Nate Vaughan has historic day in Valparaiso, sets three Chesterton school records in one dual meet Tuesday at Valparaiso: long jump (24-3), 100 meters (10.55), 300 hurdles (37.99)

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

At a high school with a track and field tradition as strong as Chesterton’s records don’t fall easily, which makes what senior Nate Vaughan did Tuesday night all the more difficult to fathom.
Vaughan shattered individual school records in three different events at Valparaiso, including one that didn’t even seem to be within his reach.
Jeff Bakaitis’ school record in the long jump stood for 33 years. Vaughan broke it with a leap of 24 feet even. That record lasted for “five or six minutes” Vaughan estimated. He broke it again, launching 24-3 on his second jump before fouling on the final two.
Not long after that and just a few paces from the end of the long jump pit, Vaughan settled into the starter’s blocks and blew away the field again, running a 10.55 in the 100 meters, breaking the record of 10.66 set by Braden Corzan in 2018.
The 300 hurdles record, broken by Kieran Barnewall in 2024 (38.78) and again in 2025 (38.75), was next to fall. Vaughan tore through the race in 37.99.
Three records in one day.
His day wasn’t quite done. In the final event of the meet, Nate the Great got the 4X400 relay off to a blazing start and senior Cal Wisniewski, freshman Ben Phillips and senior Louis Raffin joined him in running a time that’s just a few seconds off the school record.
Vaughan entered the season confident that the strength he added this year would translate to school records in the long jump and 300 hurdles, but never said anything about breaking the 100 record.
“It was in the air, but it was one of those things that it basically was going to take a miracle if it was going to happen,” Vaughan said. “I thought if I was going to get it I would just barely get it. I kind of smashed it.”
His best time through last season was a 10.81. He was aided by a tailwind, but the race came at a point in the meet where the wind sat done a bit.
“It really wasn’t that windy when we ran it,” Vaughan said. I have video of it and you can’t really hear the wind. When we ran the 300s, you could hear the wind. It was ripping the microphone. It really wasn’t that bad when we ran the 100, but everyone knows this is a fast track.”
Head boys track coach Bryan Nallenweg was the coach when Corzan ran his 10.66.
“It definitely helped,” Nallenweg said of Tuesday’s tailwind, “but I know when Braden ran that record in Kokomo it was very cold that day, but there was also a very generous tailwind.”
Vaughan went into the meet hoping to set two school records in one day and topped his aspirations.
“I knew I was going to get the 300 and I had a really good feeling about the long jump,” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to get a PR by 18 inches though. In the long jump, getting a PR by eight inches is kind of a lot.”
Bakatis’ record was 23-6.5.
“In the hurdles, all it takes is stuttering twice and you gain a second,” Vaughan said.
Vaughan broke 40 seconds for the first time in last week’s outdoor season opener at Chesterton when he ran a 38.93, falling just short of Barnewall’s record.
“I thought maybe if I fixed up my race just a little I would be able to drop a second,” Vaughan said. “I honestly think I ran worse over the hurdles this time. I was just faster between them. Cal (Wisniewski) had me beat around the curve and then I just took off. He had me for at least 150 meters.”
Vaughan was busy texting interested parties throughout the meet, including the head coach and an assistant at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where he will compete next season, and Barnewall, who still holds the 110 high hurdles Chesterton record and is running well for Indiana State.
He also called Chesterton strength and conditioning coach Matt Wagner. Vaughan credits Wagner with giving him the road map to increasing his strength, not only in the weight room but also in the area of nutrition.
“I think the biggest thing that helped is eating more, I got so much stronger, just the protein and the calories,” Vaughan said. “I was eating five or six meals a day. I’d eat breakfast, lunch, I’d eat a dinner when I got home. I’d eat a dinner with my family, and then I’d eat before I got to bed.”
With the exception of breakfast, almost all those meals for a three-month stretch consisted of ground beef and rice, Vaughan said.
He didn’t run at all during that stretch but intensified his weightlifting routine more than at any point in his life.
“That’s what everybody says today. You’ve got to eat,” he said. “That and recovery. I think recovery helped a lot. Drinking water a lot, sleeping a lot, trying to get eight hours every night.”
Vaughan said a great deal of what he did in Valpo was “thanks to Coach Wagner. Everything he says is true. I hate to say it, but everything he says is true.”
Wagner called Vaughan “a great kid to get the opportunity to coach. One of my favorite athletes I’ve had in my career. You can tell him to do something crazy in the weight room and he may look at me like
‘What is the coach thinking?’, but he will try it no matter what. The work he has put in has turned him from the kid he was a few years ago to what he is now. Not to mention, it’s only the middle of April he’s doing these performances. Just wait for another month and the success he will have. Can’t wait to see how his season goes along for him.”
Vaughan also holds school records in two relay events that are not a part of most meets, the shuttle hurdles and the 4X200 relays.
“I still have the 4X100 and 4X400 to go,” he said. “Then that’s probably about it.”
He said probably, which doesn’t mean definitely.
Vaughan did not run the 200 meters in either of the first two meets. He ran a 21.91. Doug Colvin’s record, set in 1987, is 21.31.
“What a remarkable performance,” Nallenweg marveled. “And all three records are equally impressive.”
If any other track athlete in Chesterton history set three records in one meet the coach was not aware of it.