Moment No. 6: The 5A State Track Championship
Fort Bend Marshall 40.13 #8 Team in high school history
The 5A state track meet saw big wins on both the guys and girls side. On the boy's side of the track, Fort Bend Marshall guys took their 2nd state title in a row. While on the girl's side a young McKinney North girls squad pulled off an upset over Arlington Sequin.
The Fort Bend guys won the 2015 state title by making history tallying the most points in UIL state meet history with their total of 90 points. That year they also saw their 4x200 meter relay run a US #5 all-time performance of 1:24.01. This year despite the loss of senior Kendall Sheffield the Fort Bend guys came back just as strong. They scored 52 points with individual points coming from Shamon Ehiemua winning the 200m (20.62), and John Isom placing 5th in the 400m (48.19). The team also destroyed the relays winning the 4x100m in 40.13 and 4x200m in 1:24.19. They also had the 4x400m place 9th (3:25.54). Back to back state titles is an impressive feat in Texas because as we all know, winning one state title is hard enough.
5A Boys 200m Shamon Ehiemua 20.62 US #2
Along with each of our top moments comes a bit of foreshadowing of the season/year ahead. For this match-up, on the guy's side things are only going to get tougher as the 2015 6A state champions and 2016 6A state runners-up Manvel Mavericks are dropping down to challenge the Buffs for the state crown. Both teams are strong in the relays and have several top returners for the 2017 track season. A key guy for the Buffs will be Florida State recruit Shamon Ehiemua. Ehiemua can run everything from the 100m to the 400m and will be a strong senior leader for the Buffs both on and off the track. Manvel will they return the 6A boys 3rd place 100m (10.57 -0.6 wind) finisher Caleb Jolivette. Jolivette ran 10.50 in the 100m and 22.87 in the 200m but will also be a threat for the Mavs in the field as he has a long jump of 23'7.5".
On the girl's side of things, all three of us here at Texas MileSplit choose the Arlington Sequin girls as the 5A state champions, but McKinney North proved us wrong. They came up with a young but strong squad to score 74 points to Arlington Seguin's 46. The team saw points from junior Julia Madubuike who took 2nd in the 100m (11.75) and sophomore Jania Martin who took 1st in the 200m (23.60). They also ran strong in the relays winning the 4x100m running 45.64 with one freshman two sophomores and a junior and placing 2nd in the 4x200m running 1:37.63 where they will only lose one runner from that squad. This is not to mention the win they squeaked out in the 4x400m running 3:45.05 to George Ranch's 3:45.56. They lose no one from that squad with two juniors, Ashlyn Knox and LaSean Davis and sophomores Elon'a Jones and Jania Martin returning. The year was strong for McKinney North and the future only looks brighter with Freshmen distance sensation London Culbreath joining the team. Culbreath claimed the 5A state individual title in cross country running a 17:06.72 for the fastest time of the day. This track season Culbreath will add another threat to the McKinney North squad with the ability to score 30 points alone in the 800m, 1600m and 3200m. In years past distance runners were only able to do two events of two laps or more but this year they've been given the option to run more than two. If there's any runner with an ability to do this its London Culbreath. With this young squad could we see the 90 points Fort Bend Marshall scored in 2015 no longer be the most points ever scored in the history of UIL? Only time will tell as we look toward another interesting 2016 track season.
5A Girls 4x100m - McKinney North 45.64 & Seguin 45.77
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