PIAA Track and Field Feature: Cards’ Luckenbach eyes another state gold
Pine Grove's Viktorya Luckenbach crosses the tape first to win the girls' Class AA 100-meter dash Thursday at the District 11 Track and Field Championships at Whitehall. Luckenbach also won the 200 and ran a leg on Pine Grove's winning 400 relay (Photo by Brook Koch-Guers).
PINE GROVE — Viktorya Luckenbach cringed a little when she recalled her last trip to the PIAA Track and Field Championships.
The Pine Grove sprinter failed to make the finals in the Class AA 100-meter dash and finished a disappointing (by her standards) fourth in the 200 last May after winning gold in the 200 and bronze in the 100 the year before.
The performance left a sour taste in her mouth, one that has pushed her and has served as motivation all season to finish her senior campaign with more state hardware.
The 18-year-old Washington Township resident will look to complete that quest Friday and Saturday at Shippensburg University, entering the two-day state competition seeded first in both events.
“Coming into this season, especially after what happened last year to me at states, I was very determined to work the hardest that I’ve ever worked because I really want to get back to that gold,” Luckenbach said Wednesday after a short workout in the rain at Cardinal Stadium.
“It has turned out perfectly for me so far. I’ve been hitting exactly where I wanted to hit. I never thought I would be hitting sub-12 and here I am running very well under sub-12. So I feel exactly where I want to be right now. My numbers are hitting, not just in my solo events, but in our 4×1 relay as well.”
Luckenbach has been a fixture on the Schuylkill League and District 11 track scene since her freshman season at Pine Grove, when she won gold in both sprints at districts and helped the Cards’ 400 relay to a first-place finish.
Over her four-year career at districts, Luckenbach has gone gold-bronze-silver-gold in the 100 and gold-silver-gold-gold in the 200.
After a standout sophomore campaign that saw the 5-foot-1, 105-pounder win state gold in the 200 in 24.72 seconds and grab bronze in the 100 in 12.28, Luckenbach headed to Shippensburg last spring eyeing a repeat.
It didn’t turn out like she expected.
“I felt good going from districts into states last year,” Luckenbach said. “I felt good and I thought I was good, but … I don’t know what it was. I did not make finals in the 100 and I know that definitely had me discouraged going into the 200. Our 4×1 as well did not make the finals.
“I got to the 200 and I thought I was ready, but my body physically wasn’t able to withstand … I did not feel strong enough. I was very fatigued from prelims day, so I had that weighing on my mind the entire finals day. The 200 just did not go my way. I felt it … coming around that curve I knew I didn’t feel strong enough to finish the race and that’s where fourth got me.”
Luckenbach has run like a woman on fire in 2025, dominating the opposition in every race and posting career-best numbers in both of her events.
She posted a personal-best time of 11.59 en route to winning gold in the 100 at the Schuylkill League Track and Field Championships on May 7 at Mahanoy Area, then won District 11 gold a week later in 11.77.
In the 200, her fastest time came April 25 at the Blue Mountain Invitational when she won in 23.92. She posted a 24.12 at leagues and a 24.05 at districts.
STATE SEEDS: Get a look at the seedings for all 40 Schuylkill League athletes competing at this weekend’s PIAA Track and Field Championships: https://www.t102sportsnow.com/2025/05/21/piaa-track-and-field-luckenbach-keck-nativity-relay-garner-top-seeds-for-states/
In a sign of her maturity, training and motivation, Luckenbach has bucked a trend from her previous three seasons that saw her post fast times in the preliminaries but then go slower in the finals.
So far this season, in both events at both leagues and districts, Luckenbach has gone dramatically faster in the finals than prelims. That trend bodes well for this weekend.
“I have done a lot of strength training over the winter and I think that is the biggest factor in why I’m hitting where I want to hit so far,” she said. “I do definitely feel more pressure this year and I think that is what making me run faster as well.
“The pressure of where my times are and being seeded as the fastest girl here and there, I definitely have a lot weighing on my shoulders and I think that’s what is motivating me to run as fast as I possibly can.”
