Saint Stephen’s state title-winning relay team gets DQ’d

Chase Brown couldn’t stop smiling as he waited near the podium for his teammates to come off the track after a dominant win in the 400-meter relay at the Class 1A championship Saturday in Bradenton. He was ready to stand atop the podium to celebrate achieving the goal he first set at the beginning of the season, when the newcomer to the school realized the Falcons could be of the fastest teams in Florida.

“That was our goal from the start of the season,” Brown said. “We always kept that in the back of our heads.”

Less than 15 minutes later, Saint Stephen’s excitement was gone. The win, which would have pushed the Falcon to the top of the 1A boys team standings, had been vacated because of an early first exchange.

Saint Stephen’s first state championship was gone.

“They put up a white flag,” said Jordon Murrell, who ran the third leg of the Falcons’ relay. “They didn’t tell us until after we were done.”

Head coach A.J. Brown was not immediately available to comment.

Saint Stephen’s waltzed into the final with the top time in preliminaries Friday at IMG Academy Field. The Falcons ran their preliminary without Sydney Brown, Chase’s brother who normally runs the second leg, as he battled a hamstring injury, but coaches put him in the lineup for the final.

As Lethario Jones handed the baton to Sydney Brown, Saint Stephen’s built a lead without any worry. It wasn’t until well after Chase Brown crossed the finish line in 43.46 seconds that anyone involved with the team realized what had occurred.

The disqualification left the Falcons with another brutally close call holding them back from the first state title in program history. Andrew Csubak finished second in the 800 run Friday, Saint Stephen’s took silver in the 3,200 relay earlier Saturday and Jones took second in the 400 dash shortly after the 400 relay was disqualified.

With Saint Stephen’s disqualified, Zephyrhills Christian took the gold in a time of 43.82.

This story was originally published May 6, 2017 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Saint Stephen’s state title-winning relay team gets DQ’d."