Around 7:30 p.m. May 12, Mason County alumna Lexi Young won the long jump, her fourth win at the Class 2A, Region 6 track meet. She was understandably tired.
“I need a break,” Young said.
Young also won the 100-meter dash, high jump and shot put at Mason County Intermediate School (MCIS), the latest examples of not giving opponents respite from her winning regional and state titles.
Before heading to Indiana University, she finishes her high school career Friday at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Mason County coach Travis Yazel isn’t sure he’ll ever see another athlete like Young.
“Not in track and field,’ Yazel said. “It’s hard to replace someone like her with her talent.”
‘God-given’
Young didn’t step onto the track until seventh grade. She begged not to try it until she decided it was fun.
“I have a God-given talent, and I want to use it for Him and my best ability,” she says. “And it is extremely fun because I get to be with my friends and my teammates.
“And I get to support them, and they help me continue my journey through track and field.”
You may want to sit down and leisurely have your morning cereal because it could take a while to list Young’s championships because she:
Won the high jump last year and in 2023;
Won the triple jump last year. (She won’t defend her gold medal this year.);
Owns 10 regional wins since 2022 – three each in the long jump and high jump and one apiece in the triple jump, 100, 200 and shot put;
Is ranked first in Class 2A long jump with a 19 feet, 5 ¼; and
Carries a combined 14-1 record this season; the only blemish was a third-place finish in the 200 at the Harrison County Invitational April 25 in Cynthiana.
Ashland coach Chris Bruner wishes there was an equivalent to Miss and Mr. Basketball.
“Lexi Young is 40 points,” Ashland coach Chris Bruner said last week. “Miss Kentucky Track. There was not such a thing, but I’m going to declare her Miss Kentucky Track.”
Basketball first
Basketball was Young’s first sport; she started in second grade; she averaged 10.7 points and 8.4 rebounds for the Royals from 2022-25 before giving it up this season.
“And that was one of the hardest decisions because I had to leave my team,” Young says. “But I also had to remember my teammates are going to be here after basketball.”
Hurdles was the first event Young tried; high jump didn’t come up until eighth grade.
“We started figuring out I was pretty good at high jump, so we gave that a try instead of hurdles,” she says.
The late Kobe Bryant was Young’s basketball hero because of his work ethic. She understandably took the news hard when Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died Jan. 26, 2020 in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California while on the way to a youth basketball tournament.
Young injured her left knee in her sophomore season in 2024. The early diagnosis: tendonitis that went untreated. A later finding was worse; a 50% tear in her patellar tendon and a tear in her meniscus – which didn’t prevent her from playing in the 10th Region basketball tournament.
“And I just kept going and going and going, and it finally tore,” she says. “… I wasn’t supposed to be able to walk.”
Young understandably feared her athletic career was done then – and again earlier this year, when she dislocated her patellar tendon during an indoor track practice.
“They had screwed an anchor into my kneecap,” she said. “They had to do a full reconstructive surgery on my patellar tendon.”
Young’s first meet was the Mason County Royal Rumble April 18. She won the 100, ran a leg of the Royals’ winning 4×200 relay team.
‘No time to grieve’
The last eight months have been hard. Young’s dad, the late Ricky Wayne “Rick” Truesdell, 59, passed away Nov. 8, 2025.
“It has been a rough eight months,” Young says. “And I honestly haven’t had time to grieve.”
Young is thinking about adding the heptathlon (100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 dash, long jump, javelin and 800) at IU. Whatever she does, the flower-and-one-word tattoo on her right shoulder, “Heavenly,” will be a reminder to keep her faith.
“God is always with you,” she says. “… As long as you have faith in Him, you can go as far as you want.”
For a complete list of Young’s statistics, visit ky.milesplit.com (https://ky.milesplit.com/athletes/10641695-lexi-young).
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