ORANGE’S Jackson Willis and Ollie Keegan dominated the Jetstar Little Athletics NSW Track and Field Championships in March, earning NSW selection, and now they’ve done much the same thing at the national level.

Willis and Keegan returned from the ASICS Australian Little Athletics Championships in Adelaide last week, medals in tow, after producing sterling performances on the biggest stage Little Athletics has to offer in Australia.

As a result of a dominant performance in his under-13 boys’ 400 metres race, Willis is Orange’s newest national champion.

Willis clocked 54.98 seconds to win gold, just beating out Queensland’s Nicolas Thomas (55.01) and Victoria’s Antonio Vaitohi (56.22) in third.

In fact it was so close, Willis didn’t think he’d won.

“I thought I had second to be honest,” he said.

“Then the guys with the camera called me over for an interview and told me I had won. 

“The first 100m was staggered, then the second 100 lane eight and lane six, both beside me, took off. The last 200m was a sprint to the line.”

Willis also finished seventh in his 800m race and fourth in triple jump, while Keegan managed top-10 finishes in both of his under-13 boys’ 200m and 100m races - in the latter he ran a personal best time of 11.97s.

Keegan really shone though in the under-13 boys’ 4x100m relay.

Keegan was part of the NSW relay team, racing alongside Sam Park, Jai McPherson and Laud Codjoe, that won bronze.

The quartet clocked 48.90, half-a-second adrift of the gold medal-winning Victorian team.

“We had a pretty good start. Sam, he ran the bend well and I got the baton and had to try and catch up to everyone. I did that,” Keegan said.

“Then I passed it off to Jai. It was a pretty bad changeover but we didn’t drop it, then he ran a really, really good bend. We still ended up third.”

Both Willis and Keegan’s performance helped their NSW team claim the Trevor Billingham Trophy for the Australian Teams Under-13 Championship.