The question for Shakeia Pinnick this track season might not be “How will she do?” but rather “What won’t she do?”
The Waubonsie Valley junior qualified for last year’s state track meet in four events. She placed second in the 300-meter hurdles, third in the 800 and seventh in the 200.
She can do plenty more.
This summer’s AAU intermediate girls national heptathlon champion, Pinnick runs everything between 55 (indoor) and 800 meters in high school track, including the hurdling events. She’s a state-qualifying long jumper and also high-jumps. She occasionally uses her thin frame to put the shot.
She also runs cross-country, and her father wants her to try the 1,600, though she’s “not excited for it.”
“The dilemma for a college coach is, ‘Where am I going to use her?’ That’s a nice dilemma to have,” Waubonsie Valley coach Jim Braun said. “Her background, her conditioning, her toughness have put her in a position to do more events than most kids.”
Pinnick’s track career started when as a 4th-grader she accompanied her two brothers to an Aurora Flyers Track Club practice.
“Coach [Tom] Boatright just tells everybody to go out there and run, so we would just go and run,” Pinnick said.
“I didn’t know I’d be good, I just ran. I don’t even think I knew what track was.”
By the summer of 2003, she knew enough to win the girls midget pentathlon at the AAU Junior Olympics in Michigan. As a freshman, she qualified for three state finals, placing second in the 300 hurdles.
Along with her heptathlon championship last summer, she won the 400 hurdles in a national intermediate girls record of 59.48 seconds. Those accomplishments earned her a spot in Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd.”
The one thing she doesn’t have is a state title. But as the top returning 300 hurdler, she thinks the event might be her best shot. She said she stuttered on a hurdle approach in the final straightaway to lose to Downers Grove South senior Egle Staisiunaite in 2007.
Also, with the departure of Naperville Central’s Casey Short to soccer this season, she has the second-best returning time in the 800.
Daily competition from Waubonsie teammate Toni Ogundare, an 800 state qualifier headed to Illinois-Chicago, provides proper training.
“Keia’s up there, and I’m just following,” Ogundare said. “She always helps me get my times down. She has a lot of confidence, which I admire.”
That confidence, a heightened weight-training regimen and a maturation of mind and body should have a lot of athletes — jumpers, sprinters, hurdlers and middle-distance runners alike — watching Waubonsie Valley this season.
“I’m pretty flexible with the events,” Pinnick said. “It’s just a lot of practice.”
———-
ckane@tribune.com
