This afternoon, Jyles Etienne won the Class B Suffolk County Championship in the high jump with a leap of 6′ 9″ to tie the meet record set in 2012 by Longwood’s Mark Jackson.

Etienne elected to enter the competition at 6′ 7″ with only one other jumper remaining out of 20. He cleared the height on his second attempt to win the Class B title. Etienne and the only other competitor in the field, Smithtown East’s Daniel Claxton, each cleared 6′ 9″ on their second attempt to tie the meet record.

From there, Etienne elected to move to 6′ 11″ while Claxton chose to skip the height and move to 7′ 0″. Each missed on their three attempts at the height, but Claxton won the overall County Title with a tiebreaker determined by the total misses of each competitor. Claxton had one fewer miss, giving him the edge.

By winning the small school championship, Etienne became the Bears’ first individual County Champion since Charles Tankeh took the 100 and 200 meter titles in 2014. He is also the school’s first individual County Champion in the high jump since Dan Hickey ’04 won the crown in 2004.

Next up for Etienne is the State Championship on Saturday in Syracuse. He is the top-ranked jumper in the field.

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Section XI Championship Top 5 Results

1.	Daniel Claxton	Smithtown East	6′ 9″
2.	Jyles Etienne	Stony Brook	6′ 9″ (J)
3.	Connor Pallman	Sachem North	6′ 5″
4.	Darius Holmes	William Floyd	6′ 3″
5.	Nakia Williams	Southampton	6′ 2″

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