Mercury All-Area: Methacton junior Summer Mellow jumps all the way in, is rewarded with district title, PIAA bronze

When Summer Mellow is in the air, she’s on her middle ground.

The long jump is that place between anxiety and comfort for the Methacton junior. Not too comfortable, not too stressed, either. An equal balance of hopes and fears, ready for liftoff.

“It’s a middle ground between being completely relaxed and scared to death,” Mellow said.

This past spring, Mellow soared to new heights. And she did so while managing that mental and physical balance between control and discomfort.

After securing gold in the Class 3A long jump during the District 1 meet — her first time medaling in the district field — Mellow attended her first outdoor state championship meet at Shippensburg University, bringing home bronze in the event.

Mellow’s excellence wasn’t exclusive to the jumps either. The junior set Methacton’s school record for the 100-meter dash in 11.99 during a dual meet against Boyertown in April.

A season of triumphs, both in performance and from within, Mellow put together a spring campaign that garnered Mercury All-Area girls track and field athlete of the year honors.

“It’s all become more fun for me this year because it’s all starting to flow better,” Mellow said. “The anxiety has gone down tremendously because of it.”

For Mellow, exercise is her outlet and fundamental to her physical and mental wellbeing.

“We discovered last year that if I don’t do some sort of physical activity, like practice or going to the gym, I plummet significantly,” Mellow said. “I had a breakdown last year because I stopped going to the gym for a week. I just need an outlet to get that energy out.”

When it comes to track and field, her four events offer an avenue for release in different ways. The long jump and 100 meters are two opposite ends of the emotional spectrum for Mellow, the former being her neutral point while the sprint is where her confidence glows. The 4×100 relay is favorable too, there are other teammates to share the stress. The 200 meters is a beast that can ravage the nerves.

When that energy is released, Mellow tends to shine. During the Pioneer Athletic Conference championship meet, she took first in the 100 meters at 12.13, a top-25 time in Pennsylvania. Mellow also placed third in the 200-meter dash (25.65) at PACs.

While managing quad tendinitis in her right leg through the postseason, Mellow’s second-place long jump at the PAC meet was 17-1¼ behind Pottsgrove’s Athena Phinnessee (17-3½).

A week later, Mellow’s gold-worthy leap at Coatesville was 19-5½, her personal record coming in the District 1 showcase.

Mellow’s third-place jump at Shippensburg was 18-3 ¾. North Penn’s Taylor Forbes (18-9) and Madeline Lewis (18-7 ¾) took state gold and silver respectively.

By the end of the season, Mellow began averaging between the high 18s and low 19s in her long jump. Her first leap over 19 feet came on May 3 during a dual meet at Owen J. Roberts.

And with it came the surge of confidence at the right time.

“I felt, ‘Woah, this is great,’” Mellow said laughing, recalling that rush of surpassing the 19-foot mark for the first time. “I can go farther now, I realized that. Coach (Rob) Ronzano kept telling me this over and over throughout my years of doing this and he’s like, ‘You can go so much farther if you can just get all the motions right, all the form right.”

Ronzano, having started coaching at Methacton in 2003, stepped down from head coaching duties, solely overseeing the long jump.

Having worked with Mellow closely over the years, Ronzano has seen the uptick in the rhythm of her steps, the improved placement and work effort to drive it all forward. The little things, keeping her head up during leaps, knowing where she has to be. Feeling it, trusting it.

“She’s excelled to the point where she’s not only a state-caliber jumper, she’s actually a national-caliber jumper,” Ronzano said.

Mellow competed in the Nike Indoor Nationals ahead of the PIAA outdoor season, placing 20th with a 17-1¼ jump to springboard not just her athletic performance, but confidence heading into the spring.

“That to me was the biggie,” Ronzano said. “That to me is what propelled her to jumping so well during the outdoor season.”

Dwarfing her numbers from the indoor season, Mellow is now gunning for Methacton’s long jump school record of 20-3½ — a mark that sits 10 inches past her PR — held by former Warriors great Ryann Krais (2008 graduate).

Having her name on Methacton’s wall twice, already owning the 100-meter dash, is one motivation for Mellow. Whenever she sees the plaques within Methacton’s hallway, she sees her other motivation. She sees it in her own home, too.

Mellow’s mother, Heather, is the current head girls lacrosse coach for North Penn. A standout athlete during her time at Methacton, Heather is in the Rutgers Hall of Fame after a decorated dual sport career in field hockey and lacrosse.

At the time of her graduation from Rutgers in 1995, Heather was the all-time leading scorer for the Scarlet Knights in field hockey and lacrosse and racked up seven All-American honors between both.

When Mellow looks at her mother, she sees a true champion. She also sees the person who she wants to model herself after on and off the field of athletic competition.

“I look up to her so much in the world of sports in general. I want to do my very best to not please her per se, but just to make her proud,” Mellow said. “Whenever I don’t do better than I thought I could, it makes me feel I’m disappointing her, even though I know she’s not. She’s always proud of me no matter what I do. But she is my inspiration for all of this.”

Of all the high points of Mellow’s junior season, her biggest moment came early on, and at a meet she didn’t even compete in. Having traveled with Methacton’s team to the North Penn Invitational on April 1, Mellow helped find more middle ground. Once the nerve-riddled underclassmen, now she’s capable of helping a teammate through theirs.

It was a rainy, miserable Saturday, and Mellow found herself supporting a teammate feeling the weight of it all, now in a place of knowledge and experience dealing in such matters.

“I had one girl who was having like a freak out. I sat her down and I was like, ‘Listen, you have to be able to calm down, we have to work through this,” Mellow said. “This doesn’t count for anything, this is for you only. If you think you do well here, you’ll have no problem doing it anywhere else.’

“That for me was a very upperclassmen, grown-up moment. You can deal with this now, and teach it to other people.”

Events like the long jump are competition of oneself physically. In sports, and in all walks of life, there’s competition mentally as well. Mellow has walked the line between both.

It’s a line she helps others walk now as well.

“I try to be as humble as possible and help other people calm down, or help them with whatever it might be, finding a place to sit even,” Mellow said. “It just makes me more with myself, and I try to do that as much as possible, to keep that a part of myself.”