How would you feel if you spent your whole high school career to break a record before mentoring someone to then break the record you set?

This has been Hunter Shawley’s story, and he couldn’t be any happier to help junior Cameron Nelson accomplish this.

Nelson recently broke the high school 300-meter hurdle record that was set by Hunter Shawley in 2022, with a time of 39.9.

“It feels really special finally beating the record, especially Coach Shawley’s. It’s cool he got to coach me this year and drop my time so much I could beat his record,” Nelson said.

Along with Cam’s school record, on Monday, April 27, he added to his accolades at the Bellwood Invitational, where he claimed the meet record in the 300-meter hurdles and in the 4×400 relay. He also received the Outstanding Runner Award, placing first in three of his four  event. Along with winning  the 300-meter hurdles, he also won the 110-meter hurdles, the 4×400 and came second in the 4×100.

For his efforts, Nelson has been named the BluePrint’s Athlete of the Week.

Nelson barely squeaked with the the 300-meter hurdle meet record, beating the time by just one one-hundredth of a second with a time of 40.13. The record had stood since 2006.

Later, alongside his teammates Miles Smearman, Ethan Shawley and Owen Stotltzfus, Nelson helped crush the meet record for the 4×400 with a time of 3:26.75., beating the old one by .35 hundredth of a second.

This all set the pace for the Blue Devils win the entire invitational for the first time since 2019.

“It is always our goal to win our invite. It is definitely one of the more competitive meets,” Coach Nick Lovrich said.

Nelson has put countless hours in behind the scenes and it’s pahying off this season. He will go into the District 6 meet ranked among the top hurdlers in 2A, whith a real shot at making states in two events.

“I’ve been working with a trainer and been focusing on track all off season so I could get my times down and do good at districts,” he said.

“It is great to see Cam break the school record. He has worked very hard to achieve this goal,” Coach Lovrich said. “His technique has improved over the year, and he has become a stronger runner as the year has gone on. The cool thing about track when a record is broken is seeing how excited the whole team is for that person who accomplished it, and what was really exciting was seeing Coach Shawley being just as excited as Cam.”

Nelson isn’t anywhere close to being done yet either. He still has four more big meets to break the 110-meter hurdles school record and lower his other times even more.

He is prepping for the Mountain Lion Classic, the Laurel Highland Championship, Districts and then states.