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The James H. Blake girls seem to have an odd-year theme with the 4x200 when it comes to the outdoor state meet. They have now won the state title in the event in 2015, 2017 and 2019, and their latest performance at Morgan State was one of the best performances the track has ever seen. The Bengals had already run sub-1:40 on the season at the Montgomery County Championships and had even broken the 3A indoor state meet record earlier in the year. But what they did on Friday evening of the state meet was nearly unprecedented.
Only the Mount Hebron girls (more on them in a second) could even finish within five seconds of Blake's team. Their 1:38.43 time beat the previous 3A state meet record by nearly half a second, and they joined Bullis and Franklin as the only teams to have run under 1:39 this decade. Senior Noelani Phillips would also go on to win the 200 meter dash title the next day, and Blake finished second in the 4x400.
Blake finished second in the 4x400 because the Mount Hebron girls threw down a state meet record performance of their own. Led by junior Satori Valentine, who had one of the best state meet performances of the decade (also winning the 400 and 800), the Vikings ran 3:50.68, beating Central's 37-year-old 3A record by over a second.
For the Mount Hebron girls, it was their second straight outdoor 4x400 title and one that evened the score with Blake after the Bengals had beaten them in the event at the indoor state meet (the Vikings were without Valentine at the time). It's also the fourth-fastest state meet performance of the decade (2010-11 through 2019-20), trailing only Northwest (2011), Blake (2014) and Wise (2018).