Abbigail Villafranca is a hurdler. Ask her, and she will confirm that, yes, indeed, that’s what she is.
So, when McAllen High girls track head coach Luis Cantu asked her to run in the 400-meter relay, a realization dawned on her.
“Oh, my gosh, my dad was right,” Villafranca said. “My dad always told me, ‘You’re gonna be a 400 runner and I would say, ‘No, I’m not.’”
Villafranca is still a hurdler, but near the end of this 2020-21 track season she became the final piece of the Bulldogs puzzle for a mile relay squad that broke the school record during the Region IV-5A meet last week and is competing in the UIL State Track Championship at the University of Texas’ Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin.
The three-day event begins Thursday, May 6, and runs through Saturday, May 8. Classes 3A and 4A will compete Thursday, Classes 2A, 5A and wheel chair division are Friday, and 1A and 6A will be Saturday.
Villafranca, Charlotte Beck, Sabrina Garza and anchor Leslie Sequera ran as a unit for the first time during the Sharyland High/Steve Stark relays March 12. The results were eye-opening for Cantu and the McHi coaches.
“The day before (the meet) we had morning practice and Leslie (Sequera) came up to me and said, ‘Abby, we are going to bribe you with money,’ but I said, ‘No, I have the 300 hurdles.’ Then Coach put me on. I was so nervous, I didn’t want to let the team down and started thinking, ‘I can do this. I’m capable.”
“We had three strong with Leslie, Charlotte and Sabrina but we were a leg short,” Cantu said. “Abbigail was that missing piece. She ran a 60(-second) leg and we looked at each other and knew that we had found that piece to get to state.”
The squad ran to a time of 4 minutes, 1.39 seconds — nearly 16 seconds ahead of second place, in 4:17.29.
“She wasn’t a big fan of running the mile relay,” Cantu said. “And at first she said that same thing. Once she got there though, she’s someone when you have others counting on you, she doesn’t want to let anyone down and that’s what drives her. She’ll do anything to get that baton to Charlotte.”
The team didn’t run as a whole again until the region meet. Juniors Aleah Saenz and Avery Scurlock stepping in for the District 31-5A and 5A Area 31-32 meets, where the 4×400 girls just kept winning, claiming first in both meets to advance to regionals.
There, after just running together once, the Bulldogs set a school record with a time of 3:58.79. The previous record was set in 1981.
“After Sharyland I knew we could put something together at regionals and go under 4 (minutes),” Cantu said. “We knew we would have to go 3:58 to have a chance to get out and get to state. The girls were talking about breaking the school record and they did. Now our goal is to get under 3:58. With the environment and competition at state, it’ll get then going.”
Once the final piece of the 4×400 was set, Garza, who also ran the 800 and mile this season, said everything quickly moved from expectations to reality.
“We talked about going to state, we talked about breaking the school record and now we’re where we expected to be. Every single runner on that team runs a 58 or 59. Abby came in and we won that first relay and knew things would work out,” Garza said. “We gave it our all at regional and knew we didn’t want to let each other down and didn’t want that race to be the last race or the last lap.”
An extremely competitive and intense group of runners, Garza said that their expectations for state are just as aggressive and high as their goals were at the beginning of the season.
“We’ve been working on handoffs and know we can shave off a second or two by keeping the baton moving. We have been slowing down as we hand it off and need to make sure we are still running. If you shave off a half second for all three handoffs that’s a lot.
“Our goal is to come in at 3:55 or under. We want to put up a fast mark and be on the Valley’s all-time list.”