NU high jumper Hamilton bounces back
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By KEN HAMBLETON / Lincoln Journal Star
After the worst day in his career at Nebraska, Paul Hamilton had one of his best.
The Husker freshman from Sidney flew to a personal best outdoor leap of 7-feet-1/2-inch to win the Nebraska Open title Sunday at Ed Weir Stadium.
The Nebraska Class B state record holder slumped to one of his worst days of competition Saturday when he cleared 6-6¾ at the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa.
“It was terrible,” Hamilton said. “We jumped at 10 a.m. and I had the whole day to sit and think about it. I was just thinking too much and when coach Gary Pepin) said I was jumping on Sunday, I didn’t feel very good about that either.”
But Hamilton easily cleared the bar above seven feet for the first time since the outdoor season opened to beat Nebraska-Kearney’s Blake Millsap by almost four inches.
Hamilton’s mark qualified him for NCAA regionals along with teammate and NCAA Indoor national champion Dusty Jonas, who cleared 7-7 for the indoor title and 7-6½ to win the Drake Relays this weekend. Jonas took Sunday off.
“I’ve been working for the seven-foot mark since that first meet and I’ve been at 6-10¾ and kind of mentally broke down,” Hamilton said. “It’s been frustrating. But we’ve kept working and having teammates push you — Dusty (Jonas) and Brandon Sheppard makes a big difference.”
Nebraska has plenty of quality jumpers with multi-event standout Skyler Reising hitting a season-best mark of 6-10¼, and Sheppard and John Ottun at 6-8¾.
“Dusty’s practicing at a few inches higher than the rest of us but he is helpful and it means a lot to practice with a national champion every day,” Hamilton said.
Nebraska freshman Audrey Svane won the women’s high jump with a personal best of 5-8¾ to edge Mikaela Richard of Nebraska Wesleyan, Erin Hannon of Nebraska and NU graduate Casie Witte, who cleared 5-7.
Wesleyan’s Jason Peters had an outstanding meet Sunday by anchoring the winning 400-relay team of Dan Biitner, Matt Glasnapp and Austin Novotny. The winning time of 41.57 seconds put the NWU team into NCAA Division III national meet.
This weekend, NWU’s 1,600-relay team of Andy Coppersmith, Peters, Evan Knight and Chris Wolf earned a national-qualifying mark at the Drake Relays, but did not compete in the finals.
“We knew we’d be running in a meet today and we’re building everything for our conference meet next week,” Peters said.
NWU is one of the favorites in Saturday’s Great Plains Athletic Conference meet at Sioux City, Iowa.
Wesleyan showed its strength in the sprints as Peters finished third in the 100 that was won by Nebraska’s Dax Danns and placed fourth in the 200 just 0.12 seconds behind the winner Dominic Artis of South Dakota, Scott Wims of Nebraska and former Olympian Tom Pappas.
Peters almost caught Pappas in their heat race.
“I didn’t know he (Pappas) was an Olympian but I could see he was really big and really fast, but that just helped me push harder,” Peters said.
NWU’s Wolf won the 400 and teammate Logan Watley finished second to Danny Schneider of Kansas State in the 1,500-meter run.
The Huskers will compete in the Ward Haylett Meet at Kansas State next weekend and then host the Nebraska Invite on May 10.
Reach Ken Hambleton at 473-7313 or at khambleton@journalstar.com.
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