HS 4x100m National Record Broken Twice at the Rice Invitational Victor Lopez Meet

[Fudge Nuggets 19184]

The national HS record for the 4x100m relay had been held by Fort Worth Wyatt since 1998 at 39.76.  Today Duncanville's 4x100 team beat the record by running 39.65.  Cool huh?

Well Duncanville got fucking smoked in the same race as Atascocita anchored by Jelani Watkins obliterated the old record by running 38.92.  They are the first HS team to ever break the 39 second mark.  Can you imagine setting a new national record, breaking a record that has stood for 26 years and you finish second?  Not only finish second, but it wasn't even close.

I never really gave a shit about track until my kids got into it, but I have to admit I love this stuff.  Our middle school has a young man that has a lot of potential.  As an 8th grader he ran a 10.8 100m and a 22.3 200m.  I hope I can be posting about him as an Olympian 8 or so years from now.

[Fudge Nuggets 19184]

Video of the madness...  Atascocita in lane 5, Duncanville lane 4.  Jelani Watkins runs the anchor leg for Atascocita.  My man can lay tread.

 

[Fudge Nuggets 19184]

There was a false start so skip to about 2:30 in the above video to see the real shit go down.  I meant to set the video there but forgot to hit submit in time.

Third leg for Atascocita did real work then Jelani took it from there to get the national record.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

That meet has produced some great results over the years. Several years ago I thought the Fort Bend Marshall 4x100 team might break the record (that was the FB team with Achane IIRC) and then last year Fort Bend had yet another great group pulled together (there were a few other schools over the last couple of years--Katy Seven Lakes, PA Memorial) so congratulations to the athletes for getting after it and succeeding.

I believe Watkins is a LSU recruit (football/track)? Shame (as several Texas unis would've loved his talent), but it's his call.

We won't be attending the Relays next week, and I don't believe the HA squad is entered but then again the Relays is coming up very close to a lot of HS District Meets this year. I've got various conflicts but hope to catch some of the meet via web and post the uni results in the UT track thread.

[Fudge Nuggets 19184]

I'm heading over to the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays next Saturday.  They usually have some pretty good college teams at it on top of the HS teams.  Last year UGA with Matthew Boling were there.

Our district has its meet split between Tuesday April 2 and Thursday April 4... not sure why they aren't doing anything on Wednesday, but that's their schedule.  UIL finals are the weekend of May 4.  I'll be there for the Saturday 6A/1A finals.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

1 hour ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

I'm heading over to the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays next Saturday.  They usually have some pretty good college teams at it on top of the HS teams.  Last year UGA with Matthew Boling were there.

Our district has its meet split between Tuesday April 2 and Thursday April 4... not sure why they aren't doing anything on Wednesday, but that's their schedule.  UIL finals are the weekend of May 4.  I'll be there for the Saturday 6A/1A finals.

Definitely. Texas Tech is scheduled and coming off their indoor championship win; TCU is also slated to show but I think A&M and Baylor are not (heading to LSU). Heat sheets are not yet released, but should be within the next day or so. It's a weekend with a lot of meets where the weather is amenable (LSU is hosting, Florida as well).

 

Also--spot on with the third leg on the relay, and he had a very nice hand off from leg #2 that helped.

[Nigel Tufnel 199]

15 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

I'm heading over to the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays next Saturday.  They usually have some pretty good college teams at it on top of the HS teams.  Last year UGA with Matthew Boling were there.

Our district has its meet split between Tuesday April 2 and Thursday April 4... not sure why they aren't doing anything on Wednesday, but that's their schedule.  UIL finals are the weekend of May 4.  I'll be there for the Saturday 6A/1A finals.

Texas Relay will be light on High School this year because of its proximity to District meets.  The Bluebonnet Invitational at A&M was the proxy for the Relays this year.  We are a bit bummed that little Tufnel will not be competing.

Most District meets will be running prelims day one, field events day two, and finals day three.  If it’s only Tues. Thurs. most likely they are building in a rain day just in case.

[Guest]

I tweaked a hamstring just watching that.

[Pescado_Rojo 19413]

7 hours ago, Nigel Tufnel said:

Texas Relay will be light on High School this year because of its proximity to District meets.  The Bluebonnet Invitational at A&M was the proxy for the Relays this year.  We are a bit bummed that little Tufnel will not be competing.

Most District meets will be running prelims day one, field events day two, and finals day three.  If it’s only Tues. Thurs. most likely they are building in a rain day just in case.

Yep, daughter's High School team did Bluebonnet instead of Texas Relays for the first time this year. My daughter runs the 400 and the anchor leg on her team's 4x400. She occasionally runs the 200 as well, but probably won't run it at district this year. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Another difference between the two meets (besides the timing of the Texas Relays & District meets) is that the Bluebonnet Invitational was HS only whereas the Texas Relays is a longer meet with both HS and collegiate athletes. Texas sets the HS fields based on marks submitted and depending upon that (each year) as well as separate divisions for small/large schools it isn't always easy to qualify. For example, in some of the longer races (1600m/3200m) only the top 16 and 20 times respectively are admitted. The relay events are slightly more generous with entrants as it is the hallmark of the meet for almost a century. For Bluebonnet, it was top 90 athletes per gender for individual races and more events were held for those (i.e. Texas Relays does not hold 800m individual races). In addition, the Texas Relays offers the steeplechase whereas the Bluebonnet held a mixed relay (4x400). So it's a little of this and a little of that. Both tracks are great venues, I've enjoyed meets at the new A&M facility and it's hard to top the Texas Relay's atmosphere on a beautiful spring day so I'm happy that both are available.

As someone who supports XC & TF, it's great to have choices for athletes and teams. For those of you with children participating in upcoming meets, good luck to them; it's a great sport with something for everybody.

[Steel Shank 9421]

That's pretty cool.

[Fastbreak 3976]

38.23 is the NCAA record - wow, that is amazing to be that close for a HS team.

[Fudge Nuggets 19184]

11 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

38.23 is the NCAA record - wow, that is amazing to be that close for a HS team.

NCAA record is 37.90 set by LSU at last year's SEC championships.  Florida ran a 37.93 in the same race.