Month: May 2019

Brandon’s Mom and I are very excited and proud to announce that Brandon has chosen to attend college and compete on the track team at Oral Roberts University!

 

Brandon will be coached by pole vault legend and former World and American record holder, ORU Head Coach Joe Dial. The Dial family has been close friends of ours for many decades… going back to the mid-1980’s when Coach Dial was my pole vault coach at the University of Oklahoma. He took me in as a 16′ vaulter and turned me into an 18′ vaulter… now it’s time to hand Brandon over to Coach Dial and let him do the same with him! Coach Dial has worked with Brandon since he was a youngster running track with Coach Eric Hudgens at Personal Best, and later with Dial Athletics club.

Returning to Moore High School four days after winning the 6A State Championship, Brandon joined with sixteen of the top vaulters in the state to compete at the 2019 Oklahoma Meet of Champions marking his final track meet as a Broken Arrow Tiger.

Logan was first to clear sailing over his 2nd PR of the evening on his 2nd attempt and took the lead in the competition. Preston failed to clear 15’3″ leaving only Brandon to take his 3rd attempt… a make would keep him in the competition and a miss would give Logan the win. In dramatic fashion, Brandon had plenty of height over the bar and as he fell, his chest scraped the crossbar bending it downward. As the bar slid off his chest, it snapped upward inadvertently hitting Brandon’s hand as he was trying to avoid the bar. As he landed on the pit, the crossbar remained on the pegs giving Brandon a successful vault and making him the winner of the 2019 Meet of Champions! Brandon went to take three attempts at a PR height of 16’2″ delivering a couple of very good attempts.

Brandon competed in his final State Track meet on Friday at Moore High School and came away a Class 6A State Champion! Brandon started the competition at 14’0″ with only four competitors remaining and cleared on his 2nd attempt.  At 14’6″ he took the lead by easily clearing on his 1st attempt with only two other competitors clearing the bar on their 2nd and 3rd attempts.  

  Sophomore teammate Crayton Shaw jumped 13’0″ and made the podium earning a 5th place finish.  On the girls side, teammate and close friend Shelbi Day jumped 10’9″ setting her outdoor PR and tied for 2nd place.

As the 2nd and final day came to a close, the Broken Arrow boys team, had a 20 point lead over Jenks going into the next to last event, the 1600m run.  Both Jenks and BA had runners in the race and Jenks was hoping to close the gap, setting up a showdown in the 4×400 relay in the final event.  But that was not what happened as BA’s Andres Chapa, ran a great race and placed 6th beating the Jenks runner by two places, increasing BA’s lead by two more points… sealing BA’s team championship, as even a 1st place finish in the 4×400 relay would not give Jenks enough points to overtake BA!

The Broken Arrow girls team finished strong as well, finishing as State Runners-up!  Congratulations girls!

The BA track team was sent to Ponca City, Oklahoma to compete in the 5A/6A Regional Track Meet.  Brandon had the best regional meet of his career clearing 15′ claiming his first regional championship.  Shelbi Day was also a regional champion on the girls side.  In addition, both the boys and girls teams won the team competitions setting them up nicely to compete for a championship at the State Meet next week.

Upon arrival the pit was setup such that the vaulters would be running into a fairly strong head wind. With some strong unanimous persuasion the official agreed that we could flip the pits around, so we gathered all the vaulters and any coaches willing to help and began disassembling the pit and moving it to the other end of the runway. Of course the entire area around the pit was rain saturated and standing water so we all had nice soggy shoes by the time we finished.

In previous years, the Regional meet has always posed some problems for Brandon. His freshman and sophomore years we were sent to Tahlequah for regionals… one of the worst places to vault in the state and had terrible results… he no-heighted his freshman year, and placed 4th his sophomore year, jumping 12’6″, a foot below his usual, barely earning an additional qualifier spot to the state meet. His junior regionals was at Claremore and was definitely a better place to vault, but Brandon again struggled that day. During warmups and early in the competition, Brandon was veering to the right after the plant, and barely landing on the pit near the standards. Being a consistent 14′ vaulter at this point, he began the competition at 12′ to ensure he cleared a bar, but it took him 3 attempts and the first two were really ugly! But he did scrape by on his 3rd attempt and eventually straightened everything out and went on to clear 13’6 placing 2nd. Needless to say the regional meet was a dark ominous cloud on the horizon for me, but for his senior year, Brandon had committed himself to having the best regionals ever. And boy did he deliver!

Warmups went pretty well. The weather was very nice. We put the bungee at 15′ and he easily cleared. He began the competition at 13’… well below his PR of 16′, and this regionals, Brandon came down the runway and easily sailed over on this 1st attempt! He then passed to 14′ and easily cleared on 2nd attempt. Having won the meet at 14′ he moved the bar another foot to 15′ and again easily cleared on 2nd attempt. He made 3 attempts at 15’6″ but failed to clear. It was a very solid meet and he performed fantastically! It was nice to break the streak of regional nightmares.

The last time BA traveled to Ponca City for regionals we had a very good outcome. Dalton Phulps, Chase Snider, and Austin Hanoch swept the pole vault competition going 1-2-3. Six years later in 2019, Broken Arrow vaulters again swept regionals, with Brandon, Weston Hulse, and Crayton Shaw going 1-2-3!