Titans’ 4×100 team earn first-team All-America status from MileSplit
Published 8:47 pm Tuesday, June 27, 2017
- Xavier Hull of Memorial receives congratulations from Manvel athletes after Memorial won the 4x100-meter relay May 12 in the UIL 5A state championship meet in Austin. Memorial’s 4x100 team was named first-team All-America by MileSplit on June 27. (Michael Sudhalter/Special to The News)
Just when it seemed Port Arthur Memorial’s record-setting boys 4×100-meter relay team could not draw any more national attention, they actually made a little more school history more than a month after their final meet.
The quartet achieved first-team All-America status from national online track and field magazine MileSplit, which released its list of similar honorees Tuesday. In addition, two-time state 200-meter champion Kary Vincent Jr. was named a second-team All-American in that event.
“The last time we had an All-American at Port Arthur, I was in middle school,” said Memorial coach Darrell Granger, who graduated from Lincoln High in 1987.
The Lincoln 4×400-meter team of Perry Judgeware, Rickey Antoine, Chris Dorsey and Roland Dumas won their state title in 1983, when Granger was in eighth grade. Those runners received a plaque for their All-America status.
It was not immediately known if MileSplit will do the same for their All-Americans.
The Memorial 4×100 team of freshman Ireon Brown, senior Vincent, junior Xavier Hull and senior De’Andre Angelle set the UIL 5A state meet record and came within 0.04 second of the statewide and national record set by Fort Worth Wyatt in 1998. Granger told The News on May 13, one day after the state meet in Austin, three of the runners ran each leg in less than 10 seconds using hand timing. Vincent’s 9.25-second split was the fastest.
The official times in the UIL meets are recorded by fully automatic timing.
“This is the first group of kids at Port Arthur Memorial I’ve had to be named All-Americans,” Granger said. “I’m excited to have my first set of All-Americans.”
Vincent, who will play football and run track this coming school year at LSU, set a personal best of 20.71 seconds in the 5A 200-meter final and was named second-team All-American. He was the 6A champion in 2016.
“To be able to be named two times an All-American in track, that makes him feel good as he moves on to Baton Rouge,” Granger said.
The Memorial 4×200 team, using the same four runners from the 4×100 but with Angelle on the lead leg and Brown as the anchor, created buzz across Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin with a national record of 1:23.52. MileSplit did not select All-Americans in that event, however; Granger said it’s because not every state high school association conducts the 4×200.
Two other Southeast Texas athletes were named All-Americans by MileSplit: Silsbee’s Kalon Barnes and West Brook’s Jeffrey Hulon Jr., both second-teamers in the 100 meters. Barnes was the 4A state champion, and Hulon was second in 6A.
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I.C. Murrell: 721-2435. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews