Boys Track and Field: Yorkville’s Kyle Clabough wins shot put, second in discus in leading area athletes at Peterson Invite

MAPLE PARK – Kyle Clabough’s state-winning shot put strength and power from last year has evidently increased even more.

It’s now a matter of finding the consistency he needs to finish atop most, if not all, meets moving forward.

“I was happy with indoor [track season], but I’m not at all happy with outdoor,” said Clabough, a Yorkville senior and Wisconsin recruit. “In practice, I’m consistently 65-66 [feet] and I know I can go further than that even.”

Clabough, with his 18.66-meter effort, took the shot put crown over St. Charles North’s Paolo Gennarelli at the 50th annual Peterson Invite at Kaneland High School on Saturday. Gennarelli, however, prevailed in the discus throw to best Clabough’s 47.61-meter finish for second.

“With meets, my technique falls apart and I’m having a lot of foul trouble,” Clabough said. “I’m starting to fix it and get consistent. It’s just a matter of getting some more competitions out there before the big one [state].”

Yorkville tied for seventh with DeKalb. Josh Pugh was the Foxes’ other top finisher, with his first place effort in the 400-meter dash (50.94 seconds).

Oswego East’s Austin Johnson won the high jump with a 1.82-meter effort.

Johnson, also a wide receiver from football, is just about fully recovered from a torn muscle in his right quad stemming from the fall. Johnson suffered it in the regular season finale, but he didn’t realize at the time the severity of the injury.

Johnson played the finale and Oswego East’s lone playoff game with a torn quad.

“I didn’t know it was torn. I thought it was a Charlie horse,” Johnson said. “I knew we were going to the playoffs, so I didn’t want to miss my last high school game. I just kept pushing through it.”

“Coming back from that is really tough,” Johnson continued. “I would say I’m 90-95% healthy. High jumping is still something I can do. I [usually compete in] long, triple and high [jump], but even long and triple is something I can tweak it a little bit so I have to be very careful about it.”

Johnson is now back in-sync with qualifying for state on his mind. he narrowly missed in sectionals last year.

“…I’ve been consistent,” Johnson said. “My PR is 6′1. I’ve jumped 5′11, 6-foot at least every meet, indoor and outdoor. I’m kind of at a wall right now with 6′2-6′3 in high jump so I’m just trying to get past that.”

Oswego East’s Parker Nold won the 800-meter run with a 1:59.86 to also highlight the Wolves’ day. Elijah Smith took third in the 400 meter dash (52.30 seconds) for a personal record, while Hunter Brown took fourth in the 300-meter hurdles (43.56 seconds), also a PR.

Oswego East took fifth as a team.