High jumping has been part of Sibella Benninghoff and Alex Dusseau’s worlds for the last four years and the Mercer Island High School athletes keep reaching new heights as the seasons roll by.

On May 1, they each nailed personal-record (PR) marks during the tail end of their senior years at an Inglemoor High School meet. Benninghoff cleared the bar at 5-foot-1 (her own height) and Dusseau surpassed his own height of 5-foot-10 to nail a 6-foot-3 mark.

Benninghoff’s previous PR was 4-10, and Dusseau went from a previous PR of 5-10 to 6, 6-1 and finally 6-3 all in the same meet.

Benninghoff recalled that hot day on the Inglemoor track: “It was good with all the Mercer Island girls going, less pressure. I felt it in my legs that day, and everything just kind of came in place, which was really good. It was a good feeling. It was my whole goal for the season.”

The Chapman University (Orange, California)-bound student-athlete has set a new goal of 5-2 during this postseason.

For Dusseau, he decided to switch up his game plan at Inglemoor: “I just decided to full sprint at it. And it kind of clicked, and I just started PR-ing by a lot. I was just kind of feeling it. It was euphoric. I was just screaming. I was just running around, like, hugging my friends. It was great.”

Dusseau, who will be studying and competing at the Colorado School of Mines following high school, would like to reach 6-4 or 6-5 at the upcoming KingCo meet.

Excitement reigns supreme for Benninghoff when she leaps into the PR zone.

“It is kind of mentally draining, so it just makes you feel so relieved when you do well,” she said of the sport that she spontaneously grasped onto instead of softball in the high school realm.

Mercer Island high jumping has become more popular since her freshman year, and now she’s part of a close-knit jumping group while enjoying the team atmosphere as a whole.

“I just really love the environment. It’s a really healthy environment. It’s not really competitive that much, which is good,” said Benninghoff, who is thinking of majoring in pre-law and minoring in music at Chapman.

Aside from jumping, Dusseau runs the 100, 200 and 400 races and will engage in some running in college as well.

“I’ve always been kind of good at jumping. I hit a lot of headers in soccer when I used to play that,” said Dusseau, who will be majoring in computer engineering in Colorado. “I think the idea of pushing your body to its limits and seeing if you can go past that is a very appealing idea to me.”

Dusseau gains motivation from being around top-notch Mercer Island athletes like runners Owen Powell, Sophia Rodriguez and others.

“It just makes you want to do better as an athlete,” he said.