PANORA — Senior Lydia Knapp made it official Friday, singing a letter of intent to continue a promising track career with the University of South Dakota.
USD is located in Vermillion and is home to 6,200 undergraduate students. The Coyotes compete in the Summit League. Other conference schools include Denver, North Dakota, North Dakota State, Omaha, Oral Roberts, Purdue-Ft. Wayne, South Dakota State and Western Illinois.
The daughter of Mark and Lisa, Lydia has been a multi-sport athlete at Panorama, competing in cross country, basketball and softball as well as track. She ran at the state cross country meet in 2016 when the Panthers placed 10th, has been a key contributor on the softball diamond and currently starts in the post for the Class 2A 7th-ranked Panther basketball team. As a freshmen she was a member of the sprint medley team that placed ninth at the state meet.
Her specialty is spinning the discus, where she excels. Knapp was fifth in the discipline at the 2018 Drake Relays and went on to place fourth in the discus at the 2018 state meet, scoring five points that helped the Panthers to a third-place team finish.
She was seventh at the state meet in the discus as a sophomore, and her best throw to date — 133 feet, 2 inches — is only 28 inches shy of the school record held by Kayla Muykens, who went on to become a NCAA shot put national champion at Central Missouri State University.
