OKEMOS - After an incredible regionals performance, placing first in the 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles and second in pole vault, Okemos Track & Field Junior Captain Sophia Franklin placed top-five in all three events at the state meet.

Franklin placed second in pole vault, fourth in the 100 hurdles and fifth in the 300 hurdles.

Leading up to the MHSAA State Finals, Franklin said practices were low-key and not as intense as a regular season practice.

"It was more technique work and the  mindset, my coach always goes through and tells me what I have to do in my mind and in my head to do well at states I guess, so that's kinda what we did and I think it worked really well this year," Franklin said.

Instead of thinking about competing at a state-level meet, she thought of her preparation as just regular practices, which helped her stay calm leading up to the big meet on June 4.

"If I get too nervous, I don't tend to do as well," she said. "So I was listening to music; I was trying to really calm myself. I wasn't honestly very nervous, it was early in the morning so I was too tired to be nervous. I was like, 'oh my gosh I'm riding on this bus.' So I was just kind of on the bus, and I was like 'it's going to be a good day, I'm gonna do well.' I just kept keeping calm and saying that over and over again."

Her teammates played a big part in keeping her distracted and calm during the bus ride, but when it was time to compete, they all lined up by the pole vault to support her.

"Well on my last vault, on the pole vault, I jumped 12'3", and so I was going over the bar and I was like 'sweet, I got it,' because my peer was 12'4". I got over and I was like wow this is really cool, this is great,'" Franklin said.

Soon after her last vault, she looked over at Okemos Track & Field Head Coach Brian Harrod, who told her she had to run over to compete in the 300 hurdles.

"I darted over to the 300 hurdles, I didn't have any time to warmup, I was like, 'okay, I gotta go.' My coach always says: 'control what you can, deal with what you can't.' That's kind of what had happened," she said. "I couldn't control me not going so far in the pole vault, and I kind of had to deal with not warming up for the 300 hurdles, so that was kind of whatever, but it ended up being okay, so it was good."

Franklin said being on the podium three different times gave her an incredible feeling of accomplishment, but she wants to reach higher for her senior and final year of high school.

"I wanna be top-three in all of my events. So everything that I qualify for I wanna be top-three in, because I think that would be amazing. So yeah, that's probably my goal," she said.

In terms of regional, she wants to be first in all three events, instead of two.

"I think I need to work on my speed work, get faster, get stronger, just keep putting the time that I put in last year and hopefully I'll get more results like I did this year," Franklin said. "Well I'll probably train during the summer. I like training during the summer, because I can go as hard as I want and I don't have any competitions that are really important. I still have pole vault, I jump for this other guy and we have these - they're kind of fun meets though, so it's not really nerve-wracking."

As for college, Franklin said she wants to run and pole vault at a Division 1 school.

"My coach was always telling me, 'if you can be really good in like three or four events, then that makes you more appealing to colleges, because they can be like, ' oh she can do this, she can do that.'' It's very well rounded, so I've been trying to focus on every single one of my events to get decent in all of them, so it's very well rounded. So I think that's one of the major keys."