‘I’m going to be nervous’

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The Lady Hornets work on their handoffs Wednesday afternoon in preparation for the Texas Relays, one of the nation’s top track and field events. The best track athletes will be in Austin this weekend and 13 students from Huntsville High School will be there competing, too. On the left are sophmore RaNina Turner and freshman Briana McCall. At right are juniors Kaylynne Wright and Shan Moring. Those four will run the 1,600-meter relay for the Lady Hornets. Tom Waddill
Huntsville sophomore Henry Ford, left, reaches to hand the baton to senior Justin Gilbert during track practice Wednesday afternoon. Ford and Gilbert will team with Cameron Simmons and Dimitri Collier on the Hornets’ 400-meter relay team this weekend at the Texas Relays in Austin. Tom Waddill

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April 1, 2010

Huntsville athletes hoping to learn lessons that will pay off at state meet

By Tom Waddill Sports Editor The Huntsville Item Thu Apr 01, 2010, 12:10 AM CDT

HUNTSVILLE — Austin’s Mike Myers Stadium is the place to be this weekend. The top track and field athletes not only in Texas, but from across the United States, will be competing inside a stadium full with the sport’s most passionate fans.

As a reward for weeks of hard work, and also to act as a possible tune-up for next month’s season-ending state meet, Huntsville High School is sending its best athletes to Austin, too.

Eight Lady Hornets and five Hornets will jump on a bus early Friday morning and head to the capital city to participate in the 83rd Annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, one of the nation’s top track events.

“I’m going to be nervous,” freshman Jasmine Williams admitted, “but coach (Joseph) Granville always says, ‘The more nervous you are, the faster you run.’

“We’re going to be all right,” Williams added. “Once we start running, I guess those nerves will go away.”

This will be the first Texas Relays experience for all 13 of the athletes from Huntsville High. Only one of coach Jason Elliott’s Austin-bound athletes has ever competed inside the state-of-the-art track facility located next to Darrell K Royal Texas-Memorial Stadium.

“It’s very stressful,” warned junior Kaylynne Wright, who as a freshman finished fourth in the girls long jump at the UIL State Track and Field Championships. “There are so many fans and everybody’s watching you.”

Wright and her teammates — senior Jamie Brown, junior Shan Moring and Williams — will run in the 400- and 800-meter relays. Preliminary races for the 4-by-200 relays are scheduled Friday at 1:30 p.m. Prelims for the 94 sprint-relay teams start at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

The Lady Hornets know they’ll be competing against the fastest teams in the state. Dallas Skyline, Houston Westbury, Lancaster and Beaumont Ozen all will be there.

Brown said she’s looking forward to the challenge that awaits this weekend. The team’s goal, though, is to shave time off the season’s best mark. If the Lady Hornets continue to do that for the rest of this month, they may be back in Austin at the end of the spring.

“In Austin, our time is really our concern,” Brown said. “We know we’re going to have some really strong competition, so just placing would be good. Trying to get our time down is really our focus.”

The Lady Hornets will also run the 1,600-meter relay. Freshman Briana McCall and sophomore RaNina Turner (with freshman Sierra Wagner as an alternate) join Moring and Wright on the 1,600 relay, which will compete in prelims late Friday afternoon.

Huntsville sophomore RaKira Turner, a Region III qualifier in two events as a freshman, will throw the discus Saturday morning starting at 9.

“My goal is to get out there and throw my personal best,” Turner said. “I want to throw a 130.”

Earlier this season, Turner finished first in the discus at a meet in Montgomery with a toss of 125 feet, 7 inches. She’s hoping to draw some energy from the huge crowd that will be watching Saturday.

“I’m going to be nervous, but I’m going to go in focused with my mind set on what I have to do,” she said. “I have improved a whole lot since last year. I’m more consistent with my throws, plus I’ve gotten quicker.”

On the boys’ side, Huntsville is sending two of its relay teams, plus one of the Hornets’ top sprinters will compete in the 100-meter dash.

Senior Dimitri Collier, junior Cameron Simmons, sophomore Henry Ford and senior Justin Gilbert will run the 400-meter relay for the Hornets.

Coming off an impressive showing (41.38-second hand time) in Conroe last week, the Huntsville boys have high hopes heading into the Texas Relays.

“We’re working hard in practice, getting stronger,” said Gilbert, who will also run the 100-meter dash against 80 of Texas’ swiftest high school sprinters.

“Right now I think we can win just about every race we run, but we can also do a lot better. We’ve got a lot of room to improve.”

Gilbert and his teammates still ache when they think back to last year’s disappointing performance at the Class 4A Region III meet in Huntsville.

Leading the pack at the last exchange, the Hornets dropped the baton and did not qualify for the region finals.

“We were a little young last year,” Simmons said.

“But we’ve got everybody back and it’s our time now,” added Collier.

So far, the Hornets have shown they are on a mission in 2010. They ran well at Angleton, then “smoked up the track” last week in Conroe, according to Elliott.

Like the Lady Hornets, they’ll be running against the state’s quickest relay teams this weekend, which should give them an indication of how strong they really are.

“A good goal for us is to make the finals and run in the finals,” Huntsville assistant coach Kane Harris said.

“That will help us a lot, to run twice at the Texas Relays. Two reps there would be very good because we plan on being back there the second week in May.”

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Hornet Sports

Back to work
Tick tick tick. Tick tick tick tick.
It won’t be long until the alarm goes off early Monday morning, signaling the start of high school football practice in Huntsville.
Freshmen hit the field at 8 a.m. Monday and Hornets head coach Shane Martin can’t wait. Huntsville’s defensive coordinator the past two years, Martin has been waiting seven long months for the first day of serious summer workouts.

July 31, 2010 1 Photo
Huntsville ISD hires new volleyball coach
On paper and in her head, Stephanie Branch quietly took notes while sitting in the stands at Bryan High School on Thursday night. She paid particular attention to the team from Huntsville, because in a little more than a month that bunch will be her’s.
The daughter of a teaching and coaching couple, Branch, 31, was hired this week as the Lady Hornets’ new head volleyball coach. She replaces Brittany Brumbelow, who stepped down from her position at the end of the school year to spend more time with her family.

June 17, 2010
High school notebook: Brenham boys edge Hornets at state track meet
Round one went to the Brenham boys. The Cubs won the District 18-4A boys track and field title last month in Willis.
The Huntsville boys took round two. Led by state qualifiers Justin Gilbert, Brodrick Hadnot, Henry Ford, Dimitri Collier and Cameron Simmons, the Hornets evened the score by outscoring the Cubs at the Region III track meet in Huntsville early this month.
In Austin last weekend, the Cubs edged the Hornets in the unofficial battle for track and field supremacy in District 18-4A.

May 18, 2010
Going for gold
It wasn’t that long ago. RaKira Turner stood in the shot put ring and with all of her might, flat-footed she heaved the heavy ball forward.
Her first throws from the discus ring were even more memorable. With no idea about how to hold the strangely shaped disc, Turner did her best but the results were far from pretty.

May 12, 2010 1 Photo
Hornets finish strong
They easily could have gone through the motions.
Sitting eighth in the team standings after a miserable first day at the UIL Boys Golf State Championships, the Hornets could have trudged around the Jimmy Clay Golf Course without a care.
They could have turned in another big score, gotten back on the bus and hit the highway headed home to Huntsville.
These Hornets had too much pride to mail in the second round of the tournament. On Tuesday, the Huntsville boys made a huge turnaround, shooting a team score of 307, which moved them up to sixth in the team standings.

May 11, 2010
Difficult district
The Lady Hornets played their best round of golf Monday at Raven Nest Golf Club. Unfortunately for the Huntsville girls, they are stuck in District 18-4A with two, and probably three, of the top teams in the state.
Led by junior Madison Ward, who shot a solid 79, Huntsville’s varsity team posted a 349 team score during the first round of the District 18-4A tournament. That total puts the Lady Hornets in fourth place behind Montgomery Gold (310), Montgomery Purple (313) and Magnolia A (319) heading into today’s final round.

April 12, 2010 1 Photo
Hornets finish first at Dayton track meet
The track teams from Huntsville High School did exactly what their head coach wanted them to do last week in the final tune-up before the all-important District 18-4A meet.
The Hornets finished first and the Lady Hornets placed third in the team standings at the Bronco Relays in Dayton.

April 12, 2010 2 Photos
Gilbert advances to 100-meter finals at Texas Relays
Huntsville senior Justin Gilbert booked a spot in the main event. With a sizzling showing in the prelims for the 100-meter dash, Gilbert earned a place in the finals of the Texas Relays this afternoon in Austin.
Hopefully, he will have some company as some of his teammates try this morning to advance to the finals at Mike Myers Stadium at the University of Texas.

April 2, 2010
‘I’m going to be nervous’
Austin’s Mike Myers Stadium is the place to be this weekend. The top track and field athletes not only in Texas, but from across the United States, will be competing inside a stadium full with the sport’s most passionate fans.
As a reward for weeks of hard work, and also to act as a possible tune-up for next month’s season-ending state meet, Huntsville High School is sending its best athletes to Austin, too.

April 1, 2010 2 Photos
Top-ranked Cubs bring big bats to Huntsville
On a night when Brenham’s Chase Wellbrock nearly threw a no-hitter, Huntsville head coach Jeff Brumbelow shook his head more about the Cubs’ impressive hit parade.
Brenham came to Kate Barr Ross Park on Wednesday and quickly took control on the District 18-4A baseball game against the Hornets. The top-ranked Cubs banged out 16 hits in the first three innings and scored 13 runs on their way to a commanding 18-1 win over Huntsville.

March 17, 2010
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‘I’m going to be nervous’

Huntsville athletes hoping to learn lessons that will pay off at state meet

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