BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Illinois men's track and field high jumper Jonathan Wells won the 2018 Big Ten Outdoor Championships high jump competition with a new school-record height of seven feet, five inches (2.26 meters). On the weekend, Wells scored 20 points between the high jump, long jump and 110m hurdles.
"He was awesome this weekend," Head Coach Mike Turk said of Wells. "The coaching has worked really well for him, and he and Coach Cohen have a really nice relationship going. I think this is emblematic of Jonathan's talent and work ethic, and there was a learning process that he had to go through. That's partly why we redshirted him outdoors last year, and this is the result. I think this is what you see in year two of a coaching change, especially with a great athlete like Jonathan. There are so many technical changes, it just takes a while for that grab hold, and we're starting to see that now. 20 points in a Big Ten meet is not easy to do, and winning an event is not easy to do, so just an outstanding performance."
Overall, Illinois scored 38 points at the 2018 outdoor conference meet, placing 12th. Ohio State won the men's team title with 109 points. Full Results
"Our men's team are much more talented and capable of being better than we were," said Coach Turk following the meet. "We had some injuries that we really couldn't have predicted that popped up on us this weekend. We really didn't have any indication of those. Obviously, losing David [Kendziera] was a huge blow to us. But, we've got enough talent here to do much better, so we've got to try and solve some of the problems we had."
The second high jump title, and first outdoors, Wells becomes just the sixth Illini to win a Big Ten outdoor high jump championship, Wells is the first in the Orange and Blue to do it since Ernie Haisley in 1958.
A native of Fox Lake, Illinois, Wells also won the event at 2017 Indoor Big Ten Championships.
Clearing six bars on the afternoon, Wells broke the program's 39-year old high jump record (7'3.5", 2.22m) set in 1979 by Gail Olson on his fifth clearance of the day. The redshirt junior then added another inch-and-a-half on his sixth bar to clinch the victory. After his only two misses of the competition, Wells cleared the final bar on his third attempt.
"His high jump performance was amazing," Turk said. "To go clean all the way through 7'3", a school record, and to go 7'5" (2.26m) and only miss two jumps is absolutely amazing. He was so poised and so controlled, and part of his maturity."
Not only a historic performance in Illinois history, the 7'5" (2.26m) winning jump is the second best winning height in Big Ten Outdoor history. The only higher winning height came in 2012 when Indiana's Derek Drouin cleared 7'7" (2.31m).
Balancing both the high jump and 110m hurdle finals on Sunday, Wells left the high jump area after clearing his first bar to go contest his first Big Ten 110m hurdle final. In the final, Wells improved his time from prelims to 14.05 to take seventh place and score two points.
"I thought his hurdles were quite good," Turk said. "There's still room for improvement. He can run better in the hurdles, and he knows it, but under the circumstances of being during the high jump competition, he did a tremendous job."
To go along with the 12 points on Sunday, Wells added his first career Big Ten long jump medal on Saturday, leaping 25'3.25" (7.71m) to take runner-up, to give him 20 points.
"The long jump, he was out there throwing down 25-foot jumps like it was easy, which tells us there's probably a little bit more in there that we haven't seen yet," Turk said of the runner-up performance. "Hopefully that can come out in the next couple of weeks when we go to the Prelims rounds."
Wells ends the weekend ranked in the top-15 on the West Outdoor Qualifying List in all three of the events he contested this weekend, led by his No. 3 ranking in the high jump. Wells ranks eighth in the long jump and 14th in the 110m hurdles.
Adding on to the 20 points from Wells, junior Devin Quinn tallied 11.5 points across three sprint events – 100m dash, 200m dash and 4x400m relay. Registering his top outdoor finishes in both individual events, Quinn took fourth in both the 100m and 200m with times of 10.28 and 20.68, respectively.
The other point-and-a-half came as the anchor on Illinois' fifth-fastest 4x100m relay in school history. Timing 39.40, the relay of Mo Maat, Jason Shannon, Joe Haight and Devin Quinn placed third.
Rounding out the scoring on Sunday was sophomore pole vaulter Cooper Jazo who cleared four bars to make the podium for the first time in his collegiate career. Jazo's final bar of 16'10.25" (5.14m) was a half-inch off his personal record of 16'10.75" (5.15m) at Ole Miss earlier this season.
The top seed in both hurdle events, All-American David Kendziera withdrew from competition after competing in 400m hurdle prelims on Friday afternoon. A First Team All-American in both events last year, Kendziera will look to advance back to Eugene in two weeks at NCAA West Prelims.
Up next, the Illini will await the official list of qualifiers for the NCAA West Preliminary round, held in Sacramento, California on May 25-26. With the top 48 individuals, and top 24 relays, in each event earning a bid, the West Prelims field will be announced on Thursday, May 17. An updated list performance list for each event in each region can accessed on tffrs.com.
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Illinois Point Scorers:
High Jump:
1.Jonathan Wells, 7'5" (2.26m) – 10 points *School Record
Long Jump:
2. Jonathan Wells, 25'3.5" (7.71m) – 8 points
4x100m Relay:
3. Maat, Shannon, Haight, Quinn, 39.40 – 6 points
100m Dash:
4. Devin Quinn, 10.28 – 5 points
200m Dash:
4. Devin Quinn, 20.68 – 5 points
110m Hurdles:
7. Jonathan Wells, 14.05 – 2 points
Pole Vault:
7.Cooper Jazo, 16'10.25" (5.14m) – 2 points
Team Scores:
1.Ohio State – 109
2.Indiana – 88
3.Nebraska – 85
4.Michigan – 84
5.Penn State – 83
6.Iowa – 80
7.Minnesota – 60
8.Michigan State – 53
9.Wisconsin – 43
10.Rutgers – 41
11.Purdue – 39
12.Illinois – 38
13.Maryland – 16
