By Cory Mull - MileSplit National
AUSTIN, TEXAS -- It was breathtaking, this final moment in the UIL Track and Field Championships.
Facing roughly a 30-meter deficit to powerhouse DeSoto High School with 400 meters to go in the Class 6A 4x400 on Saturday, Houston Strake Jesuit's (TX) Matthew Boling simply took over.
The University of Georgia signee closed the gap, both here and within his team's state championship hopes, by never giving up, by refusing to lose, by sticking on the gas with 200 meters left when it got tough.
The beauty of Boling's physical ability is that he fatigues slower than the average athlete, and with 200 meters left you could see it, same as you could with 100 meters left, same as you could with 50 meters to go when Boling, winding up like a tornado, passed DeSoto's anchor as everyone stood on their feet at Mike Myers Stadium.
The athlete everyone came to watch culminated an important race with a resounding moment that wouldn't be forgotten.
Boling split an incredible 44.74 seconds on the anchor to help his team win the 4x400 in a new US No. 1 time of 3:10.56, and allowed Jesuit, which had just 20 points as a team until that point, jump all the way to second-place with 40 points in the standings and finish as the Class 6A runner-ups behind Klein Forest, which finished with 42 points--just as shocking, Klein Forest won its state title in that final race, scoring four points in fifth-place.
If that wasn't enough, Boling's day also included the fastest wind-legal 100 meter time of his career.
"I got out well and was happy with it," Boling said afterward, surrounded by 30-some odd media. "It means a lot. I wanted to do well at state."
Boling exploded out of the blocks with approximately 22,000 people watching on and finished in a new US No. 1 time of 10.13 (1.3) seconds, which tied for the fifth fastest 100m effort of all-time and was a new National Federation of High School Athletic Association (NFHS) record and a Texas State Meet record.
He passed the 29-year-old Texas State Record of 10.15 seconds, last set by Henry Neal in 1990.
Boling began his day by claiming a state title in the long jump, his second straight, hitting a mark of 25 feet, 4.50 inches. He needed just two jumps before he exited the field.
About the only difficult moment in a tough of magnetic energy was in the 4x100, where Boling and Strake Jesuit were disqualified after two zone violations on the second-to-third and third-to-fourth exchanges.
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