GRAND RAPIDS — Mitchell Mueller kept soaring higher, and higher, and higher — to his own disbelief. Yet in the end he made a believer out of himself and the other athletes in the Division 2 track and field state finals at Housemann Field in Grand Rapids. Mueller, a junior at Algonac, won the pole vault with an excellent final leap of 15-feet-9-inches. While it was four inches shy of the state record, Mueller finished 11 inches higher than anyone else, and beat his own personal best by a whopping 15 inches. “I won’t lie,” Mueller confessed. “At the beginning I felt a little sketchy. I was looking at the other (competitors) and I was thinking, ‘oh gosh, I have some competition today.’ And then I don’t know what happened. It just clicked. I was just soaring. It felt great today. Everything was on.” Mueller partially credited a new pole he picked up recently as he was running low on supply. He pulled it out when the bar got to the 15-foot mark. “Once I got over the 15 I looked at the video and saw how far I was over it and I was like, ‘oh my gosh I can do this.’ And when I realized I could and then I did and I was like in tears I was so happy,” he added. more
