Just a day after the ADM girls track team competed in Ames at the Iowa State High School Classic, the ADM boys did the same, and head coach Mike Whisner continues to be happy with the trajectory many of his athletes are on during the early stages of this season.

The usual suspects–guys like Tate Jensen, Grant Goeden, Josh Berger and Kyle Hovey–competed at high levels in Tuesday’s meet, but Coach Whisner also brought with him some inexperienced underclassmen to Ames.  He says he’s happy with how they worked through their nerves in their first big-time event.

“It was just a fun experience for them.  It is a pretty hectic environment when you have hundreds of kids in that indoor facility, and they performed fine.  They’re all still anxious to get out outside just because it is more normal than running on those little tracks indoors.”

One young Tiger’s performance really stuck out for Coach Whisner during the ISU Classic, and that came from freshman Jacob West.

“He high jumped 5’9” and went out at 5’11”.  He cleared 5’9” and then went up two inches, went out at 5’11” which he almost got, so he was pretty happy about that.  I don’t know if he had thought he could quite go that high yet or not but… yeah, so that was a big plus right off the start.”

West’s 5’9” leap ended up in a tie for seventh in the high jump.  Coach Whisner says he’s joked around quite a bit with West during the early part of this season, but it’s because he knows just how much potential the freshman has.

“I joked with him before the season and I said, ‘did you jump 6-feet in junior high?’, and he just kind of looked at me and said, ‘no I didn’t jump 6-feet’.  But I believe he cleared 5’6” last year as an eighth-grader.  You know, it was a perfect situation (Tuesday).  In the outdoors, you’re going to have wind and temperature and that kind of thing, but I just think it was a positive for him and he’s just going to jump higher as the season goes.”

ADM’s other high placer at ISU was senior Jesse Bennett, who finished third in the shot put with a throw of 50’11.75”.  That distance eclipsed Bennett’s meet-winning heave from last week by over a foot.

For full ADM results from the ISU High School Boys Classic, visit our website at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.