oHeps12 — Men’s Horizontal Jumps

Just as they were at Indoor Heps, expect the bulk of the points in the horizontal jumps to go to Princeton or Cornell. And given that scenario for point distribution, every inch counts. Princeton will need the versatile Tom Hopkins in the long jump to both score points and displace potential points for rival Cornell, which has five of the League’s top seven in the current rankings. Leading the way is Indoor Heps’ champion Steven Bell, who has a 24-7 1/4 wind-aided mark in 2012. The Orange and Black then have Jamaican sophomore Damon McLean (with a wind-legal 24-4 1/2) and Hopkins. They are followed by sea of Red with four leapers over 23-8 (although Cornell was very wind-aided in the jumps this season). Hercules Stancil, high jumper Montez Blair and sprinter Chase Aaronson each knocked on the door of 24 feet this spring.

Barring unusual circumstances, McLean of Princeton should take the triple jump. He leapt more than 52 feet at the Penn Relays, becoming just the 10th Heps athlete to ever do that. And the League has been particular strong in the triple. Only one other athlete, Cornellian Dan Scott — is over 50 this year and Princeton has two others — Garner McCloud and Nana Owusu-Nyanteky — in the scoring mix. Brown’s Kenneth Thompson hopes to blow up the Orange/Red party though. In the end, in the two horizontal jumps, both Princeton and Cornell would probably be relieved with a 50/50 split on points. — Brett Hoover

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 at 1:03 pm. It is filed under Heps Champs, Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.