Louis Raffin anchors 4x400 relay and brings dramatic closing touch to Chesterton boys track and field team winning sectional title

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

In a swim meet, only one pool is used, so it’s easy to keep a running team score that can be viewed by competitors and spectators alike.
At a track and field meet, the track, runways, pits and sectors can be used simultaneously, so posting running team scores isn’t done at sectional meets, which allows for suspense and an explosion from the winning fan base when team standings are announced after the meet’s conclusion.
Coaches unofficially tracking the team standings as a meet goes along and the track announcer gives the results of each event have a pretty good idea, but athletes stay locked on preparing for events.
As it turned out, when the last event to start at the Portage sectional Thursday night, the 4x400 relay, took place Chesterton didn’t need to win it to claim its second sectional title in three seasons, but not many people, including the athletes, knew that when the starter gun sounded for the most entertaining event of a night packed with them.
At that point in the meet, Chesterton junior Louis Raffin had not had the same success as a week earlier at the DAC championship. On this night, Raffin finished third in the 400 meters with a 50.64, behind LaPorte’s Landyn Hunt (49.48) and CHS teammate senior Aaron Resto (50.09). Raffin’s 19-8 in the long jump landed him in sixth place.
Much later in the night, Raffin received the 4x400 baton behind LaPorte’s Tayshaun Williams, who opened a bigger lead early in the final lap. And then the competitive juices within Raffin stiff-armed his fatigue, let his speed bubble to the surface and sharpened his vision onto Williams, the only person who mattered in his life in that instant.
The stalk was on. And for all but the final step or two, it looked as though it would amount to a valiant effort from Raffin.
Wrong.
Completing the run of his life, Raffin edged his competitor at the finish line, by running the fastest lap around a track in his life. Nearby, the shot put finished not long after the relay and Owen Edlen’s first-place points were in the book. He shook from his season-long slump in the shot with a lifetime best mark of 56 feet, 6 inches.
The final team standings: 1. Chesterton 177, 2. LaPorte 149, 3. Portage 104, 4. Valparaiso 99, 5. New Prairie 56, 6. Michigan City 16, 7. Washington Township 10, 8. Marquette 9, 9. Westville 2, 10. South Central 1.
Raffin supplied an end to the racing with a stunning comeback, but don’t count the person in uniform who knows him best among the surprised: cousin and classmate Patrick Mochen.
Coming into the night, Mochen figured his duties would be limited to the pole vault, where he finished fourth with a 12-6 vault.
But as the night progressed, teammates, coaches and Kieran Barnewall himself let Mochen know to be ready to fill in for Barnewall in the third leg of the 4x400 because Barnewall had a sore hip.
Mochen, who had not run a 400 since doing it in a meet against Merrillville and Portage on May 6, responded with the fastest 400 meters of his life, giving Raffin a shot, even if it was on the long side.
Mochen still was recovering from his lap, so he wasn’t the best source to talk about the final leg, but there isn’t a better person to talk about the athlete running it.
“Louis really picked up the slack. The pressure being on the anchor leg, Louis really thrives under that,” Mochen said. “That’s just kind of the guy he is; he really does well under pressure.”
Shaking up the order of the relay in midseason, moving Resto from the anchor leg to first, has worked well for the Trojans. Resto has given the team leads and Raffin showed Thursday what he can do when stalking prey.
Mochen showed he too has the pressure gene by responding so well to a last-minute challenge.
Time splits for relay runners always are unofficial. For one thing, they are hand-held times, which tend to be quicker. Also, the running start helps the time. Mochen was told by teammate Noah Haubold that his stopwatch had his split as 51.5, Raffin’s at a blurry 48.7.
Mochen praised Cal Wisniewski, third-leg runner, saying, “He gave me a big lead. He gapped LaPorte there to give me a chance.”
The winning time was 3:22.07, Chesterton’s fastest this season and that was without having Barnewall, or Nathan Vaughan, who was competing in four other events, running in it. LaPorte was clocked in 3:22.10, meaning a metric mile came down to three-hundredths of a second.
Vaughan had another huge, busy night for the Trojans. He won the long jump by a foot-and-a-half, leaping 22-4.25, and anchored the winning 4x100 that was clocked in 42.78. Weston Moore, Devin Throw and Wisniewski carried the baton before him. Vaughan also placed second in the 100 meters (10.96) and third in the 200 meters (22.43), a remarkable night considering that he had to run preliminary heats in his three sprints.
Chesterton athletes joining Edlen and Vaughan and the two relays in the winners’ circle: Barnewall in the 110 hurdles (14.01) and 300 hurdles (39.43), Nolan Johnston in the high jump (6-7). So in all, Chesterton won seven of the 16 events.
Second-place finishers joining Vaughan and Resto: AJ Brandon in the high jump (6-2); Edlen in the discus (148-9); Spencer Martin in the 1600 meters (4:29.10).
Third-place finishers, joining Vaughan and Raffin: Maddox McKinney in the pole vault (12-6); Will Roberson in the 800 meters (1:59.99, a personal record); Wisniewski in the 300 hurdles (40.62, a personal record); Ryan Nix, Will Morgan, Will Roberson and Zarek Sierazy in the 4x800 (8:26.15).
Note how Wisniewski’s name keeps popping up: two wins in relays and an individual third place.
First, second and third-place finishers at sectional meets advance to the regional round, as do athletes who meet what is known as “3 Participant Standard” marks in the final of each event. If the top three finishers plus those who make the standard in an event adds up to fewer than 16 entrants, the next best performances from the sectionals for that region will be added to bring the total number of advancers in an event to 16. When that math is done, more Trojans will be added to the regional field. Subtractions via scratches will happen as well. For instance, Vaughan said that he planned on scratching from the 100 meters to maximize his chances of reaching state in the 4x100, the 200 meters and the long jump.
The Valparaiso regional, which draws from the Crown Point, Highland, Portage and Rensselaer sectionals, is scheduled for Thursday, May 29, 5 p.m.