The Santa Fe High track team showed up in the biggest moments at the 2023 5a state meet, making a name for themselves as a young and dangerous squad of sprinters. 

Santa Fe High sophomore speedster Bryce Melton dominated the field in the 100 and 200-meter events at the 2023 5a state track & field championship. Bryce held the fastest 100 and 200-meter times in the 5a district entering the state championship on May 12-14. 

He posted the fastest prelim times Friday, establishing a new 5A state record in the 200-meter event with a time of 21.48. Bryce blazed his way to victories in both races on Saturday and broke his own state record in the 200-meter race by shaving off a hundredth of a second. 

Bryce had previously posted a time of 10.49 in the 100-meter race at the district 5a meet on May 5, which was a hundredth of a second faster than the 10.5 state record set in 1997. However, state records must be run at the state meet in order to be official. 

Bryce closed out the 100-meter 5a state final with a time of 10.75, a few tenths of a second behind the 26-year standing 100-meter record, but still enough to claim the state title. 

The girls posted some of their fastest times and marks of the season, but only one girl made it out of the preliminary rounds and into the finals. Zavia Burton (who attends Mandela and also plays volleyball for SFHS) made the finals in the 300-meter hurdles and finished 5th, running personal bests on both days with an official time of 47.71 in the final.

All boys’ relay teams and individuals made it out of the prelims and advanced to the finals on Saturday.

The 4 x 100 relay team of Valin Wittenburg, Owen Lock, Cy Anderson, and Bryce Melton, posted the fastest time in the prelims and also set a new state record. They finished 5th in the finals.

The 1600 medley relay qualified for the finals as the 4 seed, but finished 8th in the final.

Sophomore Cy Anderson entered the finals of the 400-meter dash as the 5 seed but blazed his way to a 3rd place finish in the final event. 

The 4 x 400 relay team entered the final as the 3 seed and ran a great race to finish 3rd. 

The boys 4 x 200 team won the final heat but was later disqualified because of an exchange zone infraction. 

The girls finished 19th as a team, and the boys’ team finished 6th.