(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Times News will be running a series of stories asking area coaches and athletic directors to recall their “most memorable” sporting event. To begin the series, veteran photographer Bob Ford writes about the most memorable event he has covered for the newspaper.)

By BOB FORD

RFORD@tnonline.com

My favorite sport to photograph is track and field.

That’s because at most times, there are five or six field events going on while the runners are on the track. This means I get to choose which event to shoot.

This is a positive until the weekend of the PIAA State Championships at Shippensburg University.

At States, I try to get a photograph of every “local” athlete competing - which isn’t always easy because in addition to the Times News area athletes, “local” also mean shooting athletes from our eight weekly newspapers in the Lehigh Valley.

Sometimes I have over 100 athletes to get - and I normally only get one shot at them before having to move on to the next event.

Back in 2011, I had 87 athletes competing in the meet, but one stands out.

In the girls Class 2A long jump, Tamaqua junior Kayla Hope came into the event with four girls seeded above her - all had better distances in their respective district championships the week before than the 17-6½ that Hope had established a personal best earlier in the year.

Hope’s first jump at State’s was a new personal best for her of 17-10. On the next jump, she hit 18 feet for the first time in her career, getting off an 18-8 leap to end the preliminary round. At the end of that round, Hope was leading her 24 competitors. The top nine girls would get three more jumps in the finals, with Hope having the advantage of going last because she led the field.

Hope’s lead held up until the final round of jumps. That’s when Rochester’s Erikka Williams, the third to last athlete, soared 18-10¼ to grab the lead.

Hope had just one jump left. She took the runway with a guarantee of a silver medal, but she wanted the gold. To do so she would have to beat her personal best for the fourth time in the day.

Hope took off down the runway and hit the board perfectly. You could tell when she landed that it was a good jump, but was it good enough?

Her final jump was announced at 18-10¾, besting Williams by one half inch to take the gold.

As I mentioned earlier, most times I only get one shot at each athlete, but the photo gods must have been smiling at me this day because I got a second chance to shoot Hope, and get creative.

Most long jump shots are taken from the end of the pit with the jumper coming right toward the camera.

For my second shot, I had an idea of doing a composite of several photos to show the entire jump. I pre-focused the camera and rested it on the ground. As Hope approached the board I pressed the trigger and took several pictures in a series.

After I got back to my hotel I got a call from the sports editor. He asked if I had anything “different” of Hope since she won a gold medal. I told him to give me a few minutes.

I opened up the photos and put them together into one picture and submitted it. It became one of my most talked about photos to ever run in the paper, and still one of my favorites.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Hope became the third Tamaqua girl to win a State championship in track, joining Tricia Plasko - who won the 100 and 200 meter dashes in 1987 - and Allison Updike - who won the javelin in 2010. Christine Streisel became the fourth just 24 hours later, winning the javelin.

• Although competing in the small school (2A) class, Hope’s jump would have won the large school (3A) competition as well.

• Hope’s mark of 18-10¾ still stands as the school record.