Sean Keast: Great Potential in Holliston Track

Growing up a big baseball enthusiast, Holliston’s Sean Keast was looking for a hobby when he wasn’t on the diamond. In seventh grade, he tagged along with some friends and decided to give track a try. He found he was one of the better athletes and soon realized that he had an extreme talent for the newfound sport.
It was only a year after that he took up the sport that Keast finished first in the states throwing the discus for the Holliston Middle School.
“It was definitely an ‘aha!’ moment that opened my eyes to the experience,” he said. “It showed me a whole new world of untapped sources that I didn’t know that I had outside of baseball.”
The junior currently takes part in the discus, the javelin, the triple jump and runs sprints, especially the 4 x 100 relay for the Panthers and according to his coach is very talented in all four events. As an eighth grader, Keast set the state discus record with a throw of 137’ 7” and would add many more accolades to his resume once he got into high school.
Taking part in the discus, Keast would set the school record with a throw of 132’ as a freshman and then captured the top spot in the Freshman / Sophomore Tournament in the same event. Last year, he finished sixth in the javelin, but doesn’t think that he’ll take part in the sport any more as he injured his shoulder playing football and when he throws, it irritates it.
The 4 x 100, an event that carried over from the eighth grade where Keast was part of the state championship team, he was also part of the championship team last spring that took home the event at the Freshman/Sophomore Tournament.
Keast’s fourth event, the triple jump, was one that he only started last year when then captain Satchel Snow thought that he might be a natural.
“Taking part in the triple jump was funny how it started. I wasn’t planning on trying it, but Satchel showed it to me at practice before a meet,” Keast said. “I tried it two or three times, and the coach saw potential in me. My first meet triple jumping, I took first place with a jump of 40’ 11”.”
Panther Head Coach James Levasseur knew that he had something special in Keast when he arrive to the high school, but never thought he’d get someone so polished in so many different events.
“I knew of him from the coaches at the middle school. They had told me he was highly successful talking part in their track program,” Levasseur said. “Although successful in everything he has tried, I truly believe the triple jump could be his best event, even though he just picked it up last year with no real training.”
According to Keast, he’ll take part in any event that the coach needs him to do for the sake of the team in dual meets, but he also sees the triple jump being the best event.
“I love the discus, because it’s not like any other event. You have to use your entire body; it’s an overall test of athleticism,” he said. “But in terms of potential, I’d have to say the triple jump gives me that.”
As only a junior, Coach Levasseur is hoping to get Keast to take part in the pentathlon this year and hopefully place next season despite never having taken part in any of its events.
“It wasn’t anything new in my mind as I had wanted to try the decathlon last year, but it fell during our banquet,” he said. “It is something that I wanted to experiment with and has been in the back of my mind for 2 or 3 years now.”
Coming into his junior campaign, Keast is looking to embrace his captain role and be a leader by example to the rest of the team. Individually, he would like consistently throw the discus in the 130’s with a high in the mid 140’s; triple jump over 40 feet on a regular basis and not to mess up a baton handoff in the 4x100 where he has broken his arm due to a mishap.
Following his high school career, he’d like to continue with track on the collegiate level.
“I’ll probably go to a Division 2 or 3 school. I’ve been talking to Stonehill, University of Vermont and University of Maine,” he said. “I consistently think about how much better I could have been if I had found track earlier. I’m a 150-pound twig throwing the discus 130’.”
With two years of the sport still in front of him who knows what Keast can accomplish, especially if he adds a little weight to his body.