Fort Bend Marshall ran 40.76 this weekend in the 4x100 relay
It is not a joke and it definitely is not far fetched at all. There will be a state record that will be broken this season, we just don't know which one (s) or by who just yet (more to come on that in the future).
The last three years have been an assault on relay records and national All-Time rankings by the Texas relay running at the state meet.
On the boys side, there have been the Port Arthur Memorial squads, The Woodlands squads, Katy Seven Lakes, Manvel, and more 4x100 and 4x200 relays who have been on a tear.
With the girls, it's been DeSoto, Cypress Springs, and Duncanville who have been perennial nationally ranked teams and have become the standards of girls relay running in Texas.
Only the third full week of February has passed, but the alarm has already been sounded. The warning has been issued by performances.
Strake Jesuit has a 41.08 and a 3:14 already in the books for 2019
Houston Strake Jesuit
Last weekend, the Houston Strake Jesuit boys let us all know they mean business as they had quite the season opener. The kicked things off by running a 41.08 in the 4x100 relay and then a 3:14.46 in the 4x400 relay later on that evening.
This weekend, at the Crusaders Relays, Jesuit followed up that performance up with a 41.38 in the 4x100 relay and 3:17.00 in the 4x400 relay. They are showing that they are destined to run fast for yet another year and they could be chasing state records in both relays.
The 4x100 marks for Strake Jesuit might be kind of a surprise, but the 4x400 times should be expected. The squad ran 3:11s last season but didn't finish as well as they preferred over the last couple of weeks of the season. If the 4x400 relay gets broken this season, it will not be a surprise if Strake Jesuit takes down the 3:09.14 set by the 1984 Dallas Roosevelt squad.
Marshall ran 1:25.52 at the Fort Bend Relays this weekend
Fort Bend Marshall
Another Houston area team has been looking good as well. Last week, when Strake Jesuit took the headlines and the top of the week honors, Fort Bend Marshall was right there as well putting in work. In their season opener, they ran fast in all three relays. Going 41.57, 1:27.63, and 3:20.71 were really good times.
However, this weekend, they cranked things up another notch. Maybe, I should say they cranked it up a notch or two because they almost a full second faster in the 4x100 relay and two seconds in the 4x200 relay which are very significant improvements. Marshall dropped a 40.76 and a 1:25.52 to take the top spots in the state rankings.
As of now, they are one full second behind the National Record/State record set by Fort Worth O. D. Wyatt at 39.76 back in 1998 and two seconds off the 1:23.25 set by The Woodlands last season. Those are the exact same improvements they made in just one week. Can they figure out how to calculate at least those same improvements over the next 10 weeks?
DeSoto girls ran a 45.47 in the 4x400 relay at the DeSoto Nike Inv.
DeSoto
This could be pertaining to any of the six DeSoto varsity relays. Both the girls and boys have shots at taking down the three sprint relay records at the state meet this year.
However, the it's the girls 4x100 relay that is off to a hot start. The Lady Eagles dropped a 45.47, which is just a little bit off of their 45.16 season best from last year that it took to win the UIL 6A state meet.
The 2004 Dallas Skyline crew set the 44.60 state record, which is the same year Long Beach Poly set the national mark just beyond that at 44.50.
With 10 weeks remaining in the season, DeSoto has a legitimate chance to lower their time by less than a second and they could be in the hunt for a state and national record.