Quietly working on her economics homework while sitting at a table in the library, you might not expect senior Lauren Taylor Fuentespina to be one of the best athletes in the state, with a pole vault record of 12 ft 1 in.
“I joined pole vault and dive my summer before ninth grade year,” Fuentespina said. “So going on four years, give or take, because I quit every once in a while for like two to three months to train for my other sports.”
Besides pole vault, dive, and water polo, Fuentespina used to do volleyball and has eight years of gymnastics tucked under her belt. For gymnastics, she is champion in two different regions, which encompass Texas and California respectively. However, it seems like athleticism runs in the family.
“My mom did tennis in college. She also did long distance running, long distance swimming,” Fuentespina said. “She also did ballet.”
According to Fuentespina, her father grew up in the Philippines, where they didn’t really have any formal sports. Looking towards her future, Fuentespina is being recruited for both pole vault and dive. She’s focused on pole vault, but finding a consistent program is a bit of a challenge.
“So based on that, pole vault is a very niche sport. Not all colleges have it. Not all colleges that are academically challenging have coaches,” she said.
Finding the perfect fit is hard, but there’s plenty of schools with an eye on her and with pretty good reason.
”[I qualified] for two different nationals, AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) red, white and blue, and AAU nationals for my freshman year, sophomore, junior and senior year. So far, and I’ve made it to regionals every year,” Fuentespina said. “For school, I’ve made First Team All District every year, and then for pole vault, I went to state last year. I got seventh at State. I got third at regionals, I got first at district and area, and then I’ve been qualified for over six nationals in the past four years, and I got sixth place at Mack vault nationals. I got second at AAU Junior Olympics, which is like the biggest track meet for amateur athletes.”
Despite all her achievements, Fuentespina is pretty mellow and humble about it. In a lot of ways, her down-to-earth attitude just seems to make her all the more incredible.
“Yeah, I like medals. They’re shining like pretty another thing I don’t know, winning is fun,” she said. “I don’t think anyone likes to lose.”
