Going for two
Published 2:00 am Tuesday, April 30, 2019
- Catholic High’s Peter LeBlanc practices the triple jump Monday. LeBlanc is among the favorites to win two state titles Friday during the Class 2A Outdoor State Track Meet held at LSU. He is entered in the triple jump and the 300 meter hurdles.
Catholic High’s Peter LeBlanc will get his high school diploma in a couple of weeks and be off to Louisiana-Lafayette to play college football for the next four years.
But before that, he still has some prep competitions to play in and this week plans to be very busy for the CHS senior.
Thursday, he travels with the baseball team to Baton Rouge for the first game of a Best-of-3 series in the quarterfinals of the Division III state baseball playoffs.
Friday, he heads back to Baton Rouge to participate in the LHSAA Class 2A State Outdoor Track Meet which will be held at LSU’s Bernie Moore Track Stadium.
Saturday, he heads back to the capital city one more time to complete the baseball teams best-of-3 series against Dunham.
The question is whether he will head back to Baton Rouge with a state title or two to go with the one he won with the CHS football team in 2018.
“It’s going to be a busy week,” LeBlanc said. “I feel really confident about those two events going into Friday. Hopefully I can get the technique down right for the triple jump and just go out and do what I normally do in the hurdles.”
While he may not have the technique down right in the triple, you’d never know that from the results.
Coming out of the regional meet at McNeese last week, LeBlanc is the favorite in the triple jump.
He soared 45 feet, 4 ¾ inches last week which is the top seed headed into Friday’s final. The next best is Port Allen’s Chris Murphy, who jumped 44-9 at the same regional and third seed is Red River’s Chadrick Keith, who jumped 44-4 in the Region 1 meet last week.
None of the other five competitors in the final is near 44 feet.
On the track part of things, LeBlanc ran the 300 hurdles in a time of 40.73 seconds last week at the regional, which again puts him in the top seed for Friday’s final.
Second is Ferriday’s Damion Milligan with a time of 41.47 and third is Capitol’s Kastopha Hankton with a time of 41.87.
So the CHS senior goes into Friday’s final as the pre-meet favorite in both events.
“I’m definitely practicing more this year than I have in the past but it’s not as much as I should be doing because of baseball, but I think I do a good job of equaling the two out.”
It’s been said that all LeBlanc has to do is show up and he’s guaranteed at least third in both events because he’s so athletic and so talented.
“That may be true,” the CHS senior said. “But I definitely want to win both events.”
Part of that is that last year, LeBlanc finished fourth in the triple jump at the state meet while in the 300 hurdles he finished on the podium but in second place behind Episcopal’s Caden Dickinson.
“I came out second last year by a second, I think, and it’s a lot of motivation for me,” LeBlanc said. “I have a lot of motivation because going into last year I thought I had a chance to win and it didn’t come out my way so I’m definitely head-hunting for that state title this year.”
So the motivation is there for the hurdles, but is it there for the triple jump?
“I’m definitely going to have to work my butt off for the triple,” he said. “I got a great jump in last weekend and 45 (feet) is right there with the best of them.
“If I can pull that off again I think that I’ll be fine.”
Over his brief track career, LeBlanc’s best triple jump is 45-4 and his best time in the 300 hurdles is the 39.88 he ran in the state meet last year, and still lost by more than half a second to the winner (39.15).
Playing baseball and running track has been a tough double to do this spring but LeBlanc was thankful that CHS baseball coach David Jordan allowed him to run track when he needed to.
“He was okay with him letting me miss parts of games to go run track,” LeBlanc said. “We did a good job scheduling around it this year.”
So later this week, it will be baseball, track and baseball for the CHS senior and while the chance to win a baseball state title still has some work to do, getting past Dunham in the quarterfinals this weekend is top on the list before playing in the baseball state tournament next weekend, getting to win a couple of state titles this week would be a great way to end his high school track career.
“It would be unbelievable,” LeBlanc said.
“It would be a perfect way to cap off my four years of high school at Catholic High.
“It would be a great experience.”