The Flower Mound coaching staff and the current roster of track and field along with their cross country athletes know how to win. They have won three consecutive girls UIL Cross Country Championships and they won the 2022 Track and Field State Championship.
It takes some luck to win a state title, but it also takes a lot of preparation, training, forecasting, scheduling, and planning. The team and the staff prepped, trained, planned and evaluated, and then knew the times they ran along with the rest and recovery they needed . . . they just didn't have the luck part work out for them.
Circumstances played out to where the defending state champions had to settle for third place at the 2023 UIL 6A state meet.
This season, Flower Mound went into each championship season qualifying round prepared to qualify as many entries as possible for the next round with the state championships as their primary goal.
Going into the 2023 UIL 6A state meet, they believed they had another contingency that could produce another championship. They went to Austin with seven entries (one high jump, two 800m, two 1600m, and two 3200m).
Riley Ward finished second in the UIL 6A state high jump competition
Photo Credit: Christine Langford/MileSplit TX
As for their chances, they had the possibility to win all four events and score high with other opportunities.
It wasn't only Flower Mound keeping track with how they would perform, it would be Duncanville, Klein Forest, DeSoto, Shadow Creek, and others all having a vested interest in being a captive audience across the four events.
Defending high jump champion Riley Ward along with Nicole Humphries and Samantha Humphries had to come through and perform well in their events with little to no room for error. They had to control the what they could and let the chips fall where they may.
What they didn't plan for and couldn't foresee happening is what actually ended up happening.
Weather forecasts for Saturday were full of thunderstorms. The first domino was that the original 5:00 p.m. start time of the evening schedule was moved up an hour to 4:00 p.m. and would be on a schedule, but the meet would be a rolling schedule format. That would mean hurrying the meet to be completed as soon as possible.
Next was a weather related one hour delay to the start of the meet. The weather had pushed the high jump and 3200m events for Flower Mound athletes from a 9:00 a.m. to a 10:00 a.m. start time.
For the Humphries twins who were competing in all three of the distance events, they would instantly be hit with a two hour reduction of recovery time between their 3200m and 800m.
In the high jump, the pits weren't in typical shape that jumpers are used to when the track is dry. Ward who cleared 5-10 to win last year's title and had jumped 6-0 two times this year missed on both of her first two attempts at 5-4 and faced being eliminated. Then all at once the meet was suspended due to lightning.
Nicole and Samantha Humphries compete in the second of the two UIL 6A 3200m races at state
Photo Credit: Christine Langford/MileSplit TX
When the meet resumed, it took the first two attempts at 5-6 before Ward appeared to get things back on track when she cleared 5-8 on her first attempt. She wouldn't clear the 5-9 bar, but she secured second place and eight points for the Jaguars.
Of the teams in the mix for the team state title, only Klein First had a field event competitor that also had to endure the delays.
As for the UIL 6A girls 3200m event, with the rain steadily coming down, the gun sounded at 10:29 a.m. to start the race and the girls were underway. However, a lightning strike in the distance of Mike A. Myers Stadium made the officials stop the race literally mid-way. Officials met the girls on the starting line as they were about to begin lap five and escorted them off the track at 10:34 am. They would later return at 1:30 pm to re-run the 3200m from the beginning, running three total miles to complete a 3200m race.
| Event | Original Start Time | Adjusted start time | Initially Expected Recovery Time | Actual Recovery Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3200m | 9:30 a.m. | 10:29 a.m. - 1:00 (second time) | 2.5 hours between 3200 starts | |
| 800m | 5:20 p.m. | 4:55 p.m. | 8 hours | 3. 5 hours |
| 1600m | 7:50 p.m. | 7:00 p.m. | 2.5 hours | 2 hours |
The Humphries twins ran a mile, before the weather delay and then came back to run the complete 3200m. Then at 4:55 p.m., they returned to run the 800m (they finished fifth and sixth), only to come back at 7:00 p.m. to run the 1600m (they finished second and third).
The Humphries ran more races, a longer distance total than they expected, and had less recovery time than the original schedule planned which is not something the girls expected when they were preparing for the state appearance.
It clearly affected their performances. They finished second and third in the 3200m; which was a possible outcome without the fiasco and unlikely stoppage of the race. However, the rest of the factors could well have caused them to lose points in the 800m. They only scored three points instead of the likely 18 points they probably would have had they not had to run the extra distance earlier in the day and 14 points would have been the least likely outcome under normal circumstances.
In the end, both Duncanville and Klein Forest performed impressively at the highest level. But, imagine if the 3200m start time wasn't pushed back and the start of the evening session wasn't pushed up. At the least, just imagine what Flower Mound could have done if the 3200m was only ran once instead of being started and stopped and then started again.