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55| O akville B eaver | T hursday,M ay 31,2018 insidehalton.com SPORTS Visit insidehalton.com for more coverage It's hard to keep a good high jumper down. Matthew Tint, the reigning provincial silver medallist was looking for- ward to taking a run at gold this year. The Oak- ville Trafalgar student came into last season with a strong vertical jump de- veloped on the volleyball court, zero high jumping experience and no team- mates to lean on for tips. Undeterred, he asked fellow competitors for ad-fellow competitors for ad-f vice at meets and by the end of the season was beat- ing all of them. He cleared 1.80 metres at OFSAA to win the silver medal. His surprising success convinced him to get some coaching so he trained at York University in theYork University in theY summer. A broken arm limited his training time, but he was looking for- ward to what he could ac- complish this year. But Tint's run at OF- SAA gold never got off the ground. Without a quali- fied coach for the event atfied coach for the event atf Oakville Trafalgar, there were liability concerns if he was injured. There was a late attempt to have him train with T.A. Blakelock's team but they couldn't get their schedules to work. "It was really disap- pointing," the Grade 10 student said. "I did every- thing I was asked to do, but with the late start to the season, we just couldn't get it worked out in time." Making the best of the situation, Tint put his ef- fort into jumping horizon-fort into jumping horizon-f tally rather than vertical- ly. He qualified for OFSAA in the triple jump last year and finished 16th despite nursing a hip injury. A motivated Tint came into the Golden Horseshoe meet in Hamilton looking to start his road back to OFSAA. On his first at- tempt of the day, he jumped 12.43 m to break the 13-year-old meet re- cord (12.29 m) set by anoth- er volleyball player, Iro- quois Ridge's Bryan Faut- ley, in 2005. He bettered it again on his second attempt with 12.62 m and then took it to another level with 12.96 m on his third jump. "I had no idea," he said when told of the Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club (GHAC) record. "I was just going for a personal best. Now I hope to beat 13 me- tres at south regionals." Tint will also be ad- vancing in the long jump after finishing second. Two other Oakville ath- letes broke long-standing hurdles records at the meet. Abbey Park's Ben Cur- rier became just the sec- ond hurdler to break the minute barrier in the se- nior boys' 400 m hurdles. He took two seconds off the 2007 meet standard set by Holy Trinity's Gord Frenke. Loyola's Nic Legaspi beat the field by more than six seconds to win the ju- nior boys' 300 m hurdles in a 40.51 seconds. That took more than 2.5 seconds off the 10-year-old GHAC re- cord. Legaspi also won the 100 m hurdles in a time of 14.75 seconds. Iroquois Ridge's Ethan Stuart won three events at the GHAC meet, sweeping the junior boys' distance races. He won the 800 m with a time of 2:16.18, took first in the 1,500 m (4:37.57)first in the 1,500 m (4:37.57)f and finished his gold-med- al hat trick with a win in the 3,000 m (10:23.27). Other gold medal wins for Oakville athletes at thefor Oakville athletes at thef meet included: Midget girls: Rachel Marriott, Aquinas, 1,500 m (5:14.37); Erin Sinclair, Ab- bey Park, javelin (24.29). Midget boys: Justin Neale, King's Christian, high jump (1.62 m); Lucas Mindzak, Aquinas, shot put (11.96 m); Christian Goff, King's Christian (24.24). Junior girls: Thi-Anne Hillyard, Garth Webb, 100 m (13.06), 200 m (27.57); Senior girls: Elena Co- lussi-Pelaez, Abbey Park, pole vault (2.80 m); Zainab Salami, King's Christian, triple jump (10.23 m); Ta- mia Noel, Loyola, shot put (11.40 m), discus (32.73 m); Nicole Parsons, Abbey Park, 400 m (1:04.30), 800 m (2:26.40); Senior boys: Marcus Nandlal, Aquinas, 400 m (50.68), 800 m (2:03.08); Yi- hang Qin, Abbey Park, long jump (6.04 m), triple jump (12.95); Loyola 4x400 relay (3.37.49). Grounded high jumper soars to GHAC triple jump record Oakville Trafalgar's Matthew Tint set a GHAC meet record in the triple jump, leaping 12.96 metres. That broke the record of 12.29 set in 2005. Herb Garbutt/Metroland HERB GARBUTT hgarbutt@metroland.com