NATALIE GENGEL CARUSO
- mercertrackhall
- Sep 22, 2025
- 1 min read
Updated: Sep 26, 2025
Princeton High School -- Pole Vault
In the annals of Mercer County track and field, few are as synonymous with an individual event as Princeton High’s Natalie Gengel Caruso.
Quite simply she was the mother of girls’ pole vault in Mercer County, not just a champion but a willful visionary who took a relatively new event and made it special. During her time at Princeton High, she was a must-watch performer because of her brilliance. That she did this with both class and consistency only made her selection for this honor more of a foregone conclusion.
The NJ Indoor and outdoor Meet of Champions victor in 2006, Natalie had a dream year that included a fifth-place finish at the Penn Relays and a fourth-place finish at the Nike Indoor Track and Field Championships, a result that earned her All-American status.
Locally, she was virtually unbeatable, winning three straight Mercer County outdoor titles (2004-06), each in a record height. She upped the ante these years by taking three consecutive Central Group III sectional titles as well as both indoor and outdoor Group III state titles.
In college, she lit up the Ivy League with a bevy of sensational performances.
While at Cornell University, she stayed by finishing third in the NCAA East Regional in 2007, setting school records indoors and outdoors. As a sophomore, she was Ivy League indoor champion in 2008. But she didn’t stop there qualifying for NCAA regionals four times and NCAA Nationals in 2007.
