Lizzy Gannon: Desert Vista’s Multi-Event Standout Eyes a Future in the Jumps

Some athletes specialize early, narrowing their focus to one event and building depth through repetition. And then there are athletes like Lizzy Gannon — the kind who step onto the runway, clear a bar, and double back to do it all over again in three different events the same afternoon, all while maintaining a 4.0 unweighted GPA. A graduating senior at Desert Vista High School in the Ahwatukee neighborhood of Phoenix, Arizona, Gannon is one of the most versatile multi-event competitors the state has produced in her class, a four-star recruit with a legitimate national profile in the jumps and a competitive heptathlon resume to match.

She is, in every measurable sense, just getting started.

Background: Growing Up in Phoenix’s Athletics Community

Elizabeth “Lizzy” Gannon is a member of Desert Vista’s Class of 2026, born and raised in the Phoenix metro area. While specific biographical details from her early childhood are not extensively documented in the public record — as is typical for high school athletes whose profiles are still emerging — what is clear from her trajectory is that athletics have been a family affair from the beginning.

The family connection to track and field runs deep. The Desert Vista Thunder’s long jump and triple jump coach is Alexis Gannon, whose email appears on the program’s official team page as the event coordinator for those disciplines. Alexis Gannon is a former competitive jumper whose own career offers a remarkable template: a six-time state champion in South Dakota in the long jump and triple jump during her high school years, she went on to compete at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a three-time All-ACC athlete and qualified for the NCAA East Preliminary Round. She later earned a master’s degree in Exercise Physiology and has settled in Phoenix, where she now channels her expertise into the next generation — including, quite apparently, Lizzy herself. The depth of technical grounding that comes with having an elite-pedigreed jumper in your corner from an early age is not something most high school athletes enjoy, and it shows in how Lizzy competes.

Desert Vista itself is one of the premier athletic programs in Arizona. The school has garnered more than 50 state championships across its various sports since opening in 1996, including multiple titles in track and field, cross country, soccer, and volleyball. Its athletics culture is well established — over 400 Thunder athletes have signed national letters of intent to compete at the collegiate level in the last decade alone — and the program has consistently produced athletes who go on to compete at the Division I level. It is, in short, an excellent environment in which to develop.

Finding the Events: A Natural Multi-Sport Talent

Like many standout field athletes, Gannon’s path to the jumps likely involved the kind of general athletic ability that makes coaches and scouts sit up straight — speed, body control, coordination, and the competitive instinct that makes the difference between a good athlete and an exceptional one. Her recruiting profile describes her primary events as long jump, high jump, and triple jump, with the explicit note that she is also training for the heptathlon — the seven-event combined competition that is essentially the most demanding test of multi-directional athleticism in track and field.

The heptathlon is not a secondary pursuit for Gannon. Her 2025 Arizona State Heptathlon finish — fourth place as a junior, scoring 4,433 points — represents a genuine achievement at a highly competitive level. In a state known for producing outstanding multi-event athletes, placing fourth in a heptathlon at the state championships is a meaningful result, and she did it with her strongest individual component being the long jump leg of the competition, which she won outright among the heptathletes.

That detail is telling. In the heptathlon, athletes compete across 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, and 200m on day one, then long jump, javelin, and 800m on day two. To win the long jump component of a state heptathlon field while also scoring competitively across six other events speaks to a natural athleticism that extends well beyond any single specialty.

High School Career: Rising Through the Arizona Field Event Ranks

Gannon first appeared on the Desert Vista roster in the 2023-24 school year, registered under her full name Elizabeth Gannon. Her development through the 2024 and 2025 seasons has been tracked across multiple platforms, with her performances placing her consistently among Arizona’s top jumpers in her class.

The 2025 outdoor season was the most productive of her high school career to that point. Her personal bests across events in 2025 tell the story of an athlete firing on multiple cylinders: a long jump of 20 feet 0.5 inches (approximately 6.10 meters), a triple jump of 38 feet 8 inches (approximately 11.79 meters), and a high jump of 5 feet 2 inches, all alongside competitive marks in the 100m hurdles (16.67 seconds), the 100m (12.83 seconds), and the 200m (26.56 seconds). She also threw the javelin (75 feet 11.5 inches) and the shot put (31 feet 10.25 inches) — performances consistent with a developing heptathlete building range across all seven disciplines.

In the heptathlon specifically, her 4,433-point total at the 2025 Arizona State Heptathlon and Decathlon Championships, held at Red Mountain High School in late May, placed her fourth overall in a statewide field. The parenthetical notation next to her name in the official results — “(Long Jump)” — indicated that her best individual scoring component was in the long jump, a reflection of where her most natural gifts lie.

Going National: The USATF Circuit and World Athletics Registration

Gannon’s competitive ambitions extend well beyond the Arizona state meet. In June 2025, she competed in the lead-up to the USATF National Youth Outdoor Championships, with her performance on June 22, 2025 producing personal bests recognized by World Athletics: a long jump of 5.65 meters (18 feet 6.5 inches) and a triple jump of 11.17 meters (36 feet 7.75 inches). Those marks were significant enough to earn her a formal World Athletics athlete profile under code 15242944 — the international track and field governing body’s recognition of an athlete as a legitimate competitive entity on the global scene. For a high school junior from Phoenix to have a World Athletics profile is far from automatic; it marks a threshold of performance and competition that places her in a distinct tier among her peers.

The USATF Youth National Championships themselves were held later that month at the iconic Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island in New York City, one of the premier facilities in American track and field. Competing at Icahn Stadium as a high schooler, against the nation’s best youth athletes from across all 50 states, is the kind of experience that accelerates development in ways that no local or regional meet can replicate.

Her 2025 appearances on national recruiting services registered her as a four-star prospect in the jumps — an 84-point rating, uncommitted as of mid-2025, listed among the top jump prospects in the Class of 2026. The recruiting profile through SportsRecruits describes her motivations directly: “My name is Elizabeth Gannon and I am a track and field athlete that is passionate about continuing my athletic journey in college. My main events are long, high, and triple jump. I am also currently training for the heptathlon.”

The 2026 Season: Continuing to Build

Gannon returned for her senior year in the 2025-26 school year with a full schedule of events across both indoor and outdoor competition. Her 2026 indoor marks include a 300m dash of 44.67 seconds and a 150m of 20.52 seconds — solid sprint benchmarks that demonstrate the raw speed underpinning her jumping ability.

Outdoors in 2026, she has continued to compete across the full range of her events. Her long jump mark of 19 feet 1.25 inches placed her second on the AZPreps365 statewide leaderboard for the 2026 season, trailing only Chandler’s Jaiden Ware. She has also logged marks in the triple jump (37 feet 1 inch), high jump (5 feet 0 inches), 100m hurdles (15.91 seconds), 200m (26.57 seconds), javelin, shot put, and heptathlon (4,340 points) — a full slate of multi-event competition across the outdoor schedule.

MileSplit Arizona has tracked her among the top Class of 2026 performers in the state in multiple jumping events, with articles from April 2026 ranking her among the top girls triple jump and long jump performers in the state in her graduation class. The national MileSplit platform has noted her in national Class of 2026 top marks roundups as well, a recognition of results that extend beyond the regional and into the broader national conversation.

The Varsity Sports Show, a local Arizona high school sports media outlet, has featured Gannon with a dedicated profile piece highlighting her work as a track standout for the Desert Vista Thunder — a sign of her growing visibility within the state’s athletic community.

The Athlete Behind the Numbers: Academic Excellence and Character

Sports360AZ, the Arizona high school sports media platform, named Gannon to its 2025 All-Academic Track and Field team with a 4.0 unweighted GPA — the top designation on their academic honor roll. In a sport that increasingly demands athletes balance rigorous training schedules with academic commitments, Gannon’s grade point average places her squarely in the category of student-athlete in the truest sense of the phrase. That academic profile also meaningfully expands her collegiate options beyond pure athletic recruitment, giving Division I programs the confidence that she will succeed in the classroom as well as on the track.

The breadth of her competitive profile — heptathlon training, multi-event participation at every meet, national championship experience, and the willingness to compete in events like the 800m run and javelin throw alongside her specialty jumps — suggests an athlete who embraces challenge rather than retreating from it. That kind of competitive character tends to serve athletes well when the stakes rise in college and beyond.

Personal Bests and Performance Summary

As of the 2026 outdoor season, Lizzy Gannon’s career personal bests across her primary events stand as follows:

• Long Jump: 20 feet 0.5 inches / 5.65 meters (June 22, 2025) — World Athletics recognized
• Triple Jump: 38 feet 8 inches / 11.17 meters (June 22, 2025) — World Athletics recognized
• High Jump: 5 feet 2 inches (2025 outdoor season)
• 100m Hurdles: 15.91 seconds (2026 outdoor season)
• 200m: 26.56 seconds (2025 outdoor season)
• 100m: 12.83 seconds (2025 outdoor season)
• Javelin: 96 feet 9 inches (2026 outdoor season)
• Shot Put: 34 feet 8 inches (2026 outdoor season)
• Heptathlon: 4,433 points (2025 Arizona State Championships)
• 300m (indoor): 44.67 seconds

Her World Athletics athlete code is 15242944, with both the long jump and triple jump marks from June 22, 2025 listed as her official personal bests on the international platform.

Desert Vista’s Track Legacy

Gannon competes under one of Arizona’s most recognized athletic banners. Desert Vista’s track program has produced state team champions in boys track (2007, 2008, 2009, 2015) and girls track (1999, 2004), along with notable alumni across multiple disciplines. Recent notable Desert Vista track alumni include Grace Ping, a cross country and track athlete who went on to compete for Oklahoma State, and other collegiate signees across a variety of events. The program benefits from a coaching staff that understands competitive development at all levels, and the Tempe Union High School District’s commitment to athletics has made the Thunder one of the most respected programs in the state.

The presence of Alexis Gannon as the jumps coach adds a layer of technical expertise that is unusual at the high school level. A former ACC-caliber competitor who understands the biomechanics of the long jump and triple jump from both the athlete’s and coach’s perspective, Alexis brings a depth of knowledge to the Desert Vista runway that Lizzy has been developing within for years. That mentorship — from a family member who has competed at the highest levels of collegiate track and field — is a structural advantage that has clearly shaped the technical approach Lizzy brings to competition.

What Comes Next

As a Class of 2026 graduate preparing for collegiate recruitment, Lizzy Gannon enters the next phase of her athletic career with a compelling resume. Her four-star national recruiting rating in the jumps, her World Athletics registration, her 4.0 GPA, and her demonstrated willingness to compete across seven events in a heptathlon make her an appealing prospect for programs at multiple levels.

The heptathlon path, in particular, may be where her long-term athletic ceiling is highest. Combined event athletes who bring natural jumping ability, sprinting speed, and the physical and mental toughness to compete across seven events in two days have a relatively rare profile in American collegiate track and field. Programs looking to build combined events rosters would do well to pay attention.

As of this writing, she has not announced a college commitment, leaving the field open. Given her academic standing and competitive profile, the expectation within Arizona athletics circles is that she will have meaningful options at the Division I level.

The long jump runway awaits. For Lizzy Gannon, the best jumps are almost certainly still ahead.

Lizzy Gannon competes for the Desert Vista Thunder in Phoenix, Arizona, as a member of the Class of 2026. Her World Athletics profile is registered under athlete code 15242944. Her recruiting profile can be found through SportsRecruits under Elizabeth Gannon. She has been featured by the Varsity Sports Show (@varsitysportsshow on TikTok). Current social media profiles can be located through Desert Vista athletics channels and the school’s track program website at dvhstrackandfield.com.