High Jumper Taylor Morgan Raising the Bar on Career

For Upper Dublin’s Taylor Morgan, the track and field summer season is ending with many accolades that anyone would be impressed with. Yet, for her, the season never really ends. The high jump specialist is still currently training and waiting for the next opportunity to step up and show why she is among ESPN Rise’s top 50 high school elites.

Morgan is coming off her best season of competition. Recently, she traveled down to Myrtle Beach, SC, for the World Youth Trials, where she dominated the competition and took home a gold medal with a jump of five feet seven inches.

Her tour of the south wouldn’t stop there, though. Next on tap was the AAU Junior Olympic Nationals in New Orleans, where she took another medal. This time around, it was silver via a jump-off.

“It was such a great experience … and hot,” Morgan said, laughing. “It was such an honor to go down there and win. I had a lot of my teammates with me, so it was just a great time overall.”

Morgan had 30 or so of her teammates from the Ambler Olympic club cheering her on in Lousiana as she took the top spot on the podium.

Between all the national rankings, medals and accolades, it would be pretty easy to say that Taylor is NCAA bound. One person who knows in her heart that it’ll happen is her mother, Patty.

“This season was by far the best competition I’ve ever seen her compete against," said Patty. “She has had some ups and downs, but she trains so hard. I don’t think people know how hard it is to keep it up at this level.”

As most would expect, teams at the NCAA level are already showing interest. Princeton, East Carolina and Lehigh are just some of the Division 1 schools that have thrown their names in the fold.

This honor roll student isn’t just all about the athletics, though. Morgan wants to pursue a degree in the field of engineering, and is heavily looking into Villanova. She wouldn’t mind getting a scholarship to the Main Line university for either academics or athletics.

“I know it’s my senior year and I have to step it up even more,” Morgan said. “The indoor season has a lot of big events, but the big ones are in the spring, and I’ve started training in new events for that season, like the triple jump.”

The all-around athlete’s exploration into the triple jump is an effort to try and help her Upper Dublin Cardinals reach a team goal of a PIAA Championship. Only time will tell what new achievements will appear on her resume, but according to Morgan, she has one edge over everybody else.

“I stay mentally calm, and that gives me an advantage. If I can bear down and keep a calm magnitude, I’ll be good to go," she said.

Comments or questions can be directed toward Christian Audesirk at cjaudesirk@gmail.com.