Krista Cobb estimated she’s thrown the discus 25,000 times in the last two seasons. She wasn’t going to let one bad late-season toss ruin her long-term plans.

After scratching at the Interstate 8 meet, the Sycamore senior twice came close to setting her personal record. The first time gave her a Class 2A Genoa-Kingston Sectional title. The second, eight days later, gave her third place in the state.

“I needed to put my setback behind me and realize that what was in front of me was so much greater,” said Cobb, who was named the Daily Chronicle 2026 Girls Track Athlete of the Year. “I needed to do my best and focus on my joy to achieve what I wanted to.”

She didn’t achieve her main goal of winning a state championship, but she still took third with a throw of 40.61 meters, about a meter shy of her personal and school record throw of 41.34 meters set earlier in the year in a midweek dual against Kaneland.

Both competitors ahead of her threw personal bests to beat her. She said knowing that she improved so much from last year and spent so much of the year ranked No. 1 in the state made the year a success.

“I just tried to find joy in every moment at state and really throughout the whole season,” Cobb said. “It just kind of helped me relieve the stress and helped me throw the best I could knowing the result mattered, but my joy in the situation was what was driving me.”

Sycamore coach Joe McCormick said it was an outstanding season for the Northern Michigan commit. She started the year breaking her discus record at a meet at Ottawa, then broke it again against Kaneland.

She spent the indoor season, he said, working on the shot put, but the discus is her passion.

“She’s going to walk away from Sycamore as one of, if not the best, discus thrower in school history,” McCormick said. “That’s something to be proud of.”

McCormick said Cobb showed so much mental fortitude and focus to bounce back after the conference hiccup. She won the shot put at that meet, but then the next week took third at the sectional and failed to qualify for state.

Her next event after the shot was the discus. That’s where the mental fortitude came in, McCormick said. Instead of folding after a couple things not going her way, Cobb flirted with the school record again, going 41.16 meters.

“Obviously it was tough coming out of conference like that and it took me a second to get over it,” Cobb said. “But I realized that we all have our ups and downs and this was my down. I had to come up from this. I spent countless hours working and lifting. I’ve gotten over 25,000 throws in the last 21 months. I knew the work I had put in was there.”

Cobb will compete for Northern Michigan, focusing on the hammer and discus. She said her uncle, Michael Weckerly, told her about the program. Once she took a visit up there, she was sold.

She leaves a Sycamore program that won a conference and sectional team title for the first time in its history. She said that was the perfect cap to her four years with the team that felt more like a family.

“Just standing there as a team together, getting the sectional award, that was great,” Cobb said. “It felt like we came together as a team and united.”