Lee’s reaction came after the Bulldogs’ 4×400-meter girls’ relay team posted a time of 3 minutes 35.23 seconds at the Florida Relays in Gainesville. Bullis broke the national high school record of 3:35.49 set by Long Beach Poly in 2004 (3 minutes 35.49 seconds).

The quartet of junior Payton Payne, freshman Kennedy Brown, junior Sydney Sutton and junior Morgan Rothwell cut over two seconds from the Bulldogs’ time last year in Gainesville (3:37.98).

After it was over, it took the girls a few minutes to mirror their coach’s energy. They were tired, they told their coach.

“They had to calm me down, but it was pretty special,” Lee said.

The record-breaking performance was not a wire-to-wire domination. After the first split, Bullis trailed Miami Northwestern and Montverde Academy (Fla.), the indoor national champion. The Bulldogs inched past Miami Northwestern in the third, before dominating the final portion to beat Montverde.

Rothwell was the anchor, running the final leg in 53.37, securing the record that the relay team had talked about extensively in the lead-up to Saturday.

“I feel like in my career, I was always a second option,” Rothwell said. “Going into this year, when I became, I guess, one of the best athletes in the country, I’m just glad I was given this opportunity to run with these girls.”

The Bulldogs’ time was faster than collegiate teams such as Iowa, Nebraska and Alabama State, which competed at the same event.

Another Bullis performance exceeded any collegiate athlete’s time at the Florida event. All-Met Athlete of the Year Quincy Wilson continued his excellent sophomore season setting a national record by clocking 45.19 in the boys’ 400.

That time eclipsed his indoor national personal best (45.76), which he set earlier in March. His performance was the fastest time of the weekend, regardless of age level. It also guaranteed Wilson a spot at the Olympic Trials in Oregon, which was a preseason goal.

“I knew that 45.20 was the Olympic trial standard, as a 16-year-old, being able to break [that] is just amazing,” Wilson said.

When asked if this Bulldogs group is the best in school history, Lee hesitated. He couldn’t get in trouble with teams of the past, he said, but he offered a telling statement.

“I’ll leave you with this,” Lee said. “In the 4×400 [girls relay], it’s the best team, Bullis or non-Bullis… that’s ever stepped on the track.”

Bishop Ireton senior Katherine Kernan was introduced to the Netflix show “Somebody Feed Phil” by her grandmother in February 2023. She quickly became obsessed with the show and loves to watch its host, Philip Rosenthal, travel the world and experience the food and culture of different areas.

Eleven months later, Kernan sat down with her teammates on the Ireton boys’ and girls’ rowing teams inside the school’s dining hall and turned on the show, which recently released its seventh season. Many of the rowers saw themselves on the big screen — the Cardinals were featured on the season’s second episode, which was filmed last June.

“To be on the show that I fell in love with was insane,” Kernan said. “Getting to meet [Rosenthal] was so fun because he’s so nice.”

Midway through the episode, Rosenthal is introduced to Ireton Coach Steve Hall, who teaches him basic rowing techniques on a rowing machine. Rosenthal then carries the Ireton boat over his head with the team and helps correctly put the boat in the water before rowing on the water alongside his new Ireton teammates.

“D.C. is a very walkable town,” Rosenthal said on the show. “And if you’re in top shape, it’s a very rowable one too.”

Hall had been contacted by one of the show’s producers, who said they wanted to feature a rowing scene in the D.C. episode and were looking for a team based in the Anacostia Boathouse. When the producer asked whether the Cardinals might want to participate, the coach happily signed on.

After filming, the Cardinals waited in anticipation for months for the show to be released. Once the release date was announced, Hall and the team packed the dining hall to watch, bringing in catered food from the restaurants featured in the episode they took part in.

“It bolsters the sport and it bolsters the Anacostia boathouse where we row from,” Hall said. “The kids did great, so it’s a big win for a lot of people.”

When it was Eli Harris’s turn to meet with Broadneck Coach Jeff McGuire in the weeks leading up to boys’ lacrosse season, McGuire told Harris not to be surprised if he was named captain. Harris took it as a courtesy, something McGuire told everyone.

But after one of the team’s final preseason practices, McGuire surprised the senior by doing just that.

Broadneck boasts a deep class of 17 seniors, five of whom are committed to play lacrosse in college. But it’s Harris, committed to play football at Navy, who carries an important role.

“I’ve always been the most vocal guy,” Harris said. “That’s what showed him I’m going to be able to lead.”

After a 20-0 campaign last spring, Broadneck is off to a 3-0 start and has won each of its games by at least seven goals. The dynamic group of seniors are at the center of the team’s dominant stretch.

Harris, whose father is the football coach at Broadneck, signed to play lacrosse at Loyola Maryland, then de-committed last July and joined Navy’s 2024 football recruiting class. He’ll play wide receiver in Annapolis this fall. Until then, his focus remains on capturing another Maryland 4A title for Broadneck.

“He’s like having another coach in the locker room,” McGuire said.

Brady Ruiz-Weiss stood in the left-handed batter’s box, waiting for a fastball. When he got one, he greeted it with the barrel of his bat and sent it over the right field wall.

Before it ended with one dramatic swing — a walk-off solo homer courtesy of Ruiz-Weiss — Thursday’s game between St. John’s and Good Counsel was scoreless. After his trip around the bases, Ruiz-Weiss leaped into the mass of Cadets (8-2) that had gathered outside the dugout, waiting for his arrival to kick off their celebration.

“There’s honestly no better feeling than being able to celebrate with your teammates,” Ruiz-Weiss said. “Those are the guys that you’re around all the time, the guys that you spend days upon days with. It just makes everything so much sweeter when you’re able to have a win like that.”

Ruiz-Weiss, a senior outfielder committed to Yale, has provided plenty of timely hits in his career. But Thursday’s blast was his first game-winner.

“Don’t try to do too much,” he told himself. “See the ball well and react.”

When the ball first pinged off Ruiz-Weiss’s bat, he was hoping for a double, maybe even a triple if he ran hard enough. But as the ball kept rising. Ruiz-Weiss realized it was destined for Oregon Avenue, which runs behind the towering chain-link fence in right field at the Cadets’ home field.

“It was very surreal,” Ruiz-Weiss said. “It was a lot of excitement, joy — it was just a flood of emotions. I was just really happy I was able to help the team.”

Last spring, Nathan Greiner took over as Meridian’s soccer coach after two decades as an assistant with the program. He inherited an experienced team from predecessor Frank Spinello, with nine seniors on the roster. The coach sang their praises as the Mustangs marched through the postseason, winning the program’s 12th state title in early June.

“It’s not a burden to defend a title, but we know that every team wants to beat us,” Greiner said of this spring. “So we’re looking to play our very best each and every game. Everybody wants to say they hung with us. So we don’t expect an easy road.”

This year’s team features a few key returners, including forward Felix Green and defender Fletcher Saaty. But this roster lacks the experience of last year’s team. The group is still finding itself amid an arduous schedule: The Mustangs (2-3) have local powers such as Osbourn Park, Briar Woods and Lewis on their nonconference slate.

“This has to be the most stout schedule we’ve played in a long time,” Greiner said. “And our goal is never to be undefeated. It’s to be battle-tested, to find our best identity and get prepared for the postseason.”

In case the local schedule wasn’t hard enough, the Mustangs hit the road in mid-March to travel to the Smoky Mountain Cup in Gatlinburg, Tenn. Meridian tries to attend the highly competitive event every other season if it can, hoping for strong opponents and a chance to build early-season chemistry.

The Mustangs went 1-2 against stiff competition, but Greiner still felt the trip was invaluable.

“Of course, we always want to win an event, but we do it mostly for the bonding,” the coach said. “It’s hard to replicate that kind of experience, spending eight hours in a bus and all hanging out in a cabin. That’s really what we’re looking for, because it helps us grow as a team.”