On Feb. 10, 2024, a record was broken. One that hadn’t been broken since 2018.
Simone Stephens, Cora Hudella, Halle Barker, and Tea Boerner set the record for the 4×1600, beating the previous record by over a minute and a half. Even though this is a new group, returners Hudella, Barker, and Boerner, help the freshman Stephens adjust to college athletics and collegiate competition.
“I did feel really prepared for this race because we had been planning and talking about breaking this record for weeks. We went over the order we were going to go in and made sure we got our baton passes down. We also talked about it with our coaches and made sure they knew our plans and how we were going to break it,” said Stephens.
Since this group wasn’t competing against anyone else, it was just them against the clock.
“This race for me was a little more difficult compared to the other ones as we were just racing against ourselves. We were the only team to sign up for the 4×1600, so it was just a race against us and the clock,” said Stephens.
Coach Glen Drexler says how proud he was of this group, not only for breaking the record but for the time they ran the race in.
“Again, it was more of a question of by how much would this group break the record. We knew we had strong mile times going in so we knew collectively we could do it,” Coach Drexler said.
“We knocked that record down by over a minute and a half and again, I think if we ran it today for instance- we could probably knock another 30 seconds or more off that time,” said Drexler
Coach Drexler said he was proud overall and a little emotional about the race.
“It was a big day in general as this record was set at our annual Sam Maday Classic. A meet honoring our late, long-time coach- Sam Maday. So Sam was on our minds as we ran that race and to know he was probably watching us just as excited as we were. I know I was a little misty-eyed when we see such special things happen at his meet,” said Drexler.
