West Holmes graduate Daphne Alexander nears nationals after record high jump season

Daphne Alexander’s high jump kept climbing all spring, and with it came the kind of national-level attention that starts in Millersburg and follows a West Holmes graduate all the way to Geneva College. The junior from Holmes County broke her own school record again on April 17-18 at Baldwin Wallace’s Sparky Adams Invitational in Berea, Ohio, clearing 1.70 meters and earning Presidents’ Athletic Conference Women’s Field Athlete of the Week honors for the second time this season.

Alexander’s rise has been measured in centimeters, but each mark has widened the gap between a strong college season and a breakthrough one. Geneva’s roster says she opened the year by clearing 1.60 meters at the Feb. 14 SPIRE College Indoor Games, a height that beat a school record dating to 1996. She topped that with 1.61 meters at the Feb. 21 WGH PAC Tune-Up, then cleared 1.63 meters at the Feb. 26 Presidents’ Athletic Conference indoor championships, where she won the event and set a new PAC standard.

The progression continued outdoors. Geneva said Alexander cleared 1.65 meters at the April 4-5 Slippery Rock Dave Labor Invitational and finished fifth, a performance that brought her first PAC Field Athlete of the Week award on April 7. Two weeks later, she went higher still at Baldwin Wallace, where the 1.70-meter clearance reset her own school record yet again.

That path matters in Holmes County because Alexander is not just a college jumper with a good spring. She is a West Holmes High School graduate and a former Knights athlete in volleyball and track and field who is now pursuing a degree in athletic training near Pittsburgh in Beaver Falls. Her results show what that pipeline can look like when a local athlete keeps building after graduation: one school record becomes another, and conference success becomes a legitimate postseason resume.

TFRRS lists Alexander’s college-best high jump at 1.70 meters and shows the arc of her season, from 1.55 meters in 2024-25 to 1.70 meters in 2025-26. It also tracks her postseason work at the Presidents’ Athletic Conference championships and the Mount Union Last Chance meet, where she cleared 1.60 meters. For West Holmes athletes coming behind her, Alexander has become a clear marker of what sustained improvement can produce: a Millersburg start, a conference title, and a path that is now knocking on the door of nationals.