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!