From her first days with the Portage girls track team, Jaedyn Lowe believed this was how her season would end.
“This was my goal, go to state as a freshman,” Lowe said. “I believed in myself, that I knew I could do it. That’s why it was my goal.”
After winning the 200 meters in 26.10 seconds at last Thursday’s Portage Regional, Lowe will end her season this Friday by competing at the state finals on the Indiana campus in Bloomington.
But that confidence didn’t arrive overnight, and it wasn’t developed by Lowe alone — she has her new “sister” to thank for that.
“She’s the reason I am (that confident),” Lowe said. “With her being such a good athlete and believing in me, that showed me that I should believe in myself, too.”
Lowe was referring to assistant coach Tori Bliss, a 2011 Portage graduate who won three state titles in high school before becoming a three-time All-American at LSU. Bliss joined the coaching staff at Portage this season and soon bonded with Lowe.
“It’s become less of a coach-athlete thing and more of a big sister-little sister thing,” Bliss said. “We’re very similar. It’s pretty cool to get to coach someone who is like-minded, someone who has high expectations and big goals and believes she can achieve them.”
Although Bliss wasn’t a sprinter in her career — she was a shot putter — she was able to draw on her experience with the sprinter-heavy program at LSU. She received additional guidance from Portage head coach Mark Harsha to handle her new role coaching the sprinters.
Lowe said she didn’t know about her coach’s decorated career before this season, but she did remember the breakthrough moment that came during the indoor season.
At one practice, the sprinters ran as hard as possible for 27 seconds. Lowe was the only one who covered 200 meters during that time.
More Top Picks Beauty And Personal Care
“After that, I felt like I could believe in myself more,” Lowe said.
Along with standout moments like that, Lowe said she benefited from the times Bliss would talk to her while the quiet freshman was stretching by herself before practice. Those interactions established the strong bond between Lowe and Bliss while helping Lowe become a state-qualifying sprinter.
“With her always coming up to me and being nice to me, she got that out of me,” Lowe said of Bliss. “She made me be confident.”
Lowe was a sectional runner-up in the 200 (26.45) before winning at the regional, riding a late surge to edge Bowman sophomore Melody Jones by .08 seconds.
And though she’s already reached her preseason goal of making the state finals, that didn’t stop Lowe from setting a new one for Friday’s meet.
“Everyone is telling me about the (preliminary rounds), that you have to run your hardest in each race,” she said. “To at least make it to the finals — that’s a good goal to set.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.