BUFFALO — Leah Gaskill knows what she needs to do to make it to the NYSPHSAA championships. She’s been there before.
But that was three years ago when she made it as part of Lockport’s 4×400 relay team that finished in 11th. Now Gaskill’s trip would be the first time that she’d be there based solely on her own merits.
She took a step to get there at the Niagara Frontier League Championships with three trips to the top of the podium Thursday. Gaskill won in the 200 meters (25.71 seconds), 400 (58.39) and was a member of Lockport’s 4×400 relay team that won in 4:07.26.
“She has that experience. She is a high competitor,” Lockport head coach Tim Willett said. “… So I think that’s helped her that she’s comfortable in those situations. She knows what to expect going into that. I think our hope is that we’re going to qualify her and some friends to go out to Webster this year. I think a big piece of that is knowing what to knowing what to expect and having those teammates around you always buoys you.”
Gaskill has to find a way to shave time off of her 200 and 400 times to get to the state championships. She has to drop her two individual times down to the state qualifying standard of 24.84 in the 200 and 56.70 in the 400, or she can win the Section VI state qualifier in two weeks.
After a quick weekend off for a reward for a job well done by Gaskill and her teammates, they have to get right back to it. When they compete at the Section VI Class AA championships on May 27. The expectations heading into the meet at West Seneca West High School are for her to finish on the podium in whichever races she runs in.
One key reason that she might be able to get there is the way that she finishes races, which she has spent a lot of time and energy working on trying to compete against other high-level competitors in Section VI like Niagara Wheatfield’s Brielle Peterson, who finished in fourth in the 800 at the Class B state meet.
The two upperclassmen finished a competitive 400 race in which they were running alongside each other until 10 meters with Gaskill finding the top spot at the end of the race by a margin of 0.43 seconds.
“I think that especially this year I’ve been working on my finishes and having a strong finish isn’t just about working hard at practice. It’s all mental,” Gaskill said. “Today, I had Bri Peterson right next to me pushing me, but I think that mental in me just made me push to the end and kick to the end and I think that’s why I won.”
But if she does make it to the state championships, she can rely on her experience competing there over the winter and competing against high-level competition in all of her races.
While this could be her first time making it to the state championships as an individual as an outdoor athlete, she did make it this past winter during the indoor season in the 300-meter dash. During the event, she finished in 32nd with a time of 42.98.
“I think just going there and seeing all the girls that are so fast, girls that I look up to and who I want to be as fast as them one day,” Gaskill said. “That really gave me a drive and I think that also helped my work ethic and I see what they can do and I know that I want to be there.”