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The reigning 4A state long jump champion, Abby Mecklenburg is ‘chasing marks’
Linn-Mar junior has become the first Iowa girl to hit 20 feet (unofficially), and is after Drake and state-meet records, plus the all-time Iowa best
Mar. 28, 2025 6:15 am, Updated: Mar. 29, 2025 9:18 am
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MARION — A state championship, that’s the pinnacle.
The summit.
Right?
For Abby Mecklenburg, it was a mere foothill for something higher.
Something longer.
A junior at Linn-Mar High School, Mecklenburg caught the attention of the state’s track-and-field community — and college recruiters — when she had gone where no Iowa high-school girl had gone before.
That feat: 20 feet.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” Mecklenburg said Wednesday. “It was pretty cool. I was really shocked that I actually hit it.”
That standard came at an all-comers meet earlier in March at the University of Dubuque, before the actual start of the indoor season.
She did it with her second-string footwear.
“I was using my running spikes instead of my long-jump spikes,” she said. “I guess that’s why I felt faster on the runway.
“I went to go run the 55 (meters) and I went to change my spikes. I looked down and thought, ‘Oh, wait ... ‘”
Because the 20-footer came in a non-sanctioned meet, it does not go into the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union record book, where it would have been an all-time Iowa best.
Mecklenburg followed that with a leap of 19 feet, 6 inches at the Dickinson Relays inside the UNI-Dome.
That one counts, and it ranks No. 2 all-time, behind the 19-10 1/4 effort of Lexus Lovan of Urbandale (2014).
“If she didn’t scratch her last jump (at Dickinson), it would have been 19-10, maybe 20 feet,” Linn-Mar girls’ track and field coach Nathan Hopp said.
“We’re chasing marks right now. She has the potential to go after the Drake (Relays) and state records. She’s very capable of that.
Mecklenburg won the Class 4A state championship last year on her final jump — 18-2 1/4.
“Oh, goodness gracious,” she recalled. “I guess I do well under pressure. I didn’t think it was a great job, but I could tell that Hopp was happy.
“It was exciting. I had been all over the runway, but I found my approach on that last one.”
Mecklenburg is 5-foot-10; slender, yet strong. Her right foot is her takeoff foot after an approach of 90-92 feet.
“She has incredible pop,” Hopp said. “The best I’ve seen from a high-school kid.
“She’s a very gifted athlete, one of our top sprinters.”
Mecklenburg was on Linn-Mar’s 4x100 relay that placed fifth at state last year.
“She could have been on our 4x200, but I didn’t want to force the issue,” Hopp said.
College coaches took note after Mecklenburg’s 20-foot jump: “Iowa State texted at 10 a.m. the next day,” she said.
She feels there is still room for growth once the competition goes outdoors.
“I want to win Drake, I want to win state, I want to break (Lovan’s) record,” she said. “And I really want to qualify for the U20 meet (by USA Track and Field).”
The qualifying standard for that: 20 feet, 2 inches.
Iowa’s all-time leaders, girls’ long jump
1. Lexus Lovan, Urbandale, 19-10 1/4, 2014
2. Abby Mecklenburg, Linn-Mar, 19-6, 2025
3. Aleenah Marcucci, Northeast, 19-5 1/2, 2016
T-4. Darby Thomas, Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln, 19-5, 2016
T-4. LaNeisha Waller, Cedar Rapids Washington, 19-5, 2003
Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com
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