HOPEWELL TWP. – It’s early in track season, so like most multi-event athletes, Dantae Ranieri still has plenty of work to do before the WPIAL and PIAA championships in May.
A Hopewell senior, Ranieri says he wants to start focusing more on his two sprints, the 100 and 200 meters. He did win those events last week in a meet against Quaker Valley, but he’s not yet where he wants to be.
He’s the reigning WPIAL 2A champ and WPIAL record holder in the long jump. But last week in that meet against QV, he went foul, foul, foul on his three attempts.
However, in the high jump, he soared to great heights. His leap on 6 feet, 6 inches set a Hopewell record.
Ranieri surpassed the 6-5 jump of Spencer Marshall, a 2007 graduate.
“I was going for that record last year but I wasn’t able to get it,” said Ranieri, The Times’ Boys Athlete of the Week. “So it’s nice to get it this early in the season.”
The record Ranieri did set last year was in the long jump. At the WPIAL Championships, he was one of three Hopewell athletes to win gold in a field event.
Besides Ranieri’s win in the long jump, Jack Georgetown won the high jump and Noah Drudy the javelin.
Ranieri’s gold medal came with a jump of 23 feet, 0 inches. That was a half inch better than the record jump of 22-11.5 set by Apollo-Ridge’s Tre Tipton in 2015.
Last year at the WPIAL Championships, Ranieri also placed third in the 100 and third in the high jump.
“Jumping is definitely what Dantae does best,” said Hopewell coach Jeff Brunton. “He’s one of the top sprinters in the WPIAL as well. He’s just more outstanding in jumping events.”
Ranieri said one of his goals this year is to win his four events at the WPIAL Championships. While that’s a lofty goal – especially in the sprints – he should be in the finals in each of his events.
But as Brunton suggests, jumping is what Ranieri does best.
So he’s hoping to reach 24 feet in the long jump this season and repeat as WPIAL champ.
And now that he’s reached 6-6 in the high jump, he’ll be one of the favorites in that event as well. The winning jump last year at WPIALs was 6-5, a height Ranieri passed last week.