Amarae Krafka

School: Grand Island Northwest High School (Grand Island, Nebraska)  |  Class: Junior (2024–25)  |  Events: Pole Vault, 100m Hurdles, 300m Hurdles  |  Coach: Brandon Harrington (hurdles)

Nebraska’s Newest Name in the Vault

In the spring of 2025, Amarae Krafka planted her pole, cleared 13 feet, and became only the fourth girl in Nebraska high school history to reach that barrier. The junior from Grand Island Northwest did it at the Central Nebraska Track and Field Championships on her home track, in front of her teammates, in a meet she had circled on the calendar. It was the kind of moment that crystallizes everything a multi-event athlete trains for — the patient buildup, the technical refinements, the small personal bests stacked across multiple seasons, all converging into a single bar-clearing leap that puts your name in the state record books.

What made it even better: she did it just before going over to the track and running a personal-best 14.60 in the 100-meter hurdles, flirting with the meet record that happens to be held by her older sister.

Amarae Krafka is, in other words, the rare athlete who makes her mark in two completely different disciplines. In a state that takes its prep track and field seriously, she has established herself as one of the most versatile and compelling competitors in the Class B ranks — a young woman with the raw athleticism to clear thirteen feet in the pole vault and the speed and technique to challenge the state’s best hurdlers in the same afternoon.

Growing Up a Viking: The Northwest Track Culture

Amarae Krafka is a product of Grand Island Northwest High School, the Viking-branded program that has become one of the more consistent prep athletics programs in central Nebraska. Northwest competes in the Nebraska School Activities Association’s Class B — the second-largest classification in a state that divides high school competition into four classes — and the Vikings have built a culture of individual excellence that shows up in the region’s all-time record books year after year.

She comes from an athletic family with track deeply embedded in its DNA. Her older sister Aizlynn Krafka competed for Northwest before her, earning the Central Nebraska Track and Field Championships (CNTC) Outstanding Girls Athlete honor in 2024, setting meet records in the 100 hurdles (14.59), and going on to compete at North Dakota State University. The Krafka sisters have competed head-to-head in the pole vault during invitational meets, which makes for a genuinely unusual sibling rivalry in a sport that doesn’t always offer that kind of proximity. At the April 2024 CNTC, Amarae — then a sophomore — actually outjumped her senior sister in the vault, winning the event at 11-6 while Aizlynn finished second at 11-6 as well, before Aizlynn claimed the 100 hurdles and the meet’s top honor.

Their father, Aaron Krafka, has been part of the extended support system for both athletes. When Amarae cleared 13-0 at the 2025 CNTC, she noted that her dad immediately told her how close she’d come to the state record — adding to the adrenaline already flowing from a clean vault on her final attempt.

The family’s involvement in Northwest track has spanned multiple seasons and created a genuine legacy on the Vikings’ home track. Both Krafka sisters appear on the Grand Island Independent’s All-Area all-time leaders list in the 100 hurdles, with Aizlynn holding the area’s second-fastest mark all-time (14.45 in 2024) and Amarae right behind her (14.43 in 2025).

The Freshman and Sophomore Years: Building the Foundation

Area results from Amarae’s earlier high school career show her developing steadily in both the vault and hurdles, building the foundation that would eventually support her breakout junior season. The Grand Island Independent’s 2023 All-Area track leaders listed her with a pole vault mark of 11-0 and a 100 hurdles time of 16.29 as a freshman or sophomore — marks that, while not yet in the elite range, showed a young athlete who was competing in multiple events and improving across the board.

By early spring 2025, heading into her junior season, she opened the outdoor campaign at the Nebraska-Kearney Class A/B Indoor Invite in Kearney with two event wins: the pole vault at 11-6 and the 60-meter hurdles in 9.14. The performance was a signal that the work she had been putting in over the winter months was paying off, and that her senior year — and even the months remaining in junior year — had real potential.

The Junior Season: Becoming One of the State’s Best

The 2025 spring season was when Amarae Krafka stepped fully into the spotlight.

In late March, at an early-season invitational in North Platte, she won the pole vault at 11-6. By the time the Norris Titan Invitational came around in April, she had cleared 12-4 — which, as reported by the Omaha World-Herald, tied her for 10th on the all-time Nebraska prep list at that height. The trajectory was pointing sharply upward.

Then came the April 28, 2025 Central Nebraska Track and Field Championships at Northwest High School, the home meet that draws schools from across central Nebraska and carries significant regional prestige. In the pole vault, Krafka cleared her previous personal best of 12-5 on her first attempt, then methodically approached 13-0. She made it on her final attempt. Only three girls in Nebraska high school history had cleared that height before her. She then attempted 13-4.5, which would have broken both the CNTC meet record (13-2, set by Grand Island Central Catholic’s Jenny Green in 2003) and the all-class state record (13-4, Columbus’ Jaidyn Schwartz). She narrowly missed on all three attempts, but 13-0 alone was already historic.

After celebrating in the infield, she headed to the track and ran the 100 hurdles in 14.60 — a personal best, and one of the fastest times in Class B that season. She missed the CNTC meet record by just one hundredth of a second: the record belongs to her sister Aizlynn at 14.59. She also competed in the 300 hurdles that day, finishing fifth in 48.23.

Her performance earned recognition in the Omaha World-Herald’s weekly notable performers roundup, which noted she had become the fourth 13-foot vaulter in state history. The Nebraska School Activities Association’s own state meet preview named her the top pole vaulter in the state entering the championships.

At districts — the qualifier for the state meet — she checked in as the top-seeded Class B athlete in the pole vault at 13-0, and in the 100 hurdles at 14.43. That hurdles time of 14.43 is the fastest she has run the event on record and placed her among the all-time leaders in the Grand Island area.

The state meet itself was held May 21–22 at Burke Stadium in Omaha. In the pole vault, Krafka cleared 11-0 to finish as Class B runner-up, with Waverly’s Avery Scott taking the title with 11-6. In the 100-meter hurdles, she qualified through the prelims and competed in the finals. In the 300 hurdles, she did not finish (DNF), likely a result of competing in multiple events across the two-day meet. Northwest’s girls finished fifth in Class B with 41.5 team points — a strong showing for a program that sent multiple athletes to the state meet across several events.

The Hurdles: Speed, Stride, and the Family Thread

There is something almost story-like about the Krafka sisters and the 100-meter hurdles at the Central Nebraska Track and Field Championships. Aizlynn had won that event at the CNTC three times during her career, setting the meet record at 14.59. Amarae has now won it too — in 14.60, just barely missing her sister’s mark. It’s the kind of detail that local track fans and coaches tend to remember for a long time.

Northwest hurdles coach Brandon Harrington, who has coached both sisters through the event, has spoken positively about Amarae’s development in the hurdles. After her performance at the 2025 CNTC, he noted that the adrenaline from the pole vault appeared to carry over into her hurdles performance — a sign of the mental and competitive wiring that characterizes the best multi-event athletes. “She had already set a PR in the pole vault, then went over to run a great time in the 100 hurdles,” Harrington said. “I just think she’s going to keep getting better in that race.”

Krafka herself has spoken about competing with the momentum of one event flowing into another — noting after her CNTC performance that the pole vault adrenaline helped fuel her hurdles run. That kind of kinetic confidence, the ability to carry success from one event into the next in rapid succession, is a skill unto itself and one that the best prep multi-event athletes develop consciously over time.

The Pole Vault: Technique, Courage, and Room to Grow

The pole vault is one of the most technically demanding events in all of track and field, requiring an athlete to simultaneously be a sprinter, a gymnast, and a jumper. The event asks girls to generate horizontal speed, convert it into vertical momentum through the elastic energy of the pole, and then navigate their body over a bar set as high as 13 feet and beyond — all while maintaining the composure to attempt heights that most people wouldn’t dream of approaching.

Krafka’s progression in the event has been consistent and methodical. From a freshman-level mark in the 11-foot range, to 11-6 in early 2025, to 12-4, to 12-5, to the historic 13-0 clearance at the CNTC — each step has been built on the last, suggesting the kind of patient technical improvement that good coaching and serious training produce. Her comments after clearing 13-0 — noting that she had been hitting it perfectly in practice for several days and felt she was “due for that mark” — reflect the awareness of an athlete who pays attention to her technical state and understands the correlation between training quality and competition performance.

The all-class state record of 13-4 is within reach. If her development continues at this pace into her senior year, a serious record attempt in 2026 is not an unreasonable goal. The progression strongly suggests there is more to come.

A Viking Legacy Worth Continuing

Northwest High School’s girls track program has an impressive recent history of producing high-caliber athletes. The CNTC Outstanding Girls Athlete award had gone to a Northwest Viking three consecutive years entering 2025: Reba Mader in 2022, Avyn Urbanski in 2023, and Aizlynn Krafka in 2024. Amarae did not win the 2025 award — which went to Northwest’s own Kyra Ray, who swept three gold medals at that meet — but her individual performances have kept the Krafka name very much part of the program’s story.

Urbanski, now competing at the collegiate level, set the area all-time record in the 100-meter dash (12.05). Kyra Ray, who will compete at Washburn University, had the top 100-meter time in the state in 2025. Tessa Scheer cleared 5-7 in the high jump. The Vikings have become a program that consistently punches above their weight class, and Amarae Krafka is part of that tradition.

Looking Ahead: Senior Year and Beyond

With one year of high school remaining as of the conclusion of the 2025 track season, Amarae Krafka enters her senior season holding marks that are among the best in her classification’s history. At 13-0 in the vault, she sits historically on the Nebraska prep all-time list. At 14.43 in the 100 hurdles, she is the second-fastest in the Grand Island area’s all-time charts. Her senior year, competing in the class that will graduate her, carries genuine championship aspirations across both events.

No college commitment has been publicly announced for Amarae Krafka as of the conclusion of her junior season, but her profile in the vault — where she is one of a very small number of prep girls who have reached 13 feet — combined with competitive hurdles times makes her a viable NCAA Division I, II, and III recruit in multiple events.

Her sister Aizlynn’s path to North Dakota State University provides one model for what post-high school athletics could look like. But the numbers Amarae is putting up suggest she may attract attention from a wide range of programs as the recruitment process develops over the coming months.

Career Highlights and Personal Bests

• Pole Vault: 13-0 (April 28, 2025 — CNTC, Grand Island Northwest) — 4th all-time in Nebraska prep history; #1 in Class B heading into 2025 state meet
• 100m Hurdles: 14.43 (2025 Class B District Championships qualifier) — 2nd all-time in Grand Island area
• 100m Hurdles: 14.60 (CNTC personal best, April 2025)
• 300m Hurdles: 45.34 (2025 district qualifier)
• 2025 CNTC: Pole Vault Champion (13-0, All-Class state best), 100 Hurdles Champion (14.60)
• 2025 NSAA State Meet: Class B Pole Vault Runner-Up (11-0); Class B 100m Hurdles finalist
• One of four Nebraska girls in history to clear 13-0 in the pole vault
• 2025 NSAA State Meet District Qualifier in pole vault, 100m hurdles, and 300m hurdles
• 2025 State Meet preview named her state’s top Class B pole vaulter
• Part of Northwest program that finished 5th in Class B girls team standings at the 2025 state meet

Social Media and Sponsorships

As a current high school athlete, Amarae Krafka does not have confirmed public social media profiles or commercial sponsorships that are publicly available. She competes under NSAA rules, which govern NIL and commercial activities for Nebraska prep athletes. Coverage of her performances can be found through Grand Island Independent sports reporting and the Nebraska School Activities Association’s official results.

Amarae Krafka is a junior track and field athlete at Grand Island Northwest High School in Grand Island, Nebraska. She competes in the pole vault, 100-meter hurdles, and 300-meter hurdles for the Vikings. In 2025, she became only the fourth girl in Nebraska high school history to clear 13 feet in the pole vault and finished as Class B runner-up at the NSAA State Championships. She is the younger sister of former Viking and current North Dakota State University athlete Aizlynn Krafka.