Over Another Hurdle [ 04/05/2008 ]
By BUCK MAHONEY, Hub Sports Editor
KEARNEY — In a meet where the Kearney High boys seemed to win everything, only junior Jack Chatelain won two individual events.
Winning the 110-meter high hurdles and the triple jump, and finishing second in the long jump, Chatelain helped Kearney High to a whopping 207 points at Friday’s Kearney High Invitational. The point total is more impressive considering second place went to Lincoln Southwest with 58 points.
The Bearcats’ total didn’t include the 23 points scored by the junior varsity.
Eleven of the junior varsity’s points came in the high jump, where Tyler Shield won. The high jump was one of four events on Chatelain’s list, and the only one where he wasn’t the one to beat.
“I think I was just tired,” Chatelain said.
He came to the high jump from the triple jump, where he had jumped 45 feet, ¼ inch — his best performance since the season-opening UNK Indoor.
“It’s not a PR, but it’s good to be back in the 45s,” he said.
Chatelain’s winning mark was a foot farther than teammate Grant Gartner, who finished second. Before that, Chatelain had jumped 22-3, losing to teammate Vince Molina by an inch and a half.
His performances in the two horizontal jumps came on just three attempts at each. Although he qualified for the finals, he didn’t take his additional jumps.
“I don’t like to overwork those guys,” KHS coach Roger Mathiesen said. “The triple jump takes such a pounding on their legs. To go to the wall with those guys week after week after week, I just don’t like to do it.”
That’s one reason Chatelain doesn’t expect to compete in the long jump in the future. “I don’t know if I’m going to long jump. The reason I jumped this morning is because Brett Maher and Jared Archer are hurt and they needed a varsity long jumper. So I filled in for them,” he said.
He will let them take the long jump away, just as long as he gets to compete in the hurdles. “It’s the one that’s the most inconsistent and you have to keep your head in it at all times or else somebody’s going to beat you. It’s really competitive and I like it,” he said.
In the 110-meter high hurdle finals, Chatelain battled with Hastings’ Nile Schneider and KHS teammate Brandt Haupt. While the race was close early, Chatelain pulled away to win with an electronic time of 15.09 seconds. Schneider was second at 15.40 and Haupt third at 15.86.
The high hurdles was Chatelain’s fourth event of the day, giving him two golds and a silver. “There’s room for improvement. I’ll take the golds any day, but any kind of competitor is going to want to win every time,” he said.
Haupt came back to win the 300-meter intermediate hurdles. Kearney’s other gold medalists were Josh Mead in the 100, Brant Humphrey in the 800, David Prater in the 3,200 and Nate Polacek in the pole vault.
Polacek’s mark of 15 feet, 3 inches broke the meet record held by former KHS state champion Scott Nachtigal. The Bearcats set another meet record in the 4x100 relay where Molina, Rustin Dring, Mike Weaver and Mead turned in a time of 43.32 seconds.