, he is the most likely one to dethrone Harland. 


After these two are three returners with marks that would put them among the favorites in any other class, but put them nearly three feet behind the leader in Class 3. Borgia's Adam Ashworth sits all alone in third with a 4.42m (14-6.25) personal best. He was a conference and District champion last spring, but did not record a height at the Sectional 2 meet and, thus, has yet to gain any experience at the State meet. The next two closest returners are Palmyra's Evan Pennewell and John Burroughs senior John O'Brien at 4.30m (14-1.25). Pennewell was fifth at the State meet last season, while O'Brien was unable to clear a height. 

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Class 2 Outlook 

The 14 foot performers start to decline as we enter into Classes 1 and 2 which can often be typical heading into a season. In the lower classes, resources and access to coaching tend to play a role in teams' abilities to field a pole vault crew. As many head coaches know, a good pole vault coach is a unicorn in this state and teams will hold on for dear life when the find one. Plus, the price of high quality pole vault equipment (i.e., mats, standards, bars, poles) can easily break a the bank of a smaller athletic department. While that does not mean great pole vaulters have not emerged from the lower classes - we have seen some incredible Class 1 and 2 vaulters over the years - they tend to be fewer and farther between than the larger classes.

All that aside, Class 2's top returner does still boast a mark over 14 feet as the reigning State champion, South Callaway's Colten Crocker, heads into the 2025 season with a 4.30m (14-1.25) best to his name.

He cleared 4.09m six times and won his final six meets in 2024. The next closest challenger is a nearly a foot behind him: Westran's Gage Kempker. Kempker was third at State in 2024 and enters this season with a 4.02m (13-2.25) personal best. Only one other challenger enters the season with a mark over 13 feet, and it is North Platte's Coen Rainsbarger at 3.96m, or 13 feet even.


Crocker's Joseph Bjornstead comes in just under it at 3.95m (12-11.5) and Vienna's Cooper Auten cleared 3.88m (12-8.75) in 2024. Bjornstead was sixth at State last May and Auten, a two-time all-stater in cross country, was a hard-luck fifth at his Sectional meet. 

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Class 1 Outlook

Seven of the twelve boys to record a height at last year's Class 1 State meet are back for the 2025 season, but neither of the top two finishers. In fact, only 47 total boys return in Class 1 with a pole vault mark to their name, the least of any boys' event in any classification in the entire state, further speaking to the uniqueness of the pole vault as a whole and, possibly, the exclusivity of it, as well. 

The top six returners are the only six with a career best mark over 12 feet, led by Sweet Springs senior Garret Hoyes. Hoyes was third at the State meet last spring behind two seniors and enters the season with the only mark over 4 meters (4.05m, or 13-3.5). Mound City's Ernest Peters is second with a 3.98m (13-0.75) best and finished fourth at State.

CA photo

Peters and the Panthers stand atop the awards podium with the 1st place team trophy. Peters' 4th place vault finished scored 5 points, the same margin of victory over runner-up Newtown-Harris, 45-40, in the team title race.

Drexel's Miles Wheeler was sixth at the State meet, but returns with a best mark behind North Andrew junior Mason Nester. Nester cleared 3.84m (12-7.25) in 2025 while Wheeler went 3.81m (12-6) with his best effort. Finn Johnson and Peters' teammate Creyton Roup round out the six boys over 12 feet with 3.69m (12-1.25) and 3.66m (12-0) bests, respectively.