School record holder in the high jump, Nolan Johnston is Chesterton’s highest seed at boys state track and field meet at No. 2

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

All that’s left for first-year track and field participant Nolan Johnston to do to top himself is win the state title in the high jump and clear 7 feet.
As crazy as it sounds, neither one requires a stretch of the imagination. Those are realistic goals for the jumper who broke Matt Nover’s Chesterton school record of 6-10, which had stood since 1987.
Johnston broke his own school record at the Valparaiso regional, jumping 6-foot-11. He came close in his second of three attempts at 7 feet at the regional, where teammate AJ Brandon finished second with a 6-4 jump. Brandon cleared 6-8 at an indoor meet in Portage.
Johnston’s 6-11 was the second highest jump in the state at a regional. Warsaw Community junior Jordan Randall is the only ranked ahead of Johnston on the performance list. He placed third at the state meet a year ago with a 6-8 jump. Both jumpers who finished ahead of him graduated a year ago. He is the favorite, but Johnston’s footsteps, still so new to the event, grow louder by the minute.
Johnston envisions clearing the magic 7-foot milestone at the state meet at North Central High.
“I feel like I get better every week at this point,” Johnston said after clearing 6-11. “I can think I can do it. I was really close.”
Brandon, who blazed the trail for the high jump by doing it for the first time as a junior and winning the 2024 regional meet with a 6-7 jump, made a prediction.
“I think he’s got 7,” Brandon said. “The way he has put in work this season, how he’s confident in all of his jumps, I believe he’s got it.”
Brandon was on his way to building toward the milestone as well until an ankle injury set him back.
“I feel a lot better, especially today than I did a couple of weeks ago,” Brandon said. “My ankle was pretty swollen then, but it felt good enough today that I was able to jump without any tape or any ankle braces or anything. I feel like I have it all put together now. I just went for it and got second.”
Even with such short histories in the event, both senior jumpers can review tapes of their jumps, quickly identify flaws and self-correct them, according to Chesterton high jump coach Phil Long. And he gives both seniors high grades for their proprioception, a person’s awareness of their body and limbs in the surrounding space without having to rely on what’s in view to sense where the body is.
Johnston ranks highest on the performance list among the 10 Chesterton athletes competing at the state meet. Other rankings: 3. Kieran Barnewall, 110 hurdles; 6. 4x400 relay (Aaron Resto, Cal Wisniewski, Barenwall or Nathan Vaughan or Patrick Mochen, Louis Raffin); 8. Barnewall, 300 hurdles; 18. Vaughan 19. Louis Raffin, 400 meters and Brandon, high jump; 22. Vaughan, 200 meters; 24. Owen Edlen, shot put; 26. 4x100 relay (Weston Moore, Devin Throw, Wisniewski, Vaughan).