NEW WILMINGTON — Hailey Hall peered down at her bloodied hand and cringed.

The sight of her fiberglass pole laying in pieces next to the pole vault pit turned her stomach.

“It could have been a lot worse,” said Hall of her accident during a meet at Slippery Rock University last season. “There are a lot of things than can go wrong when you do the pole vault.

“Immediately I knew it was going to be bad news,” Hall added, chuckling. “I was holding the pole real low and I was thinking I'm either going to get shot straight up into outer space or I'm going to get shot backward.”

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