Sophomore season a resounding success for Pine-Richland’s Bryant

By: Kevin Lohman
Saturday, June 8, 2019 | 7:41 AM

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For Pine-Richland track and field athlete Danielle Bryant, her sophomore season wasn’t just encouraging or promising.

It was a total breakout.

After bringing home the gold in the 300-meter hurdles (42.92 seconds) at the WPIAL Class AAA track and field championship meet, Bryant punctuated her stellar season at the PIAA championships by taking fourth (44.25) in the same event.

The WPIAL gold juiced her up for the PIAA championships more, Bryant said, and it showed as she secured a medal.

“Winning WPIALs, it kind of just made me want to go for the top place at states even more. I really wanted to go out there and run a better time than I did at WPIALs,” Bryant said.

“I was focused on going out there and running my race as opposed to worrying about what any of the other runners was doing.”

While she wasn’t able to improve on her WPIAL time, Bryant said she was far from disappointed in the result at states.

Still, as is likely to be the case with any competitor, her finish left her hungry for more.

“I wasn’t the happiest because I was doing OK in the beginning part of the race, but I’m still working on my hurdling skills and they kind of broke down on me toward the end of the race,” Bryant said.

“That’s why I ended up in fourth instead of first or second. I wasn’t happy with my entire performance overall in that race, but I was still happy to get a state medal.”

The Rams runner also grabbed eighth place in the 100 hurdles with a time of 14.59 seconds at the state meet May 25 at Shippensburg. She also ran in the Rams’ 1,600 relay, though the group failed to qualify for the finals.

Overall, Bryant’s season included top-three finishes at the WPIAL championship and a Pennsylvania Track and Field Coaches’ Association all-state honorable mention for the 300 hurdles.

Additionally, Bryant recorded a top-five time in WPIAL history this year in the 300 hurdles.

All in all, she attributes her breakout sophomore campaign to the extra work that she put in during the offseason.

“I trained a lot harder for this year. I did more in the offseason to work on hurdles,” she said.

“I wanted to make sure that I knew how to run the race all the way through, instead of just going out and running my hardest.”

Tags: Pine-Richland