TACOMA — When the stakes soar, so does the Tumwater High School 4x200 relay team.
In the last four years, the T-Birds quartet has never finished lower than first in a postseason 4x200 relay. Not leagues. Not districts. And certainly not state, including prelims.
Tumwater completed its quest for a fourth consecutive state championship in the event during the 2A/3A/4A state meet at Mount Tahoma High School Saturday, saving its best for last with a school-record time of 1 minute, 42.24 seconds.
Junior Cassidy Hedin and sophomore Ashlyn Hufana started the chase for a four-peat before handing off the finishing duties to the seniors who have been members of all four winning teams in Reese Heryford and Ava Jones.
Since the WIAA relay state format changed ahead of the 2010 season, only Sehome has pulled off the otherworldly accomplishment at the 2A girls state level. For Tumwater, it started with Heryford, Jones, Mariah Jett and Annabelle Clapp in 2022 before Hedin replaced Jett in 2023 and Hufana took over for Clapp this year. The roster changes ultimately haven’t hurt the team thanks to the anchoring of Heryford and Jones.
“We’re literally all the same person. We know how to control our emotions and when to push those boundaries and when not to,” Jones said. “Having a good team chemistry is something that other teams have, but we have it like no other.”
“We all train so hard consistently year-round. When we’re in soccer season, we’re still thinking about track and training our butts off,” Heryford added.
Heryford admitted that, for the first time ever in a 4x200 relay, she felt some pre-race jitters. She and Jones are no strangers to defending a state championship, but this one hit different.
“I’ve never been as nervous as I was today. Now, there’s teams that are a lot closer than they’ve ever been, but we held our own and we ran so fast. Our handoffs were great, we worked hard together and we did it,” Heryford said.
Four straight trips to the top of the podium doesn’t come overnight. Practices are demanding, especially since each of the four athletes competes in multiple events at a state level. Hedin said the team’s connection through hundreds of hours of practice sets them apart from any other relay program in the state.
“We genuinely love each other, and we all have so much talent. Our practices are hard and grueling, but obviously it pays off,” she said. “It’s almost like trauma bonding. We want it so bad. That is our race. It’s been our race. The four-peat has actually been one of the coolest things of my entire life. I’m gonna tell my kids and my grandkids.”
Tumwater head coach Jordan Stray said Jones and Heryford knew from their first state win that it wouldn’t be their last, and they worked every day in practice just to relive the moment each spring.
“They were able to get that first one, and I think that’s what helped them get hooked. It just became a goal every year. That was the race they wanted to win,” he said.
Hufana, the newest member of the legendary club, knew she came into a team that didn’t just compete for PRs and for fun. The standard had been set, and the sophomore has filled in seamlessly.
“It means the world that I get to run with such amazing girls that I look up to a lot,” she said. “We all blend and get along really well. They’re some of my best friends and some of my favorite people in the world.”
At the beginning of the season, Tumwater’s coaches told the relay girls to jot down some goals. The unanimous top goal was to secure the four-peat, according to sprinters coach Mark Sullivan.
“We put our best athletes on those relays, and we have really high-end athletes. We try to have all of our sprinters ready to run every relay," he said. “They’re super encouraging and supportive of each other, and that’s the culture that we're trying to build.”
Jones and Heryford will soon graduate and be roommates at Washington State University in Pullman, and the task to replace them at Tumwater will be daunting, Sullivan said. Broome thanked the seniors for welcoming her to the 4x400 team and for setting the foundation for the next generation to take care of business when they depart.
"They've meant so much to me. They are what I want to be like when I'm a senior, with how they act toward underclassmen. They're such kind and loving girls," she said.
Each of the four champions was forced to rapidly shift gears after taking the 4x200 podium, as the event was the very first of the final day of the weekend. Hufana cruised straight over to the long jump, where she finished fourth right behind teammate Amahle Foster. Foster set a new PR at 16 feet, 11.5 inches, on her penultimate jump of her first state trip, while Hufana hit 16-8 to improve on her 14th-place finish last year.
The two sophomore jumpers have encouraged one another in practice, leading to a wealth of success this postseason.
“I’ve learned to push myself from her. I like having a teammate that I can go back and forth with and we can cheer each other on,” Foster said of Hufana.
Next up was the 4x100 relay finals, the one nut that Heryford and Jones have not been able to crack out of the three relays. They gave themselves a great chance for success on Friday by shattering a 27-year-old school record in the prelims, running a 48.70-second race to finish first.
In the finals, the T-Birds were as close as they’ve been to clinching the hat trick of relay championships, but they couldn’t carry over their momentum from prelims and finished second at 48.91 seconds behind back-to-back champion East Valley. Saturday’s finish was Heryford’s and Jones’ best in the 4x100 relay at state after failing to qualify for the finals in each of the last two years and placing fourth as freshmen.
Hedin and Jones each PRed in their respective open track events in the prelims on Friday, with Hedin excelling in the 300-meter hurdles and Jones torching the 200-meter competition. In the finals, Hedin placed seventh while Jones earned fifth. Sophomore Alexandra Broome also picked up a fifth-place time in the 800 meters one year after missing the qualifying mark at districts.
Meanwhile, on the throwing field, junior Paige Henderson scored points for Tumwater by debuting at sixth place in her first state appearance. Before her fifth throw, a medal seemed unlikely, but she uncorked a 112-foot, 7-inch toss to set her up for hardware.
“I came in not expecting to win. I just wanted to place, and I’m really proud of myself,” Henderson said. “I’m in the ring every single day repping over and over again.”
The final race of the historic weekend was the 4x400 relay, an event Tumwater won in 2023. A fifth-place finish for Hedin, Jones, Heryford and Broome didn’t put a damper on a weekend that resulted in a third-place team trophy for the T-Birds.
W.F. West’s lone medalist of the day came from junior Lauren Kelley in the long jump. Her top jump of 16-5.25 was just a quarter of an inch off her PR but was good enough for seventh in the event. Sophomore Ashlen Gruginski finished just shy of a medal in the 3200 meters, crossing the finish line at a millisecond over 11 minutes, 40 seconds.
