A lyssa Wilson of Jackson has not had a day of classes yet at Monsignor Donovan High School, where she will be enrolled for the next four years, but already is throwing the shot put and discus better than many girls older than her in high schools around the Shore.
“I’m very excited to throw,” said Wilson, 14, who graduated from Carl W. Goetz Middle School this spring. “Girls I throw against are large girls. I have an athletic build and outthrow them. I train seven days a week and already started lifting at Monsignor Donovan with a power-lifting coach.”
She is also playing volleyball for the school’s team, which is her first time playing it as a team sport. She has already been getting comfortable playing with the juniors and seniors. Wilson was introduced to the sport by her physical education teacher at Goetz — Jason Ulrich, who was also the head varsity girls volleyball coach at Jackson Memorial High School. Ulrich left that position over the summer to become an assistant women’s volleyball coach at Georgian Court University.
Although the 5-foot-10-inch youngster’s favorite sport is basketball and she will be playing it at Monsignor Donovan this winter instead of competing in indoor track and field, track is where Wilson made her mark this summer.
At the AAU Junior Olympics nationals at Eastern Michigan University in early-August, Wilson finished sixth in the discus with a personal best throw of 96-4 and was 10th in the shot put with a 36-foot throw. There were more than 50 girls entered in each event in her age group.
She was also first in the state districts in both events and first in the national qualifiers at New Brunswick on June 29, throwing 38-1 in the shot put and 88-8 in the discus. Her personal best in the shot put was 41-7 a week earlier in a meet at Georgian Court.
Wilson said she prefers the discus.
“I like how you have to drive through the circle in discus,” she said. “You do not have to be strong, but it’s the speed you generate.”
For perspective, Wilson’s discus throw was better than six of the 41 entries in the NJSIAA Meet of Champions (MOC), and her shot put personal best, although with a ball that’s nearly two pounds lighter for her age group than in high school, would have been the fourth farthest at the MOC.
Wilson threw the six-pound ball in the shot put this year, but she is now training with the 8.8-pound shot put used by high school athletes. She has also started to throw the hammer and hopes to qualify for the Junior Olympics nationals in that event as well next year. She has been training with Joe Napoli of the World’s Longest Throw Club and will look to stay sharp in that event before competing in the outdoor season next spring. Wilson has already surpassed 100 feet, which most high school throwers can’t reach.
She has changed her technique in the shot put the past few weeks after the nationals, from the glide to the spin move.
“I go to the back of the circle and then try to drive through and put my foot down as quickly as possible, and turn quickly,” she said. “It’s a three-step process. When you glide, you are not able to generate enough power with your hips and use the spin like in the discus, where I use my hips a lot.”
Wilson said she is keeping her same technique with the discus.
“I start from the back of the circle and get all my thoughts out of my head,” she said. “I keep my shoulders open and my knees pointing outward, and spin my right foot coming around and then my left foot — one after the other. When I release, I’m looking up.” Wilson said she developed her technique watching YouTube videos in seventh grade. She started in the sixth grade, when she looked to run in the sprint events, and she noticed an eighth-grader throwing the shot put and became interested in trying it. Wilson graduated with the Most Outstanding Girl Athlete award for Goetz’ very successful track and field program.
However, it is basketball where she sees her future as a college athlete.
“It’s what I like best. I’ve been playing it so long and so hard for so many years,” Wilson said.
She was named the Goetz girls basketball team’s Offensive Player of the Year for last season.
She’s been playing for the Lady Heat AAU team coached by Bob Dubina, head women’s basketball coach at Brookdale Community College and varsity softball coach at perennially strong Allentown High School.
Wilson also earned the Christie Pearce- Rampone Sportsmanship Award as the school’s best female athlete.
Add to that a Scholar Award and her membership in the National Junior Arts Society, where she draws, paints and sculpts, and Wilson has shown a variety of talents in and beyond athletics.