As she sailed high into the air, Maggie Waites watched the bar get closer and closer and then farther and farther away. When she plopped down onto the mat following a 24-foot round trip vertical journey, a wave of pure joy shot through her heart.

After three long years, she’d finally reached her goal of clearing 12 feet in a pole vault competition.

Waites, a senior at St. Aloysius who has three Class 1A championships on her impressive resumé, became the first girls high school vaulter in Mississippi to reach that mark when she did it at the Last Chance Invitational in Birmingham, Ala., on Jan. 31. It marked both the end of a long personal quest for Waites and the beginning of what she hopes is a spectacular senior track season.

“I’ve been saying for a couple of years, every time I won state people ask what I’m going to jump next. I ‘m like, ‘I’m jumping 12 next year.’ And I haven’t. I got in that slump, I was out for a while, had everything go wrong my 10th grade year. So to clear 12 feet, it was unbelievable,” Waites said. “And then my next jump, being so far over 12-6, was amazing even though I didn’t clear it. It lets me know I didn’t just by chance clear 12.”

Waites hasn’t won a state championship since her freshman year, despite being one of the best vaulters in Mississippi. An injury during her sophomore year helped end her three-year reign as Class 1A champ, and a poor performance at last year’s state meet continued the slump.

Waites still has consistently vaulted 10 and 11 feet, however, and has always had her sights set on the magical 12-foot mark. Feeling frisky, she called her shot in Birmingham and delivered.

“Usually before a meet I never tell people how high I’m going to jump. I never want to get disappointed in myself if I don’t reach my goal. For some reason, that day when people asked I said, ‘I’m jumping 12 feet.’ And I did,” she said.

Waites needed a little help getting there, though. Pole vaulters need increasingly longer poles to jump higher, and her longest was only enough to go 11 feet, 6 inches. She started asking around to borrow poles from other competitors and found a friend in Margaret Ollinger, a junior from McGill-Toolen High School in Alabama. Ollinger cleared 13 feet, 2 ¼ inches to win the meet and loaned Waites her pole.

“I was going all over the place saying ‘I need poles!’” Waites laughed. “It’s a big mental game to go to new poles, but I just wanted to jump so I just got a bigger pole and it threw me higher.”

After Waites cleared 12 feet, she kept going. The bar was raised to 12-6 and she made it over only to brush it on the way down and knock it off. That did little to dampen her spirits, though.

“I feel like I’m on top of the world right now. I feel great,” she said. “I’m excited to go back to practice and get better. I really want to get that 12-6 next meet so I can keep on improving.”

Waites’ next goal is to reclaim her state championship. She won’t get the opportunity to do it until May, but the road begins in a couple of weeks when St. Al’s outdoor track season begins. She said she can’t wait to get started.

“I’m so excited to get back to the state meet this year and get my record back. The last two years have not been good years. Last year wasn’t a bad year, it was just getting back into it that was the problem. Everything was trying to get back after that bad 10th grade year,” Waites said. “I’ve been training since November. I’m stronger, faster. It’s definitely been showing and paying off.”