Jessica Shotts will be moving on to attend Southmoreland High School in the fall, but she probably won't be forgetting her junior high career anytime soon -- at least not the track and field season.
Shotts reached two milestones this spring, setting a school record in the shot put during a meet in April and then wrapping her eighth-grade season with a gold medal in the same event at the Westmoreland Area Athletic Directors Association meet in May.
Shotts threw the shot put for a school record mark of 36 feet, 11 inches during a dual meet against Jeannette on April 2, snapping a mark that had stood since 1992.
Shotts, 14, said she'd had the old record in her sights for quite a while.
"I was hoping to do it last year," she said. "(And) this year, it was a goal. There was a paper (coach Gene Spadaro) handed us with all the records listed on it. He kept telling me I was going to beat it."
When she proved Spadaro right, Jessica Shotts said, it was an emotional moment for her.
"I was so overwhelmed that I started crying," she said. "All my friends were there to congratulate me."
About a month after setting the school record, Shotts and her teammates competed at the WAADA meet at Latrobe. Shotts didn't manage her record-setting distance, but she still managed to take first with a mark of 36 feet, 9 inches.
"I had a feeling I was going to get first in that," she said.
Jessica's mother, Marcy, said the gold medal was Jessica's first after a narrow miss last season.
"She finished seventh (in the shot put) last year," Marcy Shotts said.
She noted that the top six finishers in each event earned medals, with Jessica missing the mark by just half an inch.
Jessica Shotts also competed in the discus events during her two years of junior high track. This year, she helped Southmoreland's girls squad place eighth among 14 junior high and middle school teams.
Next season, she is considering joining Southmoreland's varsity team and adding an event to her repertoire.
"They want me to do javelin and work harder on discus," she said.
