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Anytime a record falls, the old cliché, “Records were meant to be broken,” from swimming legend Mark Spitz inevitably comes up.

It’s an easy thing to say, but actually doing the breaking is a difficult thing to pull off, especially when referencing South Dakota High School track and field.

The act of setting new all-time state records – especially individual records – in the SDHSAA T&F scene doesn’t happen on a regular basis and has become a rarity in recent seasons.

Of the fourteen individual prep track and field events contested in South Dakota, only seven of the boys’ records have fallen in the last 20 years, an average of just one every three years. If that still seems like a lot, note that almost every South Dakota girls’ record has gone down in that same time frame.

That context is a big reason why the events of this Tuesday afternoon at O’Gorman High School were so special…

One For The Record Books

At one of the final Class AA regular season meets of the year - the appropriately named Last Chance Qualifier in Sioux Falls – Lincoln High School junior Hunter Merkley booked his place in the state’s all-time record books with a long jump of 23 feet, 11.5 inches, the furthest a South Dakota prep athlete had ever gone before.

Just how impressive was Merkley’s jump? To understand, let’s look at the record he just broke.

The old South Dakota boys long jump record of 23 feet, 8.75 inches, was set in 2008 by Lennox’s Jared Vlastuin.

In the decade since, only Merkley and Aberdeen Central’s Jared Hannigan (23-5.5 in 2010) have come within half a foot of Vlastuin’s mark.

Around the rest of the Midwest, the top long jump in Nebraska is listed at 23-2.75 this year. Minnesota’s best effort? 23-1. North Dakota comes in at 22-11, while Iowa’s best is at 22-7.75.

In other words, jumping 23 feet in high school is rare air in this part of the country.

(Quick note on Vlastuin: Jared was a three-time Class A state jumps champion and an all-state basketball player for the Orioles, and he’d go on to win six individual Summit League titles and earn All-American status while at SDSU, including posting a school-record long jump of 25-4 his senior year. In other words, he was a decent athlete.)

For more context, Merkley’s launch of 23 feet, 11.5 inches ranks fifth in the Summit League this year and would’ve won last week’s NSIC Outdoor Championships by almost a foot.

Not bad for a junior in high school, right?

Building Towards The Goal

Days before he would set the record at O’Gorman, Hunter told me that breaking the all-time South Dakota mark had been a long-time goal of his, one that started to become a real possibility this spring.

After hitting 22-6 to take runner-up honors at the state meet as a sophomore in 2018, Merkley’s marks began trending upward from the first meet of this season this year. He launched 23-0 at Harrisburg on April 2, then went 23-7 on May 3 at O’Gorman to break the Lincoln school record and vault into 4^th all-time on the SDHSAA record list.

Hunter proceeded to win the long jump over top competition at the Howard Wood Dakota Relays the following day at 23-3. A week-and-a-half later, he’d cement his place in state history and realize a dream in the process. 

“It’d mean the world to me and my coach (Lincoln’s Eric Rice) as well. I’ve put a lot of hard work into this.”

Hard work that’s paying off in a big way.

Like Father, Like Son

In a fun twist, Merkley isn’t the first in his immediate family to be an all-time state record holder in track and field. His father, Josh, set the South Dakota prep record in the 4x100m relay with Lincoln back in 1997 at 42.30 seconds, a time that stood unequaled for 19 years.

Conversely, Hunter will hope the record he just set lasts less than two weeks.

His next chance to go farther and become the sole member of South Dakota’s 24-foot club will be Saturday, May 25, at the SDHSAA State Track Meet at Howard Wood Field. The AA Boys Long Jump competition is scheduled to begin at 11 am.

#PLATINUM Status

Merkley’s efforts at O’Gorman doubled as a new South Dakota all-time record and a MidcoSN Platinum record as well.

For the uninitiated, the Platinums were created in 2015 as a way to recognize the top high school track and field performances in the Dakotas each year, our take on South Dakota’s Gold Medal award that’s presented at the state meet for the top mark in each event regardless of class.

Hunter’s long jump mark is now the seventh all-time state record set between the two states in the five years of the Platinums, as he joins a who’s who of prep Dakota athletes from recent years.

Dakota High School Boys Platinum Record Holders                                                                                Year Set  

Dakota High School Girls Platinum Record Holders                                                                              Year Set                                                         

*All-Time State Record                       +Converted to FAT