Brothers battle for top scores on Penn Hills fitness team

By: Josh Rizzo
Sunday, April 7, 2024 | 11:01 AM

Bob Martini is happy the Penn Hills fitness team has a lot of intrasquad competition to push them to improve. However, the Indians also benefited from an inner-household battle to get the highest scores. Jadyn and Jacen Wright have been battling for the top spot on the Penn Hills physical fitness team.

“I think Jadyn saw his brother coming on strong at practice,” Martini said. “I think both of them want to beat each other. I have to hold both of them back to take a break from training so hard.”

During the Indians’ last meet at Emmaus High School, Jadyn was the event’s top scorer, finishing with 482 points. Jacen finished with 480.

Penn Hills won the team championship and had five of the top seven finishers.

“This was a good performance,” Martini said. “It seems like all year we’ve had one or two guys injured. This is the first time we’ve had everyone healthy.”

Penn Hills finished ahead of Beth Page and South Bronx, two schools that finished ahead of the Indians at nationals last year. Jadyn Wright, a senior, dominated the competitions last year.

Jadyn Wright scored 485 points, which is 15 short of a perfect score at the Marine Corps National Physical Fitness Championships. He did it with a torn meniscus.

While Jadyn still wears a brace, Martini said that he has only made minor alterations to his training.

“He does well on different exercises,” Martini said. “We do a lot of jumping and deadlifts and he always wants to go heavy. We’ve had him doing different exercises.”

Penn Hills also has benefitted from having Montaz Meggett, Levi Smith and Amaraee Freeman return as well. The Indians have competed in two meets so far this season.

Penn Hills also went to a meet in Reading in late 2023. Despite only having five members available for a six-person team, the Indians were able to place second at the event.

Many of Penn Hills’ fitness team members also participate in other sports. Jacen Wright returned to wrestling this year and qualified for the WPIAL Class 3A championships. Daemon Phipps also wrestled but missed some time with a wrist injury.

“I was a little worried those guys would be too worn down to have a team this year,” Martini said. “But they impressed me. They would usually come right from their other sport to practice three times a week.”

Martini is optimistic his team will be healthy by the time the Northeast Regional championships are held in May at Halsey Military School in Elizabeth, N.J.

“We have a lot of good intrasquad competition,” Martini said. “That will help us at regionals.”

Tags: Penn Hills