Ithaca’s Moss Dengler to pole vault at RPI

The local pole vaulting scene has produced endless amounts of athletes who have gone on to shine in college. Look no further than Lansing’s Meghan Matheny and Trumansburg’s Dom Mikula winning national titles for Ithaca College this past spring. Ithaca’s Moss Dengler will soon continue the area’s strong vaulting pedigree, but for another team in the Liberty League.

Dengler will be attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to join the men’s track and field team. At first, he wasn’t considering RPI  until one of his friends visited there and said it reminded him of Dengler. Once he looked more into the school, Dengler felt it was the perfect fit.

“I’m focusing more on academics first,” Dengler said. “I am very interested in engineering, and RPI is a great school for that. They also have a fantastic track program with a historically good pole vault program, too.”

The Engineers’ proud history continued into this past season, where the team finished in second place at the Liberty League Indoor Track & Field Championships and one-upped themselves in the spring by winning the conference outdoor track & field title. A big part of their success was James Veolla, who won the pole vault during the outdoor championships and was the first-ever men’s outdoor track athlete at RPI to be named an All-American. He’s already helped Dengler feel more prepared for his collegiate career.

“About a week ago, I was talking to James about what it’s like to be on a team and just the expectations and heard great things about all the coaches,” Dengler said. “I look forward to what we can do there and have some fun.”

Dengler will arrive at RPI as arguably the greatest pole vaulter to come out of Ithaca High School, with his senior season being his magnum opus. Starting in the winter, he broke the indoor school record with a vault of 14 feet and six inches, won the Section IV Class A title and finished runner-up at the state championships. 

Then in the spring, Dengler won another sectional title and finished fourth at states. His outstanding performances qualified him for the New Balance Outdoor National Championships, where he also broke the outdoor school pole vault mark with a height of 15 feet and five inches. The previous record was set right before he was born, back in 2005 by Peter Thompson at states. Dengler knew he had to save his best performance for last in order to create even more of a lasting legacy.

“I knew I was gonna break it,” Dengler said. “It was a long meet and I wasn’t feeling the best initially during warm-ups. They were all kind of messy and not the best, but I tidied things up at 14 feet on my second attempt. I was actually leading after I cleared 14 feet, seven inches and 15 feet, one inch on my first attempt, tying my personal record. And then I knew it was my last chance to break the school record… I just kept making little tweaks and managed to squeak it out in my third attempt.”

It’s taken a lot of practice for Dengler to become the exceptional pole vaulter that he is today. But the biggest thing for him to excel is simply down to confidence.

“Sometimes I have bad jumps in warm-ups, but I know that I can’t take any more and try to fix it because that’s going to tire me out and I won’t be able to do anything,” Dengler said. “I have to stop after a bad jump and trust myself to fix it during competition. That’s why at nationals I only took five warm-up jumps—only two from a full approach—and they were not the best. But if I had taken more, I would have tired myself out and I don’t think I would have had the energy to clear 15 feet, five inches.”

Dengler’s journey to the top would not have been possible without two important people in his life. The first is Matt Scheffler, who has coached Dengler since seventh grade and has helped so many vaulters achieve immense success, like Mikula and Matheny.

“You can’t talk about success in the area with pole vaulting without talking about Matt Scheffler’s work,” Dengler said. “Everyone that I know that jumps in this area is coached by him and goes to his practices. He definitely is a very good coach.”

Then there’s his older brother Ember, who is currently vaulting at the University at Albany. Dengler will follow in his footsteps in becoming yet another local pole vaulter who’s sure to make a name for himself in college.

“It’s definitely very, very fortunate I can have someone that I can always turn to for advice this close to me,” Dengler said. “That’s definitely something I’ve benefited from and used in the past year. When he was at Ithaca High School, he was another coach for me.”