If you ask Suri Sardinia, she’ll tell you she didn’t even want to throw shot put in the first place.
She was set in her ways. The then-sophomore at Peninsula High School was comfortable in her lane — quite literally — as a discus thrower on the school’s track and field team. The lighter, more graceful event was the one her dad had taught her five years before, the one she understood, and the one she loved.
So when PHS throwing coach Mason Hyde nudged her to give shot put a try last season, her response wasn’t exactly enthusiastic.
And while Sardinia jokes that “Hyde made me do it,” when it comes to trying shot put, he remembers it a bit differently.
“She never goes into anything with a poor attitude. She was more like, ‘OK, I’ll give it a try,’ but certainly going out and breaking records didn’t cross either of our minds,” he said.
And yet, a little more than a year later, while standing in the throwing circle at Lakes High School May 1, the mood was different.
For whatever reason, the nearly 9-pound iron ball felt especially light that day when Sardinia pressed it against her neck to start her routine. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be a good throw.’ And when the ball hit the synthetic rubber field with a thud 38-feet, 8-inches away, she knew it was something special.
“I said to myself, ‘That’s insane. That’s got to be a record.’ ”
She was spot on. With that throw, Sardinia did what no one had managed in more than 30 years — she broke Nalanie Yockman’s 1994 school record of 37 feet, 10 inches. It also landed her a first-place spot at the meet, her fourth time earning the top spot this season for shot put.
Sardinia didn’t hide her excitement. Though Hyde said she leads with a quiet humility, she makes no secret of her goal to rewrite the Seahawks’ record books in both shot put and discus. She already moved into second place all-time at Peninsula with a 130-foot, 11-inch discus throw in March. She’s just about seven feet shy of the school record that was set in 2014 — something Sardinia thinks she can get before she graduates next year.
“With her only being a junior,” Hyde said, “I think she can break records almost every week from here on out.”
Hyde was almost right. It only took Sardinia 13 days to add nearly 11 inches to her record when she threw for 39 feet, 6.75 inches to win the Puget Sound League shot put championship May 13. And just for good measure, she took the discus league title too, with a throw of 127 feet, 10 inches.
What a difference a year makes. After not even qualifying for the 2024 WIAA State Track & Field Championship Meet in shot put last year and finishing a disappointing 18th place in discus (100 feet, 6 inches), Sardinia knew it was time to get serious.
“I thought I was going to do so much better, and I didn’t, and I really wanted things to change,” she said. “I was just messing around at practice and wasn’t really focused. But I hated placing toward the bottom of events. Hated it.”
So she got to work. Improvement came slowly at first, but Sardinia started hitting the gym six days a week, building strength and sharpening her form. In the fall, she runs with the cross-country team — not because she loves running, but because she values being part of a team and uses it to stay in shape year-round.
And although she admits she still “loves discus more than shot put,” she started to give them equal time and intensity.
“Last year her confidence just wasn’t there,” said Sandhya Sardinia, Suri’s mom. “This year, she has this determination that she’s going to do whatever it takes to achieve her goal. She goes out there and she’s just in the zone. Something just clicked.”
Hyde noticed it, too, and sees something rare in his star thrower: a mix of raw talent and relentless coachability.
“Every day, she shows up ready to go. She’s brought the work ethic she developed from discus into shot put, and it catches me off guard how fast she picks things up,” he said.
Sardinia’s training has already put her among the top throwers in Washington. If her current personal best had been posted in last year’s state meet, she would’ve finished in the top five for both shot put and discus. This season, she’s aiming higher. (Results from the 2025 district and state meets were not available at press time. See keypennews.org for updates.)
Hyde plans to spend the off-season helping Sardinia fine-tune her technique, estimating that technical improvements alone could add 10 feet to her discus throws and four to her shot put.
By next season, Sardinia hopes to hit 160 feet in discus and 45 feet in shot put — marks that could draw attention from Division I colleges.
“Taking the foot off the gas is definitely not an option for me,” she said. “I need to push so much harder to get to that point.”
Sardinia may have once resisted the shot put ring, but now she owns it. With one record already shattered and more in her sights, she’s redefining what’s possible for herself — and for future Peninsula track and field athletes.
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