HAWTHORNE. LONG BEACH POLY… and Long Beach Wilson. Muir. Serra.
Those are a few of the California prep programs that have set legendary national records in the sprint relays over the decades.
Lancaster, Duncanville and Atascocita. Bullis, Union Catholic and Montverde Academy. That’s a handful of programs from the rest of the U.S. that have set recent high school standards in many of the same events.
It could be argued that the Golden State has been overdue, with an exception or two, for a new program threatening sub-40 in the 4×1 or 3:06.07 in the 4×4, for example, or sub-45 or 1:33s in the girls 4×1 and 4×2.
Now, in the past 2 years, that program — or programs — have emerged. Sibling schools, Servite (Anaheim) and Rosary (Fullerton), each led by sprint/relay guru and head coach Brandon Thomas, have smashed some hallowed records and threatened others with young squads that are poised to wreak further havoc on the record books in ’27.
“I think we have all the components there to go ahead and break [the national records],” says Thomas. “We just need to execute when it’s time to execute.”
Servite’s 39.70 last spring at Arcadia, with the quartet of soph twins Jace and Jorden Wells, Kamil Pelovello and junior Benjamin Harris, was a number California sprint fans may have thought they’d never see. Same with their 1:22.76 the day before (Jace Wells, Pelovello, soph Jaelen Hunter and Harris).
And for anyone who wondered if Hawthorne’s beyond-legendary 3:07.40 would ever be challenged, you only had to watch the twins, Pelovello and anchor Hunter — all 10th-graders — power across the line with their near-solo 3:07.62 at last May’s State Meet to know the 41-year-old barrier is now in serious jeopardy.
The Friars, with their trio of U.S. list leaders, soared to Nos. 4, 4 and 3 all-time, and achieved top All-America rankings in all three. The 39.70 and 3:07.62 are U18 WRs. Servite had kind of been introduced to the national T&F community as a relay superpower at Arcadia ’25 when they hit 40 flat and 1:23.88 with three frosh and a soph; that wound up being the peak for the year, setting up ’26 for what it became.
“I think we got more focused on trying to run 39 than on competing,” says Thomas regarding the rest of that season. “And so once the boys got focused [in ’26] and were just ready to compete, the 39 happened. And once that happened, obviously it was a big weight off their shoulders, and they were able to run it another… I think we ran it five times, the first time a high school has ever done so that many times in a season.”
While the Friars all but knew the 39 would come last spring, what about that 3:07?
“Our main goal was for sure to run a PR, but we were mainly looking at the all-time State points record,” says Hunter of the final exclamation point on a 60-point CIF title performance. “But when I really look back at it, nobody really realized that we were on pace for 3:07, so that kind of shocked us. And especially when I crossed the line, I was like, ‘There’s no way!’ We weren’t expecting that. We thought we were gonna end up like maybe like low 3:08 or very high 3:07. But mid-3:07, that’s not what we were thinking.”
Meanwhile, Rosary’s 44.23, preceding Servite’s record at Arcadia, deserves the same flowers. That run erased the ’04 then-HSR 44.50 by Long Beach Poly as the State Record. Nationally, that 44.23 was matched by Duncanville and the Royals wound up No. 3 in the All-Am compilation in the 4×1, but their fast, tight victories over Wilson in April were the deciding factors in a top ranking in the 4×2 (1:34.28), even if they were No. 2 behind Lancaster (Texas) on the list. Their 4×4 (3:41.33) didn’t rate, but only national leader Wilson clocked ahead of them in the Golden State.
Thomas has been the sprint coach at Servite since ’18, when his son Max (now a 9.90/19.98 pro) began his illustrious prep career. In ’21, Brandon was hired as Rosary’s head coach. Then the following year, he took over at Servite, replacing the retiring Richard Gibbs. Prior to Servite, he coached at East Los Angeles College and Long Beach City, and co-founded Evo Track Club and Evo Sports Training, training numerous youth, high school, collegiate and professional athletes.
As a sprinter himself at Long Beach and UCLA in the ’90s, Thomas learned from coaches John Smith and Tommie Smith. “I come from a long line of sprint coaches, most notably John Smith. And with John Smith, his biggest thing was just getting the baton through the zones as fast as you can. The girls know they hate when I go back and forth with them all the time about appropriate steps and giving them the right steps to make the baton move a lot faster. Nevertheless, because we have kids that are fast enough, we just need to get everyone on the same page to where they trust the amount of steps that they have so we can get the baton through the whole zone as fast as we can.
“I think developing a total athlete is more important, than the actual track part,” he adds. “Then we can put someone on the track where the kids can kind of be free of everything else and be ready to compete. I think the kids will tell you, especially Tra’via and Jaeden, that I’ll pull them aside from time to time and we’ll talk about other things besides track.”
The programs at the two schools began to flourish starting when Thomas was coaching his son his first year at Servite. “Max had such an amazing time when he was at Servite. When he finished, it put us in a position to start attracting more talent in addition to continuously developing the talent that we had. The year he departed, I had Alex Skalmowski (’23), who was a Southern Section D3 champion in 100 and 200. His success attracted Robert Gardner Jr.”
“RJ,” as he’s known on the team, hit a legal 10.77 as a frosh while junior Quaid Carr hit 10.74. The foundation was building.
“RJ was the first one to kinda trust the process and decide to enroll at Servite. With his enrollment we were able to attract kids like Jaelen Hunter, Kamil Pelovello, Jace and Jorden Wells, and Benjamin Harris. All those guys decided to join forces and come to Servite and that’s how our program became what it is now.”
All were 9th graders in ’25, save for Harris and Gardner. “It really all hit us, like, our first few couple meets our freshman year,” says Hunter. “Because going into it… I knew Camille, but I didn’t know Jace and Jordan that much. But once I found out they were coming here I was like, ‘OK, we have some fast people coming in.’ And our first couple meets we ran 41-low, then we ran 40-something, and we were just like, ‘OK, wait, we have something going.’ So we just kept the chemistry going and then it brought us along to now our junior year.”
Rosary’s success at the highest level last year was all on the shoulders of sophs Tra’via Flournoy and Maliyah Collins, junior Pfeiffer Lee and senior Justine Wilson, who ran all three relays in various orders.
“Justine Wilson, who’s now at Illinois, kinda set it on fire for us,” says Thomas. The squad first made serious noise in ’25 with 45.47 (Arcadia) and 45.21 (Mt. SAC) clockings.
“We thought at the beginning of the year that the girls would break 44.50, that we would break the state record,” the coach recalls. “We just didn’t think it would come at Arcadia that soon.”
Having Calabasas to push them in the 4×1 and Wilson to do so in the 4×2 has been a big factor. Thomas says an early-season loss to Calabasas in the shorter raceMax “fueled the girls to get ready and get prepared for Arcadia, and they came there with fire in their eyes ready to compete.”
He says despite the loss of Wilson — her younger sister Jasmine is coming in as a frosh — he thinks “they’re gonna be just as good as they were last year, or even better.”
As for the Servite boys? “We have high goals based upon what we ran last year,” Thomas begins. “I mean, obviously the goal this year would be to go 38 in the 4×1.”
Upon a moment’s reflection, however, he doesn’t mind making a stronger statement. “I’ll put this out there: Actually, our goal is to break the national records in the 4×1, 4×2, and 4×4, and I think that’s definitely realistically in our wheelhouse.”
