Shelbi Vaughan at it again - breaks own national discus record at Jr. Nationals

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Even Shelbi Vaughan concedes that throwing the discus and playing volleyball is an unusual combination.

For the Mansfield Legacy (Mansfield, Texas) senior, it's more than a successful one.

Vaughan set a national high school record of 198 feet, 9 inches to win the women's discus in the USA Junior National Track & Field Championships at the Indiana University on Friday.

Vaughan, who also had a throw of 196-11, twice bettered her 6-day-old national high school record of 193-11 set at the Golden West Invitational on June 9. Vaughan also took down the meet record of 198-7 set by Seilala Sua of UCLA set in 1997.



The victory on Friday earned Vaughan a berth on the U.S team for the IAAF World Junior Championships in Athletics in Barcelona, Spain on July 10-15. The top two finishers made the team contingent upon meeting a qualifying standard.

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"You don't normally see a volleyball player and a thrower," said the 6-foot-2 Vaughan who will attend Texas A&M on a volleyball scholarship. "It's normally volleyball and high jump but I think (throwing the discus) helps just as much for the high jump."

Vaughan's mark won by over 27 feet over Alex Collatz of USC (171-2) and would have been far enough to win the NCAA championships this year.

Throwing in a lime green florescent singlet, Vaughan did not start on an auspicious note. She did not have a legal mark in the first two rounds before throwing 181-4 on her final throw in the prelims to take over the lead. That was followed by a fourth-round throw of 196-11 to give the 17-year-old a U.S. Olympic Trials "A" qualifying standard mark.

Vaughan fouled in the fifth round before unleashing her 198-9 throw on her final throw. Vaughan believes that she could have thrown over 200 feet in better conditions than on a windless warm afternoon on Friday.



"You really can't do much without the wind," Vaughan said. "I was a little shaky but once I got started I was fine."

Vaughan first set the national record in the Texas Relays on March 31 when she threw 191-6 on March 30. Since then, Vaughan, who had a best of 174-10 as a junior, has thrown over 183 feet in her last seven meets.

"We've changed my technique in the back but I've gotten bigger and stronger," Vaughan said.

The World junior team is the second international team for Vaughan, who placed third in the 2011 World Youth Championships and won the Texas State 5-A titles in the shot put and the discus this year. Despite her success in track, Vaughan has no plans to abandon volleyball at the moment.

"It's really hard to decide which one I like more so that's why I want to do both in college," Vaughan said. "I might be a little better in one over the other but liking one more over the other. I haven't decided."

Gresham (Ore.) junior Haley Crouser was just as dominant as Vaughan in the women's javelin. The American junior record holder won with a throw of 166-7 to defeat Stanford freshman Brianna Bain.



Washington State record holder Sean Keller of Heritage (Vancouver, Wash.) won the men's javelin with a throw of 237-6 and Rudy Winkler of Averill Park (N.Y.) won the hammer with a toss of 231-2.

In the 100, Tyreek Hill of Coffee (Douglas, Ga.) defeated Aaron Earnest of LSU to win in 10.28 while running into a 1.8 meter-per-second headwind. In the women's 100. Shayla Sanders of Boyd Anderson (Lauderdale Lakes, Fla.) and Jennifer Madu of Plano East (Plano, Texas) finished second and third in 11.57 and 11.58 behind collegian Dezerea Bryant of Clemson.

Long Beach Poly (Calif.) sophomore Ariana Washington, the California State 100 and 200 champion, was sixth in 11.79 and will likely be named to the 4 x 100 relay pool.

Maryland state 110-meter hurdle champion Dondre Echols of Potomac (Oxon Hill, Md.) was a 13.56 to 13.59 winner over Joshua Thompson of Pitt in another race run into a headwind (1.8 mps). The winds benefited U.S. high school leader Jarrion Lawson of Liberty-Eylau (Texarkana, Texas) in the long jump who won with a wind-assisted leap of 25-6 (2.5 mps).

Brianna Nerud of North Shore (Glen Head, NY) led from the start to win the women's steeplechase in 10:23.87.

World Youth champion Ajee Wilson of Neptune (N.J.) and Mary Cain of Bronxville (N.Y.) were the top qualifiers in the women's 800 in 2:08.00 and the women's 1,500 in 4:24.65, respectively in the opening session of the three-day meet concludes on Sunday.