Turkey Valley senior Jake Merrell has been wining state championships since his freshman year. He has a total of six state championships to his list of accomplishments. Half of those six are partly thanks to his trifecta last season when he won the 800m, 1600m, and the 3200m.
Merrell recently competed in his third and final cross country state championships where he placed fifth in the 1A boys competition last weekend with a time of 16:32.
Now that he is a senior, and the early signing period is here, Merrell signed a NLOI to compete at Baylor University. Merrell visited Baylor officially and unofficially and decided to make that his new home beginning next year.
Although Merrell won three 1A individual state championships last season, he experienced kind of an injury riddled season that kept him from getting down to the type of times he is used to performing. With his PR of 1:51.56 from his sophomore season, he will be the #10 returning half miler in the nation this season.
Merrell has played football, basketball, and baseball during his high school career while also competing in cross country and track. This season, Merrell is focused on his running as he did not play football and will forgo the basketball and baseball later to round out his senior year.
- 400m - 52.43
- 800m - 1:51.56
- 1600m - 4:13.00
- 1 Mile - 4:14.24
- 3200m - 9:38.23
- 3 Mile (xc) - 17:15.41
- 5K (xc) - 15:29.00
- High Jump - 6-2
