It took Sterling Bryant five meets to achieve his season goal of breaking 14-seconds in the 110-meter high hurdles.
The Ramona High senior, who will compete for San Diego Mesa Community College in the fall, didn’t much care that there was a trailing wind of 2.1 meters per second behind him when he ran his first sub-14, a 13.98 in a dual meet against Del Norte.
The fact he dipped under 14 seconds was all that mattered psychologically.
“I ran that all alone,” said Bryant. “After that, I tried to recreate what got me there, what I needed to work on. I ran more upright and worked on my three steps between hurdles. I wanted to get back to running as soon as possible to try those things.”
A month later, in a home dual meet against Valley Center, he lowered the school record to13.96 and this time the wind cooperated.
That opened the flood gates in a big way. He didn’t run over 14 seconds the rest of the season, peeling off seven straight races under 14, including clocking a 13.72 in the California State Championship prelims before coming back to go even faster, 13.68, to place third in the finals on Saturday.
There was no wind in the prelims, but in the finals his mark will carry a “W” as the breeze kicked up to 2.7 mps (nothing over 2.0 is allowable for record purposes).
“I clipped a couple of hurdles in the last race, so I figure if I run clean without a wind, I’m still a 13.6 hurdler,” Bryant said. “Getting under 14 was very beneficial to me. Once I did that, I knew I would get better and better.
“I watching (Helix’s) Shon Martin running last year and he was so fast (a wind-aided 14.07). I thought to myself that I’d never get there, but I kept chipping away at my times.”
In a normal season that would take him to the top of the list, but 2025 was anything but normal in 110 hurdles. A freshman from San Diego High, Jasir Fontenot, burst on the scene and was unbeatable, setting national and state records, posting a windy 13.21 after a legal 13.31 to win the state meet.
That erased the state meet record (13.33) but one person who was not surprised was Bryant.
“I saw his times in the 100-meter hurdles that he ran as an eighth-grader, and I knew what was coming,” he said. “He was smoking everyone, but I was just focusing on myself and using him to get better. We ran six times and that always makes you better.”
Third fastest in the state and Top 25 in the nation isn’t bad for a runner who didn’t even qualify for the state championships a year earlier, placing fourth in the section championships.
“I used that (missing the 2024 state meet by one place) for motivation and it was just as good as I expected,” said Bryant of the event held at Buchanan High in Clovis. “That’s the best track I’ve ever been on, and I improved my times in both the prelims and finals.
“I was super-happy to be on the victory stand. It was all I expected.”
Now he’ll get to work on his next big step up — to the college hurdles that are 42 inches high compared to the 39-inch high school hurdle.
“It’ll take some getting used to, but I don’t think I’ll have any trouble,” he said. “I’m 6-foot-2, so I won’t need to make any major changes. I ran them in the Escondido dual meet and then we ran them in the Triton Invitational at UCSD, so it won’t be completely new.”
Some might think he could go to a bigger school than Mesa College, but Bryant says one of the school’s hurdle coaches, Maximillion Pinto, has been encouraging him while attending several of his meets, and he thinks it’s a perfect fit.
“I’ll work on them all summer and be ready to roll next season,” said the always upbeat red-head.
