Senior throwers make big contributions to Trojans second consecutive undefeated DAC track and field regular season, compete next at DAC championship meet Wednesday at Valpo

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Two-time all-state offensive lineman Carlos Leon, the best shot putter on the Chesterton track and field team, never thought of himself as a discus thrower.
Now he does.
“I haven't really practiced it at all, but I decided to do a JV meet (in mid-April) just for fun and then I started to get into it a little bit,” Leon said.
And then in a meet vs. Crown Point and LaPorte on April 28, he uncorked a throw that became the team’s longest of the season, a 134-4.
That mark still doesn’t match him surpassing 50 feet in the shot put more than once this season, but it’s “pretty close,” he said.
His big discus throw made Leon double his season goals.
“I’ll hopefully make it to state in both,” Leon said after his best discus throw. “I think just the spin from shot put kind of translates well to the discus one. It made the transition easy.”
Leon didn’t keep the season team lead in the discus for long. Colin Kellogg broke his personal best twice in a meet vs. host Merrillville and Portage and finished second with a 136-5 throw Tuesday, when Leon had a bad night in the discus (95-6) and a best-ever shot put (50-9).
“He launches them at practice,” Leon said of Kellogg in the discus. “I think he’s got 150 in him, for sure. I’ve seen it in practice. He just needs to get some of the little stuff down and keep it (the throw) in. I think he’s got it.”
And Leon, how far does he believe he can throw the discus?
“I don’t know,” Leon said after his 134-4 throw. “I think I can get up there too. I’m not really sure yet because I haven’t practiced it that much, so we’ll see where we go from here.”
And the shot?
“I’m hoping I can get to 55,” he said.
A senior classmate to Leon and Kellogg, Tyler Nevious, back already from suffering a football late-season ACL tear that required surgery, hasn’t reached his personal best in the shot put yet but has a history of having his best throws in the postseason. He threw the shot 48 feet at the regional meet as a sophomore and last season threw a 48-4 at the DAC meet.
Kellogg, a defensive lineman, and O-linemen Leon and Nevious are among the strongest athletes in the school, but it takes far more than brute strength to excel in both events.
Kellogg said that during the Garry Nallenweg Chesterton Relays he was talking with a thrower from another school who told him he “squats 600 pounds, and he only threw the shot 25 feet because his hips weren’t very flexible. You definitely have to have speed and technique in both the shot and the discus.”
Kellogg puts no limits on how far he can throw the discus without having to make any big changes.
“This year it’s not necessarily about fixing big things, but fixing little things toward the end of the throw,” he said. “So, I'm just trying to kind of perfect what I've been doing in the past three years and get one out there finally.”
He’ll give it his best shot in the discus this coming Wednesday at Valparaiso, site of the DAC championship meet, which the Trojans won last season for the first time since 2010.
By defeating Merrillville 70-62 and host Portage 90-33 this past Tuesday, Chesterton clinched a second consecutive undefeated DAC regular season.
Nathan Vaughan won the 300 hurdles in 38.21 and the long jump with a 23-foot leap. In the 300 hurdles, Vaughan was followed by Louis Raffin (39.68) and Cal Wisniewski (40.19). Weston Moore joined those same three runners on the winning 4X100 relay. Moore placed third in the 100 with an 11.31, Devin Throw was third in the 200 (23.00) and freshman Ben Phillips was second in the 400 (50.40).
The Trojans continued to show strong depth in the middle and long distance races. They swept the top three spots in the 800: Spencer Martin (2:00.39), Zarek Sierazy (2:01.37) and William Roberson (2:06.24). They did the same in the 3200: Ryan Nix (9:53.30), Ray Hundt (9:57.40). In the 1600, Martin (4:23.98) and Nix (4:32.35) placed first and second. William Morgan, Hundt, Roberson, and Sierazy won the 4X800 relay in 8:23.47.
Bryan Huseman cleared 12-6 to take second in the pole vault and Nolan Huley’s 5-10 high jump placed him fourth.