We will be doing short bios on the final 16 girls this week who made it past round 1. Here are the next four we are delving into. You can read about our first four girls here.
Jump and Stride Bracket
#5 Seed Taylor Starkey vs. #8 Seed Tiana Poirier-Shelton
Taylor Starkey
Taylor is the all-time Arizona high school pole vault leader with a height of 13-6. The Starkey name in Arizona is synonymous with pole vault and his a family affair for sure. In 2019, Taylor's junior year, she won the Division 2 AIA State Championship, took 4th in the Great Southwest Classic, won the Chandler Rotary Invitational, as well as winning the USATF Region 10 Championship. She may have been nearing that 14-foot mark if she had a full season in 2020, but nonetheless Taylor has been a force to deal with over the high bar in track and field.
In her 2019 indoor season she also took 9th in the National Pole Vault Summit with a height of 12-2.
In 2018, her sophomore season, she took 2nd in the Division 3 AIA State Championship.
Tiana Poirier-Shelton
Tiana is our first of three Chandler girls in this part of the bracket. Tiana is the #6 and #8 Arizona girls' ranked triple jump (40-3.5) and long jump (19-3), respectively. She graduated in 2017 and with those marks she was only able to take 3rd at the AIA Division 1 State Championships in the long jump, but captured win the triple jump gold in 40-1.5. She also had her best triple that same year in the famed Chandler Rotary Invitational, where she took 3rd place.
In her indoor season in 2017 she was able to place second overall in the Great Southwest Classic Indoor Invitational.
In her junior year, Tiana won the triple jump at state (39-8) and also found silver in the long jump with a then best of 18-11.5. That same season she placed 3rd at Rotary and 2nd in Sun Angel in the triple jump. And in the long jump won at Sun Angel (17-8) and moved dirt far enough in the pit to seize 2nd place at the Hohokam Invitational (18-8.25).
#2 Seed Hannah Carson vs. #3 Seed Jasmine Todd
Hannah CarsonHannah was probably simply one of the best overall high school athletes to come out of Arizona in some time in 2011. Hannah holds the #1 all-time girls' marks in Arizona in the discus (159-4) and javelin (171-9); #4 shot put AZ all-time mark and #9 in the high jump (5-8). On top of that, Hannah has a best long jump of 18-2 and a best 100M time of 12.3 - not too bad at all.
In her senior year she took 2nd in the high jump, 1st in the discus, and 1st in the shot put in the Division 1 AIA State Championships. In that same season she won in the high jump at Sun Angel, Rotary, Willie Williams and the Rattler Booster Invite. In the discus she took 1st at Rotary, Sun Angel, Rattler Booster, Meet of Champions, as well as placing 6th at Arcadia and 4th in the the Great Southwest Classic. And while the javelin was not yet an official Arizona high school event, Hannah did place first in the Golden West Invitational (Adidas), Great Southwest, and Willie Williams that same season; and was 9th in the nation at the USATF Outdoor Championships.
In 2010, her junior season, her biggest highlights were taking the bronze medal in teh IAAF World Youth Olympic Games in the javelin, first place at Nike Track Nationals in the shot put and discus.
Jasmine Todd
Jasmine was a running and jumping phenom in high school. She is ranked #2 overall in Arizona for the girls' long jump (20-1.5) and triple jump (41-5), as well as being #9 AZ all-time girls' 100M. She graduated from Chandler in 2012. Although she had a serious knee injury her senior year, which didn't allow her to finish her season, she did compete at the Chandler Rotary before that where she took 2nd in the 100M (11.76), 1st in the long jump (20-1.5) and 1st in the triple (39-1.75).
Jasmine did have an excellent indoor season though her senior year. She took 2nd and 6th overall at the New Balance Indoor Nationals in the long jump and triple jump, respectively. And at the Great Southwest Classic Indoor Invitational she had a clean sweep of the long, triple, 60M, and 200M dash.
Her junior year, Jasmine didn't lose very often. Meet of Champions she was the triple jump and long jump Champion. At Rotary she was the 100M and triple jump champion. And at the Caribbean Scholastic Invitational she won the long jump in 19-8.5.