Sectional titles for Weston Moore (100 meters), Nathan Vaughan (long jump) and 4X400 (Vaughan, Cal Wisniewski, Ben Phillips, Louis Raffin) as Trojans fall one point shy of DAC champion Merrillville

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

A split second here. A foot there. An inch longer reach over there, one fewer stutter step. When a team falls a measly point short in a big track and field meet, the list of near misses and what ifs is seemingly endless.
Things looked bleak for Chesterton’s chances of repeating as DAC champions in boys track and field when instead of the 10 points they would have received with all clean handoffs, the Trojans scored zero in the 4X100 meter relay and still almost battled back to overcome a rare blemish from a squad that has been remarkably consistent all year.
Chesterton went undefeated in the conference dual season, but Merrillville took the championship with 131 points. Chesterton placed second with 130 points and Crown Point (118) was third.
A track and field meet has 16 events and Chesterton finished first in 13 of them on a windy Wednesday night in Valparaiso.
Senior Nathan Vaughan, the team’s most consistently spectacular athlete all season, returned to the track where he set three school records in one night a month earlier. He did some amazing things again, but this time spent most of his time talking about what he didn’t do. He didn’t run his typically flawless, smooth 300-meter hurdles race and finished second to Merrillville’s Keon Strong (39.05). Vaughan was clocked in 39.26. In his previous race at Valpo, Vaughan ran a 37.99 and then broke his school record at the Garry Nallenweg Chesterton Relays with a 37.93. He had only run the event twice coming into this season.
“I stuttered seven out of the eight hurdles. It was the worst race I’ve run, actually the worst race ever, my worst time this season by half a second,” Vaughan said. “So, not happy about that.”
He attributed the off performance to the team getting disqualified from the 4X100 with a bad exchange when the baton fell to the ground.
“We dropped the baton five minutes before I had to run the 3, so I was frustrated,” Vaughan said. “I wasn’t in the right mindset.”
Vaughan easily won the long jump with a 23-05.50 and ran a 48.9 leadoff split for the Trojans’ winning 4X400 relay and was followed by Cal Wisniewski, Ben Phillips and anchor man Louis Raffin.
Vaughan was duly impressed with the 100 meters that junior teammate Weston Moore ran into the wind to take first place in 11.33. Moore added to his fast day by peeling his way to a 22.51 in the 200 meters, good for third place. Devin Throw placed sixth with a 23.23.
“Weston had a great day until the 4X1 and then he dropped the stick,” Vaughan said. “I think he was the opposite of me. He was too over his head (excited) and I was like under and then I ran the 3s really bad, so I don’t know.”
The baton never made it from Moore’s hand into Raffin’s and fell to the track.
The four sprinters’ handoffs have been solid all year. The good news about the timing of a long overdue muffed exchange was that it did not come in the sectional or regional meet. The DAC is a competition unto itself, not connected to the rest of the postseason. If it had happened at the sectional or regional, it would have cost the relay team a trip to state.
Vaughan said that he’s “super confident,” that he and his teammates will perform well throughout the sectionals, regionals and at state.
Moore came into and out of the meet with his confidence riding high.
“Coach told me he thought I could win it,” Moore said of the 100. “And Cal Wisniewski told me he thought I could win it, so I just needed to get in there and get the job done.”
Moore said he got away with a bad start in the preliminary heat.
“It was a little iffy,” he said. “I stumbled at the start, came out a little bit too deep, and after that Coach was telling me he thought I could still pull through and Cal was telling me I just need to relax, don’t tense up and if you feel someone gaining on you, just relax.”
Moore kept his eye on the prize, keeping his vision straight ahead and doing it so well that after the race, as Nallenweg was telling him, “Way to go, Weston!” Moore asked: “How did I do?”
Nallenweg broke into a big grin and said, “You won it!”
Moore said he suspected he had but wasn’t certain.
“I felt the Merrillville (Damon Thomas, third place) kid gaining on me and I was like, ‘Did I get that?’ Then when Coach told me I won I was super excited and started high-fiving everyone,” Moore said.
On a day with no wind early in the season, Moore ran a personal best 10.98.
The rough start in the prelim gave him something to focus on getting better at when it counted and he nailed it.
“In the finals, my start was almost perfect,” he said. “My head was good. It was level. I got out really well. I’m really proud of that start. It was one of my best starts.”
It was a good day overall for Chesterton’s sprinters.
Wisniewski placed second in the long jump (21-5.75) and third in the 300 hurdles (41.24).
In the open 400, Phillips (51.00) picked up third-place points (51.00) and Patrick Mochen (52.63) seventh-place points.
Raffin, a first-year hurdler as a senior, finished third in the 110 high hurdles with a 15.57.
The Trojans also fared well in middle and long distance events. Ryan Nix finished third in the 3200 (9:50.93) and fourth in the 1600 (4:29.68). Spencer Martin took third in the 800 (2:00.36) and fifth in the 1600 (4:29.68). Nick Jakel’s strong junior season continued with a 9:56.55, good for fourth place in the 3200.
In the 4X800, Zarek Sierazy, Martin, Ray Hundt and William Morgan ran an 8:25.39 and placed second to Crown Point.
After Chesterton’s win in the 4X4, the only event still going was the shot put, where the throwers fed off each other’s energy so well that a number of them reached the best marks of their lives on their final throws. Leon threw a 51-8, beating his best throw by more than a foot.
“Personal best, I’ll take it,” he said. Leon took third place and Tyler Nevious placed sixth with a 47-0, his best throw since coming back from ACL surgery.
Colin Kellogg placed sixth in the discus with a 135-2, one inch behind the fifth-place finisher.
Pole vaulters Bryan Huseman (fifth) and Maddox McKinney (sixth) both added to the team’s point total by clearing 12 feet.
“Today was one of those up and down days,” Vaughan said, summing up the Trojans’ day during a year in which the arrow had been pointing straight up. And still, even with some disappointments, Chesterton missed a championship by a single point.
The Trojans enter this coming Thursday’s sectional at Portage as the heavy favorite to win it.