Never give up. It's a phrase we hear in sports thousands of times. At the 2A Region 1 Championship at Florida High School in Tallahassee the Raines boys 4x100m relay put that motto to action. The Vikings were one of the favorites in the event, but disaster struck early on. Eddie Ausgood, the team's leadoff leg pulled his hamstring. Instead of giving up, Trevon Peterson, Marlon Brooks, and Larry Grier, brought the team from worst to first, and a regional title.
"I think my team deserves some recognition for what they pulled off at our regional meet," Ausgood said in a message to us shortly after the meet. "They didn't give up on the race and came back and won it."
Coach Steve Bellamy and his assistants, including associate head coach Donovan Masline, have been working for nearly a decade to bring the success the program has had recently and finally thinks they are going in the right direction. The quartets performance Wednesday night and their willingness to stick it out for one another, is one of the most proudest moment's in Bellamy's coaching career.
"Most teams would have given up," he said. "Most teams would've stopped running. Watching this gives me chills. Viking Pride! Never Say Die! I've never seen anything like it."
What happened after the race was even more proof.