Thunder, lightning and rain were enough to disrupt the boys state track and field meet Friday.
At 2:52 p.m., the Class AA preliminaries at Eastern Illinois’ O’Brien Stadium were suspended for more than an hour by the lousy weather.
And the conditions dampened the chances of Bolingbrook’s Troy Doris, the nation’s leading high school triple jumper, to break the 26-year-old national record. The weather forced the remainder of the field events inside Lantz Fieldhouse and Doris wasn’t comfortable.
There wasn’t enough sand to completely fill the landing pit. That left a dangerous dropoff at the end of the pit.
“The dropoff, that’s what kind of psyched me out about the whole thing,” Doris said. “I didn’t want to fall in there. Every jump I wanted to hold back.”
The state record of 51 feet 1/2 inch was definitely within reach as Doris showed with his qualifying mark of 50-9 1/2 . After landing, he lost his balance and fell back a few inches. But that mark was almost 4 feet better than Rolling Meadows junior Ty Kirk’s 47-1 3/4 .
Doris has another shot Saturday and he also leads qualifying in the long jump (23-7 3/4 ) and will run for Bolingbrook’s 400-meter relay team.
Evan Jager, the defending state champion in the 1,600, also will attempt to win two individual events in the Class AA finals. He eased to the finish in the 1,600 heats with a time of 4 minutes 13.72 seconds. He’ll also run the 3,200.
“I ran hard, but I didn’t all-out kick — to save something for [Saturday],” said the senior, who won the Class AA state cross-country title in November.
He’ll be pushed by the leading 1,600 qualifier, Loyola’s Tom Robbins (4:10.72), as well as York’s Mike Fry (4:13.82) and Marmion’s David Grange (4:13.99).
Another defending champion from the Chicago area, senior Colin Madison of Willowbrook, qualified in the shot put with a throw of 55-5 3/4 .
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asutton@tribune.com
