Chesterton’s most improved sprinter, sophomore Weston Moore, grateful to be riding Nathan Vaughan’s coattails to the state meet today

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The 4x100 relay is such a short race that even the slightest glitch in one of the three handoffs can spell doom.
Sophomore Weston Moore, Chesterton’s most improved sprinter and the leadoff runner in the 4x100 at the Valparaiso regional, was certain that the problematic handoff from him to Devin Throw had cooked the relay’s chances of earning a trip to today’s state meet at North Central High in Indianapolis.
Chesterton head coach Bryan Nallenweg felt the same way.
“I was watching the video from that 4x1 last weekend,” Nallenweg said. “I knew we were behind, but I didn’t realize how far behind we were. If you would have pressed pause on that video, I think anyone would have said, well the top three sports are pretty solidified going into that last exchange. But that’s what having a guy with 10.8, 10.9 speed will do for you. He can make up a lot of ground.”
Can and did.
“I thought we completely blew it,” Moore said. “But Nate saved the day. That was awesome.”
Nallenweg and Moore both said that the Moore-Throw handoffs had been consistently smooth all year. Moore also has shown an aptitude for mastering the art of blasting out of the starting blocks. It all adds up to a big sophomore year for the burner whose twin brother, Jacob, is an alternate on the relay.
Weston’s best 100 time last season was 11.92. He ran an 11.00 at the Portage sectional May 22, in improvement of nearly a second. Moore attributes part of it to making big improvements launching out of the starting blocks.
“The (regional relay) was a good race for me aside from the handoff,” he said. “It was definitely one of my best starts of the year. There is a lot of stuff I picked up on with my starts. I got a lot better at it. My favorite part of track is probably the block work. I feel like if I get a really good block start it could be the deciding factor in a close race, based on how much power you put in the blocks and how much farther you get out that everyone else.”
Moore, and the three juniors, Throw, Cal Wisniewski and Vaughan ran a 42.86 at the regional, which dropped them all the way to 26th out of 29 relay teams in the state field. The same four runners clocked a 42.43 at the DAC meet May 14 to finish second to Merrillville (42.05).
The Chesterton school record of 41.45, set by EJ Biokoro, Braden Corzan, Darren Corzan and Louie Razo in 2017 appears safe for this season, but it’s already on the sprinters’ minds as a goal for next season.
Moore is the only of the four who uses his speed on the football field. He played football for the first time as a sophomore and hopes to get varsity snaps at wide receiver as a junior.
“People thought it would be a good idea for me to join since I was pretty quick,” Moore said. “I thought I’d give it a shot to see if I liked it. I love it!”
His twin also plays football, but is on the other side of the ball at quarterback.
Despite Weston’s big improvement this season, Nallenweg still sees areas that the young sprinter can tighten up to become even faster.
“His sprint mechanics,” Nallenweg said. “There are still some things we need to try to develop a little bit as far as mechanics go. He’s definitely got some raw speed that you can’t really teach. (Strength and conditioning coach Matt) Wagner said that in the weight room for a lot of the short, quick acceleration stuff, Weston’s almost always at the top of the leaderboard. I think he’s a kid who’s going to keep getting better, at least we hope.”