FOXBURG — Meredith Snyder sat in the stands at Seth Grove Stadium on the campus of Shippensburg University last May and watched the Class AA girls high jump placers receive their medals.

Sitting next to Snyder was A-C Valley girls track and field coach Dave Sherman.

He turned to Snyder and asked, “Do you see what the fourth- through eighth-place finishers jumped?”

Snyder, then just a freshman who was at the PIAA Track and Field Championships in Shippensburg as an alternate on the Falcons' 400-meter relay team, nodded.

“They jumped (5 feet, 2 inches),” Sherman said. “Hmm. That's not that far from what you can jump.”

And that was it. Snyder was sold.

Heading into this spring, she decided to give up softball and focus solely on track and field.

It didn't take the A-C Valley sophomore long to reap the rewards of that decision — and keep high achievements in the high jump in the family.

Snyder cleared 5-feet in the high jump in a meet against Keystone Tuesday, breaking the school record set by her sister, Lauren, in 2008.

Lauren Snyder cleared 4-10½ that spring as a sophomore to break the school record that stood for 31 years. That record holder? Meredith and Lauren's mother, Gail.

Gail (Sabich) Snyder also was a sophomore when she and Maggie Kaufman tied for the record in the event at 4-10 in 1977.

Gail was at the meet when Lauren broke her record and was there Tuesday when Meredith cleared the bar and landed on the mat as the newest holder of the mark.

“I'm very proud of them,” Gail said of her daughters.

Meredith is still a work in progress.

She dabbled in the high jump in junior high. That was when she caught the eye of Sherman, who watched a tall and lanky eighth-grader will her way over the bar at 4-8.

“I knew then what she was capable of,” Sherman said.

But Meredith, who is 5-foot-8 and a talented basketball player as well at the school, had struggled with her form and technique this season.

“I had no idea how hard this event would be,” Meredith said. “There's a lot of technique. I just thought you ran, jumped over the bar, and landed on the mat. That was it.”

She quickly found out just how difficult keeping consistent mechanics could be. Finally she had a breakthrough at a practice on Monday.

“She has all the athletic ability in the world,” Sherman said. “We've been working on her take-off point, changing her approach and getting her the right distance from the bar. We got that fixed on Monday. I didn't want to spoil it, but I knew (breaking the record) was going to happen (Tuesday).”

Meredith wasn't so sure.

The weather didn't help her pursuit. Rain pelted down on her during her jumps and a 25 mph wind howled in her face.

When she landed on her record-setting jump, she said she thought she had hit the bar.

She didn't. The record was hers.

The hardest part was calling Lauren, a freshman at California (Pa.) University to tell her she had broken her school mark.

“She was happy,” Meredith said, “but also sad.”

Meredith, though, may break the record many more times before she is done.

Her goal is to clear 5-2 before the season is over.

Sherman is hesitant to put a number on his expectations for Meredith, but they are high nonetheless.

“She is capable of doing some pretty good things this year,” Sherman said. “I think she's quite capable of making some noise in May.”