McKenna Panos
Pole Vault & High Jump | USA | Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Taking Flight: The Pole Vault Career of McKenna Panos
McKenna Panos is not the kind of athlete who announces herself with fanfare. She is instead the kind who shows up, clears the bar, and lets the marks do the talking. A pole vaulter and high jumper from the coastal community of Swansboro, North Carolina, Panos has spent the past several years quietly building one of the more well-rounded jumping careers to come out of the state’s competitive Class 3A landscape — and now, as a sophomore at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, she is bringing that same quiet determination to one of the most decorated track and field programs in NCAA Division II.
Roots: Swansboro, North Carolina
McKenna Panos was born and raised in Swansboro, a small coastal town of fewer than 4,000 people on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast, tucked alongside the White Oak River where it meets Bogue Sound. It is the kind of place with deep community roots and an outdoorsy culture shaped by the water, the marine trade, and — just inland — Camp Lejeune, the massive Marine Corps installation that defines much of Onslow County’s identity. Swansboro’s residents call their town the “Friendly City by the Sea,” and the nickname fits.
She is the daughter of Donna Panos and Mary Powell, and she attended Swansboro High School, home of the Pirates. At Embry-Riddle, she is pursuing a degree in human factors psychology — a field that studies how humans interact with systems and environments, and one that finds a natural home at an aeronautical university where human performance and engineering intersect. It is an intellectually serious choice for a student-athlete who is clearly more than just a competitor.
High School Career: Swansboro High School (2020–2024)
Getting Started in the Vault
Pole vault is an unusual event to grow up with in a small coastal North Carolina town. Unlike sprints or jumps that require little more than open space, vaulting demands specialized equipment, a trained coach, and ideally a facility with a proper runway and landing pit. That Panos found her way into the event — and excelled in it — speaks to a level of curiosity and commitment that went beyond what a typical prep athlete might invest.
She came up through the Swansboro program competing in both the pole vault and the high jump, an unusual pairing that speaks to natural athleticism and body awareness. Both events reward similar qualities — spatial awareness, timing, explosiveness — but demand entirely different technical skill sets. Athletes who genuinely compete in both at a high level tend to be exceptional movers.
Sophomore Year: State Qualifier (2022)
By the time Panos was a sophomore, she was already one of the stronger pole vaulters in the NCHSAA’s 3A classification. At the 2022 NCHSAA 3A State Championship, she entered the meet with a seed mark of 9 feet, 6 inches and competed against some of the best prep vaulters in the state. The experience of competing at the state level as a sophomore — against juniors and seniors who had been in the event far longer — was valuable preparation for what was to come.
Junior Year: State Runner-Up (2023)
Panos’s junior season was a significant leap forward. She entered the NCHSAA 3A East Regional with a seed mark of 11 feet flat — one of the top marks in the field — and validated that standing with a strong performance, advancing to the state championship meet as one of the top seeds.
At the 3A State Championship in May 2023, Panos delivered her best performance of the season at the right moment, clearing 11 feet flat to finish second in the state of North Carolina in the pole vault. The gold that day went to Lily Houston of Northwest Cabarrus, who cleared 11-6, but Panos’s 11-0 established her as one of the elite prep vaulters in the 3A classification.
It was also around this time that Panos was associated with Pole Vault Carolina, a club specializing in the pole vault and multi-events that trains athletes across North Carolina. The club’s presence in her development helps explain how an athlete from a small coastal community could reach the top of the state rankings in a technically demanding specialty event. Competing through Pole Vault Carolina gave her access to focused coaching, training partners, and competition opportunities that purely school-based training wouldn’t have provided.
Her junior season also highlighted her versatility as a jumper. In a Swansboro home tri-meet in the spring of 2023, she won the pole vault with a clearance of 11 feet, a mark that was more than four feet higher than the second-place finisher — a testament to just how wide the gap was between her and her immediate local competition. She also placed second in the high jump at the same meet, competing comfortably and capably in both events at the same competition.
Senior Year: Multi-Event State Competitor (2024)
Panos entered her senior year with a meaningful addition to her campaign: she had grown into a legitimate double-threat at the state level, competing seriously in both the pole vault and the high jump. That kind of range across two technically demanding field events is genuinely rare among prep athletes.
In the spring of 2024, competing at the NCHSAA 1A/3A Indoor State Championships, Panos placed second in the high jump with a mark of 5 feet, 4 inches — a performance that earned her a spot in the official NCHSAA indoor state meet records as the 3A runner-up for that year. The meet was won by D’Anna Cotton of Cummings (5-6) and Kirstin Smalls of Panther Creek (5-6), both exceptional high jumpers, with Panos placing runner-up in the 3A classification at 5-4.
In the outdoor state championship that May, held at NC A&T University’s Trusit Stadium in Greensboro, Panos entered the high jump with a seed mark of 5 feet, 2 inches and went on to compete in the final with a jump of 5 feet flat — a creditable performance on the biggest stage of her prep career. She had entered her final prep season already knowing her next chapter: she had committed to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, a Division II powerhouse in the Peach Belt Conference and one of the premier track and field programs at that level of competition.
It was a fitting close to a high school career defined by steady improvement, cross-event versatility, and a willingness to compete at the state level year after year — even before she had developed into one of the state’s true elite performers.
Collegiate Career: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (2024–Present)
About the Program
Choosing Embry-Riddle for track and field is not a small decision. The Eagles are one of the most accomplished programs in NCAA Division II, with the women’s team having claimed eight consecutive Peach Belt Conference outdoor championships through 2025 and the men following suit. ERAU is routinely one of the top Division II programs in the country at the national championship level, with multiple All-Americans and national championship participants each season. For a freshly minted high school graduate from a small coastal town in North Carolina, stepping into that environment is a genuine challenge — and an opportunity.
Panos competes as a pole vaulter and high jumper for the Eagles, sporting the Pole Vault/Jumps designation on the roster. At 5 feet 6 inches tall, she brings good physical tools to the events, and she joins a program that has produced top-level talent at every position on the track and field roster.
Freshman Indoor Season (January–February 2025)
Panos made her collegiate debut in January 2025, competing at the Jimmy Carnes Track and Field meet on January 17. In her first collegiate appearance in the pole vault, she cleared 2.95 meters — 9 feet, 8 inches — a mark that stood as her indoor personal best for the season. In the same meet she also competed in the high jump, clearing 1.45 meters (4 feet, 9 inches).
The following week, at the RADD Sports Invitational on January 24–25, she competed in both events again, clearing 2.75 meters in the vault and matching her 1.45-meter mark in the high jump, taking sixth in the vault and 11th in the high jump among the collegiate entrants.
Her freshman indoor season concluded at the 2025 Peach Belt Conference Indoor Championship on February 17, where she cleared 2.82 meters (9 feet, 3 inches) in the pole vault, earning a third-place finish among the conference’s freshmen flight competitors. Competing at the conference championship meet in your first collegiate season — in one of the most dominant programs in Division II — is not something every freshman earns. Panos did.
The Eagles as a team claimed the 2025 PBC Women’s Indoor Track & Field Championship, part of their sustained run of conference dominance.
Freshman Outdoor Season (Spring 2025)
Panos’s freshman outdoor season extended her development in the vault and jumps disciplines, continuing to build her event experience within one of Division II’s top competitive environments. The ERAU women’s outdoor team defended their PBC Outdoor Championship title in spring 2025, winning their eighth consecutive conference crown.
Sophomore Indoor Season (2025–2026)
Returning for her sophomore year, Panos continued her progression as part of the Eagles’ jumps group. Embry-Riddle’s women’s program captured the 2026 Peach Belt Conference Indoor Championship in February 2026 — their third consecutive indoor title — further cementing the program’s place among Division II’s elite. For Panos, the sophomore year represents a key developmental window: a second season in a demanding collegiate system, with the technical refinement that comes from year-over-year coaching at this level.
In early April 2026, she was entered in the high jump at the Embry-Riddle Running Elements meet — her program’s home invitational — as the outdoor season got underway.
Athletic Profile
McKenna Panos is a field athlete who competes in two of the most technically demanding events in track and field. The pole vault and the high jump both require exceptional body awareness, precise timing, and the ability to execute complex motor patterns under competition pressure. Athletes who succeed in both tend to have an unusual combination of spatial intelligence and physical elasticity — qualities that Panos has demonstrated from her prep career onward.
Her personal bests across her career:
- Pole Vault (collegiate indoor): 2.95m / 9’8″ — Jimmy Carnes T&F, January 2025
- Pole Vault (prep outdoor): 11’0″ — NCHSAA 3A State Championship, 2023 (runner-up)
- High Jump (prep outdoor): 5’4″ — NCHSAA Indoor 3A State, 2024 (runner-up)
- High Jump (collegiate indoor): 1.45m / 4’9″
Her progression in the pole vault — from a 9-6 seed as a 10th grader at the state championship in 2022, to an 11-0 state runner-up finish as a junior, to a collegiate personal best of 2.95 meters as a freshman — reflects a consistent upward arc that rarely plateaus at key transition points. That is the mark of an athlete who adapts well and responds to higher-level coaching.
Academic Profile
Panos is enrolled at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University studying human factors psychology — a discipline that examines how people perceive, process information, and make decisions within complex systems. It is a field with applications across aviation, aerospace, military operations, and industrial design, all of which are central to Embry-Riddle’s institutional mission. For a student-athlete at an aeronautical university, the major is a natural fit, and it speaks to intellectual ambition that matches her competitive drive on the track.
Social Media
McKenna Panos can be followed on Instagram. Updates on ERAU track and field can also be found through the program’s official social accounts at @ERAUXCTF on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.
Looking Ahead
McKenna Panos arrived at Embry-Riddle as a young athlete from a small coastal town with solid prep credentials and the kind of quiet determination that programs like ERAU are built on. In her first collegiate indoor season, she competed at the conference championship meet and finished in the top tier among freshman competitors. She enters her sophomore outdoor campaign with a stronger technical foundation and the experience of a full year in a high-level DII environment.
The pole vault is a long-event in terms of development. Many of the sport’s best vaulters don’t hit their ceiling until their mid-twenties, which means Panos — still in the early stages of her collegiate career — has a considerable runway ahead of her. The technical gains that come between a sophomore and senior year in a well-coached program can be dramatic, and at Embry-Riddle, the coaching infrastructure is unquestionably there.
She is an athlete who has consistently risen to the biggest moments of each phase of her career: a state qualifier as a sophomore, a state runner-up as a junior, a state multi-event competitor as a senior, and a conference championship competitor as a freshman. The pattern is clear enough. Whatever stage comes next, McKenna Panos tends to show up ready for it.
McKenna Panos competes in pole vault and high jump for the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Eagles in the Peach Belt Conference. She is a native of Swansboro, North Carolina, and a 2024 graduate of Swansboro High School. She is majoring in human factors psychology.
