She’s Northern Kentucky’s fastest high school girl.
Conner senior Bella VonLehman has largely run away from local sprinters so far. In the latest KYtrackXC rankings, VonLehman – who plans to attend the U.S. Naval Academy – has the quickest outdoor times in the 100-meter dash (12.19 seconds), the 200 (25.22) and the 400 (57.86).
“She’s really special,” Conner girls track coach Darrell Schnieders said. “She’s improved a lot, had a nice progression year after year … She has a lot of our school records. She’s one of a kind.”
VonLehman’s indoor season was pretty good, too; she set personal records in the 60-meter dash (her 7.72 was good for second place in the KHSAA Class 3A meet March 2 in Louisville) and the 400 (a 58.836 placed her 17th in the Emerging Elite Division at the Nike Indoor Nationals meet in March 8-10 in New York).
“The surprising one is the (400); she just started running that, like, just a year ago,” Bella’s dad, Chip VonLehman said. “She’s only done a few of them.”
Her speed has been seen by her parents for a long time.
“We would watch her play, and a lot of times we’d be at games, you’d just hear other parents go, ‘Somebody catch her, somebody catch her’,” Bella’s mom, Shae VonLehman, said. “And she would just take off and go chase the ball down. When you thought it was impossible, she would get it.”
Bella VonLehman played youth soccer for 10 years. Her coaches told her she was fast, but she hadn’t considered track until seventh grade at Conner Middle School.
“I saw sign-ups in the cafeteria, and I was, like, ‘I might as well give it a shot’,” Bella said.
Another reason she became a sprinter was familial – sisters Emma (Conner, 2017) and Grace (St. Henry, 2018) were runners.
What you may not know: VonLehman battled stress fractures in both hips in middle school. After one race in seventh grade, she had to be carried off the track.
“I actually had a double stress fracture, a growth plate in my hip bones,” she said. “Essentially, I just overworked myself ‘cause at the time I was still playing soccer.”
VonLehman ultimately gave up soccer.
“I love the sport of soccer,” she said. “I wanted to avoid injuries, and I had just really started to enjoy track more … I think I may have been better at soccer at the time, but track is what I really wanted to put the work in for, so that’s what I decided.”
Bella VonLehman hadn’t thought a lot about running collegiately until she made the state Class 3A meet as a sophomore two years ago. It was quite a debut – she finished third in the 100 (12.51), fifth in the 200 (25.91) and seventh in the 4×400 relay with Chanler Bhoolai, Paige Becknell and Ashlyn Vanlandingham (4:11.06).
“That was when I knew,” she said.
VonLehman took up the 200 in eighth grade and added the 100 as a freshman three years ago. She said former Cooper sprinter Simone Bessong’s 200-meter win in 2021 showed her she had to do a lot more work.
“Her running form was beautiful; that was something I really wanted,” VonLehman said.
A 100-meter sprinter starts out at a 45-degree angle within the first 40 meters and before being vertical. VonLehman said the key to the 200 is slingshotting out of the curve and accelerating for the final 100.
VonLehman added the 400 last year. She loved being part of Conner’s 4×400 relay teams. Running it by herself, however, was a challenge.
“I never really had confidence with my open (400s),” she said. “And then last year, I had been going through some stuff – my house actually flooded … A pipe in our house burst; we were walking on sub-floor for months until summer.”
As a junior last year, VonLehman took fifth in the 100 (12.36), fourth in the 200 (25.16) and eighth in the 4×400 with Bhoolai, Lillian Mullins and Avery Vanlandingham (4:08.05) at the state meet.
At Thursday’s Northern Kentucky Athletic Conference Division I meet at Boone County, VonLehman, Eimy Munoz, Hallie Cooper and Madison Phillip finished third in the 800-meter sprint medley relay (1:57.63); she joined Phillip, Abigail Ball and Ellie Frey to finished fourth in the 4×400 (4:17.09).
VonLehman considered the Air Force Academy and other schools before deciding to spend the next four years in Annapolis, Maryland; she said there were more career paths in the Navy or Marine Corps.
“I think I want to do Marine piloting, flying helicopters,” she said.
Military pilots receive their call signs – a kind of nickname – when they join their first deployable squadron. VonLehman cannot choose her own, but she wouldn’t mind “Lightning” after Lightning McQueen in the “Cars” animated movie franchise.
“My favorite movie’s ‘Cars’,” she said.
VonLehman wants to be remembered for being kind and encouraging more than race results.
“Times are times and places are places,” she said. “But who you are really sticks with people.”