Ever since she stepped foot in Cissna Park Senior High School in the fall of 2022 and co-op sports softball and track and field with Milford that spring, Addison Lucht has done nothing but break records and win, both as a teammate and as an individual.

A four-time All-State selection in volleyball, basketball, softball and track and field, not only did Lucht celebrate a storybook ending to her prep career with All-State perfection at last month’s Class 1A Girls Track and Field State Finals in Charleston, she ended it with a gold medal performance in the triple jump with a personal best 12.51 meters.

“Going into the triple jump, I knew it was the last thing I’d ever do in a high school uniform, so I just wanted to leave it all out there,” Lucht said. “I knew I put myself in a really good spot with my first jump Saturday, then it was just waiting it out to see if it would last, and it did. My dad was the first person that told me, and when he did, I began to tear up.”

It was one of three medals the Daily Journal Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year earned at this year’s state meet. Lucht had a sixth-place finish in the long jump with a season-best 5.31 meters and took the bronze in the shot put with a personal record 11.16-meter throw, giving her eight state medals for her career to go along with more than 20 postseason plaques in volleyball and basketball, including a state championship in volleyball last fall.

After she ran the 400 meters as an underclassman, Lucht only did the jumps as a junior to focus on softball, the sport that she’ll play at Northwestern. She got back on track this spring, qualifying for state in the 100 meters, and after not having picked up a shot put since she won the IESA state meet as an eighth grader, decided to give that a go as a senior, too.

The inspiration to pick the shot put back up came when she started helping her sister, Aubrey, an incoming freshman at Cissna Park.

“Whenever she’d go out and practice, I’d go with her,” Lucht said. “I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. I watched a couple of videos about it and just did what I did in eighth grade. I won state as an eighth grader in that, so I just did the same thing as that, and obviously I’ve gotten a lot stronger in the last four years.”

She threw the shot put in two regular-season events, winning both, and then won the Class 1A Salt Fork Sectional ahead of her third-place throw at state. The Bearcats didn’t have any shot puts that made weight requirements, so Lucht borrowed from befriended competitors, including a shot put from Watseka at sectionals and shot puts from Bishop McNamara and Cissna Park’s junior high team at state.

“It’s probably a little weird, everyone comes with their own and comes prepared with their own, and I’m not prepared at all,” Lucht said. “Everyone comes with their own throwing shoes, and here I am in my running shoes, just kind of winging it. But they were all pretty good about it.”

Seeing Lucht come back to shot put like she never left was no surprise to coach Jan Lavicka, who said she could throw Lucht into any event and she’d make it to state. But she also said that in talking to Lucht, one would never know she’s such an accomplished athlete.

“She’s a great teammate, she’s a great friend to all of the girls on the team,” Lavicka said. “I have a lot of other coaches who come up and say what a humbled athlete she is. She could sit here and brag from now to the moon about herself, and she doesn’t do that.”

Lavicka said all the coaches watching Lucht’s winning jump in the triple jump reacted in awe. And as she’s begun to reflect on the storybook ending to a high school career she said she’d always dreamed of, she appreciates it a bit more each time she thinks about it.

“I think it’s really awesome just knowing that that was my last high school event,” Lucht said. “To be able to end as a state champion, I’ve celebrated it, but I don’t really think it’s set in. Every time I think about it, it’s just so cool to cap off my career with that kind of achievement.”