Emmie Boese & Tyler Godwin
Lantern Staff & Student Sports Media
Butler’s men’s track team has had great success this year. Part of that success comes through the chemistry of their men’s 4×100 relay team.
The relay team includes freshman liberal arts major Cardet Bienvenue from Fort Meyers, Florida; sophomore business major Tavarius Wright from Memphis, Tennessee; freshman exercise science major Mark Doyley from MayPen, Jamaica and freshman liberal arts major Javaughn Spicer from Broward County, Florida.
“We just perform every time we show up,” Wright said. We trust each other, and we trust our coach, and everything just clicks.”
Even though this relay team has had a lot of success this season, the way this relay formed was unique because it was not put together until close to the time of their first meet.
“It was kind of complicated in the beginning, you know we had a lot of sit downs and talks, and we had a lot time to analyze on who should be chosen,” Bienvenue said. “One day it just came up out of the blue. We were all doing homework, and we were like ok these are the four. We only had three days to practice.”
On Thursday, April 4 the team traveled to the Friends University Invitational and won the 4×100 with a time of 39.77 seconds, the fastest collegiate time in the nation. Their continuous success throughout this season led to their most recent win at the KU relays, which is one of the largest collegiate track meets in the area. They won the 4×100 with a time of 40.35 seconds.
The guys were especially excited about their win at the KU relays because people were not expecting them to win.
“Our thought process was basically to like go out there and just dominate and do what we gotta do,” Doyley said. “We were going to go out there and show what juco could really do. Winning that was like a big eye opener for everyone.”
Spicer added that the coaches do a great job at getting them ready for each meet.
“The coaches do a great job of basically killing us every day,” Spicer said.
They will compete at the regional track meet here at Butler on Friday, May 3, and Saturday, May 4. The team are looking forward to staying to their level at this meet and doing well at nationals, which take place on Thursday, May 16 in New Mexico.
“We are just looking to go out there and just execute,” Doyley said. “It’s a home meet, so of course you’re just going to go out there and just dominate and show them like it’s our home.”
