​Two Eagles boys finish in top three at state track meet

by Michael Smith


Ten Centimeters.

That’s how close Grain Valley junior Blayden Pruett was to a state championship.

He competed in the javelin event Class 5 Missouri State High School Track and Field Championships this weekend at Adkins Stadium in Jefferson City.

He was the No. 1 seed coming into the event and he was just edged out by Park Hill’s Jordan Smith, who won with a throw of 55.94 meters. Pruett was one of two boys competitors to earn all-state honors for Grain Valley as he was second with a throw of 55.84 meters.

Pruett helped Grain Valley finish 17th as a team with 14 points.

“It definitely sucks knowing that if I would have stepped a little bit closer or thrown a little bit further, I would have been a state champion,” Pruett said. “It is what it is. It’s something I can’t control. It’s going to stick in my mind for a little bit because it was so close.”

But that doesn’t take away from a stellar season that saw him ranked No. 1 in the state for the majority of it.

“I am happy with how my season went,” he said. “I took first or second in all of my meets except for one, which was at the KU Relays. I got sixth there.”

Pruett joined the track team last season because he had a pair of friends who recruited him. Those friends are no longer on the team and the junior still is and is getting interest from college programs around the country.

When he first started throwing a javelin, Pruett threw with a sidearm motion as he came in with a baseball background as a pitcher. The first throw he recorded went 30 meters and had a lot of curve to it. Now he’s one of the best javelin throwers in the state.

“I saw that I was pretty good at it and I decided to stick to it,” Pruett said. “I definitely thought I would be pretty good, but I never imagined I would be able to say I was 10 centimeters way from being a state champion.”

Head coach Erik Stone noted that Pruett has come a long way since he joined the team.

“There’s been a lot of growth,” Stone said. “To have never done it before until last year, and to improve as much as he has and finish sixth last year and to be No. 1 in his class for most of the year, was really good to see.”

Senior Stylz Blackmon was the other Eagle to earn all-state honors as he performed much better on the big stage than he had last season in the shot put. In 2023, he finished in 16th place. This time around he took third with a throw of 16.97 meters.

“It was good to see him come down and get some redemption from last year,” Stone said. “He obviously wanted to do better than last year. His goal all year was not just to make it but to get all-state. He was hungry from the very beginning. He worked his butt off to be here.”

Added Blackmon: “I came in last year thinking I didn’t belong here. I thought I was OK with where I was at finishing there I did. This year, I was under a new mindset, I thought I do belong. I deserve to be here. I am in state. God helped keep myself focused.”

Part of the reason for his success was because of thrower’s coach David Allie, who had Blackmon stick with the slide technique instead of trying the spin, which is a technique that allows competitors to get more power behind the throw.

The glide was easier to learn than the more advanced spin and Blackmon thrived using the former.

“I wanted to spin because I saw the success other people had doing it,” Blackmon said. “I didn’t realize the amount of experience you had to have to spin. It’s not something you can just pick up and do. It’s something that takes a grind and a grit to do."

“I went to the glide a week or two before districts and saw more success with it. I kept taking off from there.”

Junior Jason Wilson was a state champion in the para discus (14.34 meters) and shot put events (4.61 meters) and was second in the para 100-meter race (22.43 seconds). Para events did not apply toward the team score.
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Other Eagles boys to compete were senior Rylan Smith in the 800-meter run (12th place, 1:57.22) and 4x800-meter relay team of Smith, Barnes, Tyler Melton and Daniel Dent (12th, 8:01.67)

Grain Valley senior Stylz Blackmon took third place in the shot put with a throw of 16.97 meters Saturday at the Missouri State High School Track and Field Championships at Adkins Stadium in Jefferson City. Photo credit: Michael Smith