“Placing so high in state and breaking school records exceeded my expectations and it validates all of the hard work I’ve put in,” Julia Teven, sophomore, said after her record-setting season as a first-year high jumper.

Teven finished third in the high jump with a height of 5 feet, 7 inches at the California State Championships in Clovis on May 25, and in the process, broke the BOHS women’s high jump record — set last year by Mariah Henderson (’22) — by three inches. 

Teven’s record-setting jump was just one inch shy of the first and second place finishers — seniors Valentina Fakrogha of Ventura High School and Summer Young of Menlo, respectively — who both cleared 5-8.

“Just getting to the California State Championships in track and field is a rare feat, especially coming from the CIF-Southern Section (CIF-SS),” Dreux Valenti, head coach, said. “California is one of the only states to crown one [state] champion in each event. Our section is the most competitive in the United States and our [section] finals are more competitive than most other state championships.” 

Teven is the first BOHS women’s track and field athlete to advance to the state meet since three-miler Vanessa Hancock (’08) in 2008. The sophomore automatically qualified for state when she cleared 5-6 and placed in the top six in all divisions at the CIF-SS Masters meet on May 18.

Teven partly attributes her success in the high jump to being a tri-sport athlete; she also competes on the Wildcat volleyball and basketball teams, sports that require a lot of jumping. 

But the highly-technical high jump event requires more skill than being able to jump high. “Even though I gained a lot of athleticism from my other sports, I had to learn the technique of the high jump,” Teven said.

Teven uses the Fosbury flop technique, a high jumping method in which the athlete gets one body part at a time over the bar, starting with the head. Leading up to jump, Teven takes an eight- to ten-step head start to gain momentum.

Teven has another advantage in the event: her height. Being tall benefits high jumpers because their center of gravity is higher. The 5 foot, 10 inch Teven said, “Being tall does help, but you can also be tall and be really bad [at the high jump], so being tall alone will not guarantee success,” Teven said.

The athlete’s journey to the state championships was marked by “unheard of” improvement, according to Valenti. In the four weeks leading up to the meet, Teven added nine inches to her jumps.

“Her poise at these championship meets really stood out. At state, she did not miss a jump, in either prelims or finals, until 5-8,” Valenti said.

It was an improvement spurred by a mid-season slump. “I lost a lot of confidence because I kept getting worse, but when I made CIF [with a qualifying jump of 4-10] I realized that I did have the ability to be good, so that gave me the extra push that I needed,” Teven said.

With each successive meet, Teven achieved personal records, from 4-10 to 5-2 at CIF prelims, then 5-4 at CIF Finals, and 5-6 at Masters to qualify for state. 

“Once she hit the postseason, everything started clicking for her,” Valenti said.

Due to her third-place performance at the state championships, the Orange County Register selected Teven as its Athlete of the Week for the week of May 28.

Having only picked up the sport this season, the sky’s the limit for the sophomore jumper.

“I’m really excited to see what I will be able to do next year, now that I am familiar with the sport I know that I can go even further than I did last year and I only have my records to beat,” Teven said.