Despite the fact that their PRs were elsewhere, the Class 6A 3200 at the 2025 UIL State Track and Field Championships was the race of the year in that event. Six runners were within half a second of each other at the bell between 8:01.66 and 8:02.047 and if you wanted to make the podium you had to drop a sub-57 last lap. Caden Leonard held on for the win over Danny Torres and Benjamin Montgomery. Gavin Chapa’s 58.67 final lap was only good enough for fourth. Freshman Ruel Newberry’s 1:06 final lap left him in sixth.

For the second year in a row, Caden Leonard lead the way for the boys in the 1600m statewide. Leonard shaved a mere 0.05 off his time in 2024 to drop his PR to 4:02.41 at the Hoka Festival of Miles in St. Louis. Noah Strohman was able to drop his PR by almost a second and a half at RunningLane,

Probably what stands out most was that most of the best runs were after the UIL season or at premiere meets later in the season where the competition is stacked. Gavin Chapa, now at Texas A&M, won Texas Relays.

I thought I would take minute to review some of the top Texan results for the 2025 Outdoor Season now that the summer Nationals are complete.

Obviously no list or conversation can start without mentioning what Cooper Lutkenhaus did at the US National Championships. I was lucky enough to be in Heyward the afternoon he broke Michael Granville’s 29-year old record at Nike. The weather wasn’t great and I really didn’t think he’d have a legit shot. The day before when Luke Bone ran the 7th or 8th best all-time (at the time) during the U20 Final, the weather was much nicer. So when Coop broke the record, the place went crazy.

1A BOYS 1600 METER RUN
1 Ryker Haivala Cumby Miller Grove 4:34.78
2 Sebastian Talamantez Comstock 4:36.90
3 Jose Ventura Lasara 4:43.03
4 Caynden Mynear White Deer 4:43.71
5 Brett Macias Neches High School 4:46.47
6 Camden Lummus Roby 4:48.05
7 Brance Ferguson Happy 4:48.62
8 Hayden King Clyde Eula 4:51.80

1A BOYS 3200 METER RUN
1 Ryker Haivala Cumby Miller Grove 9:50.31
2 Sebastian Talamantez Comstock 9:54.75
3 Brett Macias Neches High School 10:08.39
4 Aaron Fagan Zephyr 10:14.44
5 Aiden Beversdorf Petersburg 10:14.96
6 Yair Martinez Balmorhea 10:17.79
7 Adrian Rosales Booker 10:19.42
8 Camden Lummus Roby 10:19.66
9 Eduardo Cedillo O’Donnell 10:25.71

Top runners only… commentary updated soon.

GIRLS 800M

GIRLS 1600M

Welcome to the second week of the Texas Distance Project, where we give you an update on how middle distance and distance runner excelled over the previous week.

Since we missed the girls last week, we will start there. One caveat, there were many meets that were cancelled due to the cold and wet conditions. Since meets around Austin were cancelled, many competed for their clubs at the Viper Distance Festival where there were some blistering early season results.

1k High School Record Breaking Attempt
Friday, around 8 PM at Justin Northwest Texan Stadium

I think one thing we can all agree on is that the 1k US High School record attempt at the Justin Northwest Texan Invitational this coming Friday should be exciting. There should definitely be more odd distance events like this.

The current US High School Outdoor record is held by Marcus Reilly of Massachusetts, who broke the record last June in Montreal, Canada in a time of 1:21.81. Reilly is currently a freshman at Michigan.

I apologize for not having this completed in time to be posted on MileSplit. The Boys’ version was an experiment on the format of what I wanted to accomplish. It will change a bit from week-to-week, but try to honor kids in each event (800, 1600, 3200) every week. Of course there will be times when I expand, but that’s the premise.

This week’s girls’ roundup will be short. I stuck with the following standards: 800m (sub-2:20), 1600m (sub-5:20) and 3200m (sub 11:20). Asa I stated on the boys’ post, these standards will change from week-to-week.