Granier earning collegiate attention
May 14, 2013
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May 14, 2013
It hasn’t taken Abby Lazard long to show the collegiate world what the Tri-parish area already knew – she’s a jumping sensation.
The former Central Lafourche state champion jumper has enjoyed a solid freshman season with Kennesaw State, competing at a high level in the long, triple and high jump events for the Owls.
Lazard’s strongest performance came this past weekend at the Atlantic Sun Conference Championships where she finished fifth place in her conference in the triple jump, ninth place in the high jump and 12th in the long jump.
“I love it here at Kennesaw,” Lazard said this weekend following the conference meet. “I love my team, my coaches, the university – I love everything. I’m having a great time here.”
The biggest difference between the prep level and college, according to Lazard, is the competition.
In high school, Lazard used to be able to sleepwalk through local meets and still take home the gold – posting the best jump by several inches in most cases.
Against stiffer competition, she’d rise to the occasion and unleash her best leaps – the kind of jumps that made her a state champion winner in the triple jump as a senior.
But at the collegiate level, Lazard said she has to always bring her “A-game,” because everyone jumping in the pits is capable of posting lofty numbers.
“In high school, I was a state champ – I was winning every week,” Lazard said. “But here in college, everyone I’m competing against was a state champ, too, so the competition is tougher. I have to work harder to reach my goals.”
With that tough competition in her mind, Lazard said she’s worked throughout her freshman season with her coaches to polish up some of the things she needed to work on – mainly form and technique.
She said that being around her older teammates has also helped her mature as a person.
“From my coaches, I’m learning to better my technique on the field,” Lazard said. “From both my teammates and my coaches, I’m learning how to better myself, not just on the track but in all aspects of life.”
Some of Lazard’s success is simply mimicking other successful jumpers, as well.
She said that she used her first year of college to study some of the top jumpers in the league – trying to model her own preparations after theirs.
Lazard said being the underdog is a role that she never had in high school, but it’s something that she enjoys at Kennesaw.
“I love jumping against the older girls that have been here in college longer than I have,” Lazard said. “I learn so much from them by competing against them. They make me push myself harder and to jump farther.”
Whatever Lazard is doing – it surely seems to be working.
At the conference meet, Lazard posted a triple jump of 39-feet, 6-inches. The leap was her personal best, and good enough to finish fifth in the entire seven-team conference.
It was the No. 1 triple jump of all freshmen in the conference.
In the long jump and high jump, the stories were similar. Lazard posted the third-best mark among freshmen in the long and the fourth-best freshman jump in the high.
She said she is “thrilled” with how she competed in her first-ever conference meet.
“It is pretty awesome,” Lazard said. “I did better than both I and my coached expected. We’re all pretty excited about that. … I got a PR in the triple jump, which is something I’ve been wanting to do, and I came into this competition wanting to jump 38-feet, and I took it a foot and a half past that, so that really made me feel good.”
So with her freshman season drawing to a close, Lazard said she already has eyes on a few goals – both personally and for her team.
She said she will spend the summer back home, working out daily to make sure that she progresses physically before next season.
Once the summer ends, she said she hopes to have a successful indoor season – one she hopes will bring conference championship gold – both to herself and her team.
The Owls finished as the 2013 conference runners-up, trailing behind league champion Jacksonville.
“My goals for the summer are to keep working – in the weight room and on the track,” Lazard said. “I hope to go into the indoor season where I’m leaving off right now. Hopefully next season, Kennesaw State’s women’s track and field team will be the Atlantic Sun Conference Champions – that’s our goal.”
Kennesaw State freshman jumper Abby Lazard smiles in her collegiate attire. A former Central Lafourche star, Lazard had a solid first season for the Owls.
