Weston Hulse, Creighton Shaw, and Brandon combined to win the Pole Vault Relay at the Whitey Smith Relay Carnival in Rogers, AR on Friday evening. It was a fun event where each of the three competitors from each team added their final heights together and the team with the highest score wins.
Weston Hulse, freshman at BA, jumped a personal best 13′, equaling the freshman record held by Brandon. Creighton Shaw, equaled his personal record clearing 13’6″. And Brandon cleared 15′ placing 2nd overall in the competition. Brandon entered the competition at 14’3″ and cleared easily on his 2nd attempt. Reagan Ulrich, a junior from Branson, MO, entered the competition at 15′ and both he and Brandon cleared on their first attempts. The bar then went to 15’6″ and Ulrich passed to 16′. Brandon was getting lots of height over the bar, but failed to penetrate, coming down on the bar all three attempts. Ulrich failed to clear the bar at 16′, but he won the competition based on one fewer miss in the competition.
There were several good things that can be taken away from this meet. First was that Brandon was mentally tough. The entire evening the vaulters were jumping into a 5 mph headwind. This did not impact Brandon in any way as he ran from his full 16 stride run, and ended up jumping his final three attempts on the biggest pole he’s ever vaulted on, his 14’6″ 4.9 flex. In addition, Brandon pushed through the pain of an injured left foot from a minor mishap earlier in the week.