Jacob Crump tried something he had never tried before, but it wasn’t by design.

Friday in the preliminaries of the Class 4 300-meter hurdle championship in Jefferson City, Crump went over the first hurdle with his left foot.

He stumbled, fell to the back of the pack and failed to recover in enough time to qualify for the finals.

“I had a misstep there before the hurdle and it kind of ruined it for me,” he said. “It was the first time going over a hurdle left-footed, and I was just thinking too much. I should have just relaxed and ran my race, but I was thinking too much.”

Crump finished sixth in the heat in 41.85 seconds, nearly two seconds off his personal-best.

Union’s Ryan Schumaker won the event in 37.78 seconds.

“I was happy with my time, considering what happened on that first hurdle,” Crump said. “Once you mess up a hurdle, it’s hard to make up, but I just kept going. It’s a mental thing at that point. You just have to push through and try to make up some time.”

Crump was expected to run in the 200 prelims later on Friday, but rain postponed the meet until Saturday.

Instead of two heats and a final race, competitors ran in two heats to deterime their final times.

Crump finished fourth in his heat in 22.66 seconds, and 11th overall.

“It’s a little tough to swallow, but 11th in the state sounds pretty good too,” he said. “I thought I ran a really good race and I had some really good competition, and I felt like it pushed me harder than any other time this year.”

Crump finished less than .2 seconds off his personal best.

Caulin Graves of Grandview won the event in 21.35 seconds.

Despite a lack of hardware at the state meet, Crump was upbeat while discussing his season.

“I’d rate it a 9.5,” he said with a laugh. “I had a lot of good accomplishments. I broke the 300 hurdle school record, and it’s just been a great year overall. 

Crump will run next season at Missouri Baptist University.

He plans on working out over the summer before official workouts begin in October, and he expects to run the same races next season.

“I’ll do the same races, but they said they could move me to some field events and make me a variety character, too,” he said with a laugh. “So that’s cool.”