Dayton’s JJ Ply wins decathlon at Great Southwest Track & Field Classic

JJ Ply capped a tremendous high school career by winning the decathlon at the 42nd annual Great Southwest Track & Field Classic over the weekend.

Ply, who graduated from Dayton High School last week, scored 6,594 points to edge Missouri’s Isaiah Martin, who scored 6,560 points. Arizona’s Dominic Gehr finished with 6,504.

Ply won two events out of 10. He won the high jump with an effort of 6-9 1/2 and the event-ending 1500 in 4:27.39.

Consistency was the key, as he was never out of the top-10 in any event, and he was second in the 110 hurdles at 14.96, third in the pole vault (12-5 1/2), fourth in the 400 (52.14), sixth in the discus (104-1), fifth in the javelin (147-1) and sixth in the shot put (38-7 3/4).

His worst events were the long jump (19-11, 9th) and the 100 (10th, 12.15).