Kentridge’s Tyler Cronk is ready to climb even higher this track and field season.

The 6-foot-8 senior – the state’s defending 4A champion and school record holder at 7 feet, 2 inches in the high jump – already has cleared 7 feet in two meets this season, even coming close to mastering 7-4. His mark of 7-2, set last May in the West Central District meet, remains the third-best effort nationally among returning high school athletes.

Cronk has entered the heralded Arcadia (Calif.) Invitational on Saturday, April 7, which will bring together the top three high jumpers in the nation.

“There’s a very good chance,” according to Kentridge coach Al Waltner, that Cronk could beat the state’s all-time best mark of 7-4½ set by Franklin’s Rick Noji in 1984.

Cronk, who also played basketball for the Chargers, first tried high jumping in middle school but took his freshman year off to focus on school.

“My sophomore year, I was like I am going do track because my grades were better,” he said. “I just went straight to high jump. I started jumping 6 feet. I was like ‘OK, I’ve grown since eighth grade.’”

Cronk’s height gives him an advantage, Waltner said.

“There’s other people who high jump, but they aren’t going to be 7-foot high jumpers,” Waltner said. “He has the build of a high jumper. … You don’t get an athlete with that kind of talent and all the right pieces. Those don’t come around that often.”