Maples made it hard for himself. He ran smoothly through the first seven hurdles, establishing a big lead and looking set for an outstanding time.
He clipped hurdle eight, rattled hurdle nine and nearly fell at the final hurdle but managed to stay on his feet to take gold ahead of Hunter Dale (Waikato Bay of Plenty) with a time of 52.80 (Dale 52.99).
Maples then qualified for the 400m the next morning in windy conditions, winning his heat in 49.80 but feeling the effects of the previous day.
Later in the day, Maples took silver, running the one lap in 47.28 seconds, eclipsing his previous best by half a second.
On the final day, Maples was on his blocks at 9.30am to run a 200m heat but late scratchings meant the round was not required.
Just before lunch, Maples qualified for one of two automatic berths in the final, running a windy personal best of 21.35, securing the automatic spot by one thousands of a second.
In the final Maples finished fifth in a wind-assisted personal best of 21.20 seconds, confirming his breakthrough as a sprinter.
Hodgson added the Athletics New Zealand under-20 400m hurdles title to the New Zealand Schools 300m hurdles title won in December.
Hodgson impressed, winning in a new personal best of 55.22 from the higher ranked Noah Retford (Auckland).
Hodgson, like Maples, backed his hurdles up by running in the 400m.
In difficult windy conditions with a strong headwind on the back straight Hodgson twice ran under 51 seconds to finish fifth in the final.
Hodgson and Maples ran together in the MWA Men’s 4x400m.
Hodgson ran the first leg and Maples the anchor leg where he received the baton back in fifth to run a sensational lap, overcoming a huge deficit to take bronze, narrowly missing silver to round off a great Championships for the two Whanganui hurdlers.
Race walker Lucas Martin had a great Championships.
On the second day he took bronze in the senior men 3000m race walk in 12:50.49 for his first sub 13-minute performance of the season.
He went one place better in the 10,000 metres on Sunday with a personal best 45:52.45 to take silver in what was his first personal best for two years, a demonstration of perseverance from an athlete starting his second year studying Civil Engineering at Canterbury University.
Auguz Thongskul took bronze in the under-18 long jump with a massive personal best.
Thongskul has had run-up problems all season and travelled south with a personal best of 6.01m.
He immediately made this history by opening the competition with a 6.39m effort with a legal wind of +0.5m/s.
Thongskul then had four consecutive no jumps.
He went into his final jump with the knowledge that the bronze was secure and was precise on the board to further improve to 6.47m with a tailwind of 2.5 metres/second.
Thongskul should be thrilled with his massive personal bests.
He backed up his jumping with a personal best in the 100 metres (11.58 seconds) to finish tenth overall.
His Whanganui High School teammate Lucas Howard set personal best over 400 metres and 300 metre hurdles, finishing fifth in the latter.
Palmerston North athlete Juliet McKinlay, who is in Year 12 at Whanganui Collegiate and trains at home and at Cooks Gardens, had a memorable Championships winning four individual under-18 medals and sharing a 4 x 100 relay silver.
McKinlay took New Zealand silver medals in the 100m hurdles (personal best 14.96) and in the long jump (5.44m) and bronze in the javelin in tricky conditions(36.68m) and in the triple jump (personal best 10.97m).
