Four Racers sketched their name into school history on March 31 when they broke the school record in the 4×100 relays at the Texas State Bobcat Invitational.
Junior sprinter Daijah White, sophomore sprinter Normal Abdur-Rafia, junior sprinter Tamdra Lawrence and junior hurdler Jabreuna Brimlett broke the school record with a time of 45.60 seconds. The previous record was set at the Louisville Twilight Invitational in 2012 with a time of 45.63 seconds.
While an accomplishment of that magnitude is certainly significant, the thought of breaking the record wasn’t on the girl’s minds at all.
“I don’t think any of us immediately went out and thought ‘Oh let’s get a school record today’,” White said.
“Our plan was to run and just become one and trust each other,” Lawrence said.
Up until the Racers broke the school record in March, they never executed a clean run in the 4×100.
“Honestly, our first time getting through the race successfully we got the school record,” White said. “We were really just focused on having a clean race and getting the baton through to the finish.”
Head Coach Adam Kiesler was pleased to see his group get a clean run in the relay.
“The last three meets, we got disqualified once, dropped the baton once, and at the Texas relays we weren’t really confident with our exchanges, we all talked, and we put it all together,” Kiesler said.
The team said they couldn’t help but smile when they saw all the hard work they have put forth finally pay off.
“It feels good, it makes me want to work harder, do more, break more records,” Abdur-Rafia said.
“Just another accomplishment complete, we’re going to keep adding into the record books,” Brimlett said.
“It means a lot, it means that all of the hard days we have are for a reason. We have all been working really hard this year. To be able to see things come to fruition and get the school record pretty early in the season is a great feeling,” White said.
Just because they have the school record now doesn’t mean that they are stopping there. When asked if they think that they will be able to surpass their own record, Abdur-Rafia had a simple answer.
“Definitely,” Abdur-Rafia said.