Boys high school track: Ryne Shackelford has a bunch of state titles, now he wants the records, too

Gone with the wind gauge. As amazing as last season was for Keystone's Ryne Shackelford, it could have been even better. Not that the senior is complaining. After all, he grabbed the track triple crown by winning Division II state titles in the 100- and 200-meter dashes while defending his long jump championship. Behind his efforts, the Wildcats finished as state runners-up behind 17-time champ Glenville, 45-35. It was the Wildcats' highest state finish, eclipsing the eighth they had in 1968 and the 10th in 2021. The last Lorain County boys team to finish as high as second at state in Division II was Elyria West in 1979 (then Class AA). So what does he have planned for this season? "The main goal is to jump the state record again with one of those wind gauges," said Shackelford, a Purdue University football recruit. Shackelford was referring to the state long jump record he should have been given credit for at the Orrville district. He jumped 24 feet, 8 inches in the second round, which eclipsed the state record of 24-3.5 set by Magnolia Sandy Valley's Joe Crallie at the 1994 state meet. Well it did and it didn't, even though Crallie even came up to Shackelford at the state meet to personally congratulate him. But Shackelford's mark wasn't and won't be recognized by the Ohio High School Athletic Association because the head field judge at the Orrville district failed to set up a wind gauge which is required for state-record performances. Officials had a metal tape measure ready for use, which is required to certify state records. There was a wind gauge on site, but it wasn't set up for use. "I had signatures of every single person, everyone that was there and met with the head field event judge," Keystone coach Jeff Holzhauer said. "She said I don't know if there's anything we can do. Ryne was jumping into headwind that day. It wasn't anything that was going to affect his jump. It was a slight breeze at a little bit of an angle. Everybody said it was a headwind, but they (the OHSAA) won't count it. It stinks because when we showed up they approached me. "I know all the people at the long jump pit at Orrville very well. They came to me and told me that (Shackelford) might break the district record. I told them he might break the state record. They said they had the metal tape measure present and ready for use. They had only one wind gauge but only manned it up and used it when the track events started up later in the meet. They weren't prepared for him that day. Their job, shouldn't she look through all the entries to know what you have just so you are prepared. I submitted all my required paperwork to the head field event judge. She said she would appeal with the state. I followed up with the state and they said they weren't going to count it." Two weeks later, Shackelford won his second straight state long jump title with a mark of 24-1.5. Shackelford is the first Lorain County boy to win two state long jump titles. Keystone's other five points state came from its fourth-place 4x100 team (42.25) that included Shackelford as the anchor. Shackelford also defended his state indoor long jump title at the Division II-III meet March 3 at SPIRE with a meet-record jump of 23-10.75. It shattered his previous indoor best of 23-3 set two weeks earlier at Youngstown State and far outdistanced his 2022 winning indoor state title mark of 22-8.25. Shackelford, Holzhauer and the Wildcats had to adjust a bit after that Orrville disappointment but appear ready to go. During the preseason, Holzhauer was thinking of trying Shackelford in the open 400 for a fourth event. Shackelford was a 100-, 400- and 200-meter state champ as an eighth-grader, which included a 51-second 400-meter time. But with the way things appear to be lining up, Holzhauer said he's more likely to use Shackelford as a member of the 4x400. "I know Ryne can run 47s and maybe even high 46s," Holzhauer said. "I'm very confident. He's got to get his weight down a little bit, which he will. But I know if he's not going to run a 46 in the 400, he's not going to do it. I know how he works, but he also has a really good group of guys. I think we have six or seven guys that can go sub-52 flat in the 400. I think we can come up with four that can go 50 point or better and maybe two that can split under 50. "What Ryne and I talked about is that it might take a state record to win the 100 again and a state record to win the 200 again. I'm not sure if it's going to take a state record to win the 200, but I think if he's going to win the 100 this year he's going to have to go 10.5. I think it's going to be a loaded field. I really do. He's going to have to be really good." Shackelford opened last year's state meet by winning the 100 meters over Hawken senior Jordan Harrison, 10.62 to 10.70. He later won the 200 meters over Beaver Local junior Caleb White, 21.31 to 21.50. Shackelford barely missed the Division II 200 state record of 21.29 set by Dayton Meadowdale's Wayne Lawrence, Jr. at the 2017 state meet. The only county 200 time quicker than Shackelford was a hand-time of 21.3 by Elyria's Eugene Wilson in 1976. "These are honest conversations I want to have because I want him to have the state record in the 100, the long jump and the 200," Holzhauer said. "That's what I want and I know that he wants that, too. To ask a kid to run 21.2 after trying to beat a kid (Bexley's Mason Lewis) that's run 47 for the 400 indoors is asking a lot. A 4x400 doesn't affect the rest of his meet, so he can do his thing and then run the 4x400 and it's not going to affect anything. And if he runs the 4x400 periodically throughout the season, it's going to help his 200. "We train a lot different than we did 10 years ago. It's speed, speed, speed. That's all we work on is speed. We don't do longer intervals in practice. We use our meet days as our longer interval days. In the last two years he hasn't run anything longer at practice than a 200 and really 150. He's done some training indoors, but as far as outdoors it's been speed, speed, speed. Speed is what we work on. You can work on strength, but if you're wasting day to build strength you are sacrificing where you can get faster. "My philosophy is if you're going to run sub 50 in the 400 you have to run 22.5 or better in the 200. If he's going to run good, his 100 is going to have to be very fast. The reason he can run a better 200 than most is because he can sustain a top-end speed longer than other athletes or at least close to it because he can back it off a little bit and he's still running fast because of his top-end speed. I want him to break the state record in the 200 and the 100. Sprinkling in some 400s will only help that and give him a better chance to get what he wants." Shackelford knows as a defending state champ that there's a target on his back. He experienced a little bit of that last year in the long jump. This time around he's got three titles to defend. "I definitely have some work to do," said Shackelford, who stands 6-0. "I've got some weight to lose. I got up to 190 pounds, probably need to get back down to 175. Like my coach said, I probably need to run more distance stuff to help out my 200. I've run some longer stuff indoor, but most indoor tracks are 200. It isn't the same." Shackelford finished only 12th in the 60-meter dash prelims at SPIRE in 7.12 and didn't make finals (top 10). "My other focus is on my block work. I've got to get that going again," Shackelford said. "I sprained my right ankle against Clearview in our last football game of the season. I got tackled and some dude fell on my ankle. It hurt a lot, but it feels a lot better now. I've got to get my starts going again because I've never really got it going (for indoor season) to begin with." Holding three state records definitely appeals to him. "I already have a feel what I'm going to be doing long jump-wise, but at the moment I don't have a feel for where I'm at yet sprint-wise," he said. "I just need to get out there and run those races and see what I can do to get better at it. For the long jump, it's kind of tough because there really isn't anyone close to me yet. I hope there's two or three guys that move up. There's always surprises." "He competes against himself," Holzhauer said. "He's done that his whole life. He's very good at that. Even if he's not vocal about his expectations and his goals, he's very, very driven internally of what he expects himself to do on that particular day. "One thing we still need to talk about, and we will, is he'll get so frustrated because he's going to run and jump in the crappiest weather. He's going to win, but he might only jump 22-1 and he's going to be frustrated with himself. He just needs to stay the course and do the best he can every time he steps on the track. If he keeps doing that, the results are going to come at the end of the year. "He'll have some setbacks because we live in Ohio, not in Florida or Texas in great weather every day. He's competed in some very climate-controlled indoor meets, but now it's about to change as we move outdoors. It's about knowing the wind and knowing how to make adjustments and trying to figure out how to get on the board when it's 38 degrees and windy." And that can be tough to gauge. Contact Paul Heyse at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.