Jim Krajewski, [email protected]
Published 6:21 p.m. PT July 25, 2017 | Updated 6:50 p.m. PT July 25, 2017
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Dayton’s Jonathan ‘JJ’ Ply is a national champion.
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Ply won the Junior Olympic 17-18-year-old decathlon on Tuesday at Rock Chalk Park, Kansas with 7,111 points. Ply decimated the field as Isaiah Martin was second with 6,487 points and Peyton Hack was third with 6,406 points.
Ply recovered quickly after coming off a win at Western Regionals last week, scoring 200 points better at Nationals than he did at Westerns. He broke the record at Westerns by 500 points.

On Tuesday, he beat a field of 21 competitors while wearing a T-shirt that read ‘Nevada Decathlete.’
“I just did my thing and was able to put up the amount of points that I did,” Ply said.
He won the 1500-meter race Tuesday, the tenth event, with a time of 4 minutes 18.99 seconds, a personal best for him. He won four of the five events Tuesday with personal bests.

In the 1500, Ply broke away from the pack at the start of the race and won by 17.41 seconds. He won the javelin with a throw of 182-10; tied for first in the pole vault at 13-5.5; was fifth in the discus with a PR of 122-1; and won the 110 hurdles in 14.70.

On Monday, Ply won the high jump at 6-8 3/4; took fifth in the 400 (51.72); fourth in the shot (42-1 1/2); 13th in the long jump (19-9 3/4); and 16th in the 100 (12.05), his second best time in that event.

He has been competing in decathlon for about 3 1/2 years

Ply said that driving to Kansas might have helped him recover after the Western Regional, as he was not able to train or work out for three days.

JJ Ply on top of the medal stand at the Junior Olympic national decathlon championship on Tuesday in Rock Chalk Park, Kansas. 

Paul Heglar with the Reno/Tahoe Athletics Club, is helping to coach Ply.

Ply was home schooled, but played basketball and ran track for Dayton. He was a first-team All-League selection in basketball and won three state titles in track and field.

The win represented another milestone for Ply and his family.

Last year, a day after the Junior Olympic National Championships, the family home in Dayton burned down and Ply ended up sleeping on friends couches. He said he used sports as a way to help cope with that tragedy.
He will attend Central Arizona Junior College in the fall, then hopes to move to a Division I school. Because he was home-schooled, he must attend a JC before going to a four-year school.

Ashton Eaton, a two-time Olympic champion, and Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals. were announcers for the JO national decathlon. Eaton presented medals at the awards ceremony.

Ply said Eaton simply told him to keep improving.

NEVADA APPEAL article published on July 25, 2017

Darrell Moody
[email protected]
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LAWRENCE, Kan. — The summer of 2017 keeps getting better and better for 2017 Dayton High grad J.J. Ply.

With less than two weeks rest, Ply won the 2017 USATF Hershey National Junior Olympic 17-18 decathlon championship at University of Kansas' Rock Chalk Park Tuesday afternoon with a personal-best 7,111 points.

The total is the best high school score in the country this year, and it's the first time over 7,000 for the 18-year-old Ply.
Ply won five of the 10 events — high jump (6-8 3/4), 110 high hurdles (14.7), pole vault (13-5 1/4), javelin (182-10), and the 1500 (4:18.99) in a dominant performance.

He placed in the top five in eight of the 10 events.

This was a dream come true for Ply, who competed in his first decathlon after his sophomore year at Dayton.

"It is just incredible," Ply said via phone from Lawrence. "I put so much work into it. It is a great feeling to have all that work pay off.

"I didn't see myself being at this level when I first started. I remember my first multi-event, I didn't even train for all of the events. I fell in love with it, though."

And, he fell in love with hard work. Preparing for 10 events is rugged. Ply could put some work into some of his normal events, but events like the javelin and discus took extra work, and he was more than willing to put it in.

Ply was an easy winner after winning four of the five events on Tuesday.

Second place went to Isaiah Martin of Jets Track Club with 6,487 and Peyton Hack from Indiana was in third place at 6,408.

He was hoping for a 7,300, but was pleased with his final score.

"It feels very good," Ply said. "I was hoping for 7,300, but any time you get 7,000 it's great."

The 624-point margin of victory was impressive when you consider Ply won the regional qualifier nine days ago.
And, with one practice session under his belt, made the long trek by automobile to Lawrence. On travel breaks, Ply would get out of the car and get some jogging in to stay loose.

"It wasn't even a contest today, it really wasn't," said Kevin Ply, his dad and part-time coach during the high school season. "He took over first after the high jump and ran away from everybody from there. He was 300 points ahead going into the last event. You don't expect that at a national championship competition."

The younger Ply said he wasn't aware of the point differential until late in the competition.

"I didn't look at other people's scores," he said. "It surprised me when I found out I was that far ahead. I had a feeling after the javelin that I was going to win."

It was improvement in the throws that helped boost Ply over the 7,000 mark. He threw a personal-best 122-1 to take fifth in the discus, and his javelin throw of 182-10 was another best by approximately seven meters.

Don't overlook decathlon bests of 14.7 in the high hurdles and 6-8 3/4 in the high jump. Prior to regionals, Ply said he hadn't spent much time on the high jump, but a change in his approach paid big dividends.

"Before regionals, we changed my approach to make it more aggressive and more consistent," Ply said. "During regionals, we just wanted to see how it worked. I was a lot more aggressive through my turn into the jump. I was just a lot more aggressive.

"In the hurdle race, I was happy with my time. I think I hit the last four or five hurdles of the race."

Ply's worst events were his first two — the 100 and the long jump. He ran a respectable 12.05 in the 100 and finished 16th. He took 13th in the long jump with a mark of 19-9 3/4.

On the first day of competition, Ply got off to a slow start, finishing 16th in the 100 meters with a 12.05, and he followed that up with a 19-9 3/4 in the long jump good for 13th place.

He started to turn things around with a PR of 42-1 1/2 in the shot put (4th place), a 6-8 3/4 effort in the high jump (decathlon best) and a 51.77 effort in the 400.

The comeback put him at 3,474 points after the first day, a personal best.

And, Tuesday it was all about Ply.

TRACK & FIELD: The Reno Tahoe Athletics Track & Field Club competed in the Pacific Junior Olympics Championships on June 22-24 in Livermore, Calif., and had seven athletes qualify for the Region 14 Championships.

Athletes from Reno Tahoe Athletics that qualified for the Region 14 Championships include: Joe Bartlett in shot put (gold), discus (silver) and javelin (silver); Kylee Gleason in pole vault (silver), triple jump (sixth) and javelin (fourth); Alexa Anderson in the shot put (bronze), javelin (bronze) and long jump (fifth); Zack Vanden Heuvel in discus (gold), shot put (fourth) and javelin (eighth); Zack DeBoer in javelin (fourth); Alex Higman in discus (third) and javelin (third); and Mike Arnold in pole vault (sixth).

Reno Tahoe Athletics' throwers and vaulters are coached by Jim Vanden Heuvel, Paul Heglar, Kevin Ply and Jeff Weitzman.

The USA Track & Field Junior Olympics program features the best athletes from a region covering Northern California from San Luis Obispo to the Oregon state line and all of Northern Nevada. The Junior Olympics qualifying is a stepped program with the top eight competitors in each discipline moving on to the Region 14 Championships and the top three from the Region 14 Championships qualifying for the Junior Olympic National Championships in Baltimore, Md.

Over the next several weeks, the Reno Tahoe Athletics Club will be competing in the AAU National Club Team Championships at Disney's Wide World of Sports in Orlando and the Track City Classic at the University of Oregon.

The Club hosts all-comer throws meets in July and August with a $5 per event entry fee. Pole Vault will be added to the throws schedule this year with meets to be scheduled from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sundays.

Watch www.renotahoetrack.org for updates.