Knoch’s Fennell shines at Butler Invitational track meet

By: Chris Harlan
Thursday, April 17, 2025 | 10:00 PM

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Knoch’s Kara Fennell has tumbled and flipped since she was about 3 years old, a lifelong gymnast whose skills are worthy of medals.

Except nowadays those are track and field medals.

Fennell bettered her own school record and won the girls pole vault title at the Butler Invitational by clearing 12 feet Thursday at a marquee meet that drew more than 90 schools. The senior outshined nearly four dozen other girls on this day despite being a relative newcomer to the event.

“It just seemed like something cool,” Fennell said of vaulting.

She started triple jumping as a sophomore and took up the pole vault last spring. Clearly a quick learner, Fennell won WPIAL and PIAA medals in both events last season. But Fennell surely had a head start because she was already an accomplished athlete as a Level 10 gymnast.

That’s the highest level in Junior Olympics.

“Her gymnastics background really helped a lot,” said Knoch assistant Ralph Lemmon, who coaches Fennell in the triple and long jumps.

“Being upside down on the end of a pole is not easy,” Lemmon said. “With all of that flipping on the rings and uneven bars and floor exercises and all that stuff she does, she has such body awareness. It didn’t take her long to get that inversion on the pole. Most kids struggle with that for years.”

Fennell sees the benefits, too.

“I have good air awareness,” said Fennell, who first tried the sport at a private club in Volant. “One of my friends started going to the Vault Shack, and I wanted to try it out, so I ended up going there too.”

This was her last year of competitive gymnastics. She’s planning to pursue college track at Robert Morris.

Fennell was admittedly tired Thursday after competing in the pole vault, long jump and triple jump.

Her distance of 37 feet, 3 1/2 inches in the triple jump was good for a sixth-place medal, which left her unsatisfied. She’d placed third in the state last year with a triple jump of 38-10½ and owns the school record.

Fennell placed 12th in the long jump Thursday at 16-6 3/4.

“I was a bit tired,” she said. “It was kind of hard just to keep my energy up.”

But Fennell shined in the pole vault.

Her winning height this year was 22 inches better than her seventh-place finish at the Butler Invitational last year, showing just how much she’d improved in a short span. Last year, she placed fifth at the WPIAL championships (10-9) and sixth at the state meet (11-0).

The goal for this season is to clear 12-6.

“I’m still learning pole vault, so I still have more potential,” she said.

Lemmon said maybe the best anecdote of Fennell’s athleticism is that she started teaching herself to triple jump. She went to the school track on her own and practiced her jumps.

“She didn’t have great form, but she had the basics down,” Lemmon said. “It was a legal jump. She just has so much speed and athletic ability that she was within a foot or so of being in the top 10 all-time in Knoch history just on her own.”

Note: This story has been corrected to reflect Fennell’s sixth-place finish in the triple jump.

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.