The women’s 4×100-meter relay record at Towson University hasn’t been safe in the past two seasons.

The foursome of senior Sydney Tucker, juniors Maya Tucker (who is unrelated to Sydney Tucker) and Cristal Cuervo and sophomore Ty’Liyah Hannah have reset the school mark in the 4×100 relay five times in the past 14 months. But according to Maya Tucker, the record is far from their minds when they run.

“We’re not even thinking about breaking the record,” she said. “We go into the race just thinking about execution with our handoffs and our legs. If we do that, we just end up running faster and breaking records.”

The foursome’s current record time of 44.67 seconds at the Yellow Jacket Invitational in Atlanta on April 20 ranks as the 42nd-fastest mark on the East Regional qualifying list with the objective of getting inside the Top 24 to earn a berth at the national championships June 5-8 in Eugene, Oregon. Tigers coach Consandria Walker-Hall is confident her runners can get there.

“I feel like I’m sitting on a goldmine,” she said. “They’ve got to believe it, they’ve got to be passionate about it, but I’m not surprised by what they’re doing. I always tell them, ‘Prove me wrong and then we can go from there.’ They’ve just been proving me right.”

Although each member has participated on relays for years, the foursome didn’t begin running with each other until last spring. Although the Tuckers are close and Cuervo and Hannah are tight, finding success as a relay team requires a certain level of chemistry.

“In the beginning, I felt like it was hard,” Sydney Tucker acknowledged. “But we spend our time together running with each other or at practice. So it kind of just happened.”

As their cohesion deepened, their personalities became evident. The general consensus is that Cuervo is the “Mom” of the group, ensuring that everyone drinks enough water and has been taped up before their races.

Sydney Tucker is laidback, Hannah is aggressive and Maya Tucker is funny. “I just try to lighten the mood because sometimes practice can be rough,” she explained. “So a little joke here or there.”

The connection between the four runners has produced results. They first broke the school record of 45.40 seconds set by Shamika Burton, Arianna Waller, Liz Reid and Crystal Johnson at the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships in 2019 by crossing the line in 45.38 seconds at the 2023 Coastal Athletic Association Championships in Williamsburg, Virginia, on May 6. They did it again eight days later at the ECAC Championships in Fairfax, Virginia, finishing in 45.28 seconds.

The foursome rewrote the mark with a time of 45.25 seconds at the Tiger Season Opener on March 16 in Towson. Then they eclipsed that time by placing second in 44.86 seconds at the USF Invitational in Tampa, Florida, on April 7 before resetting the record by winning the relay at the Yellow Jacket Invitational.

The order of the record-setting squad has changed several times over the past two seasons. The current lineup of Sydney Tucker, Maya Tucker, Cuervo and Hannah posted the marks in Florida and Georgia, and Walker-Hall said they are adaptable and coachable.

“Given that these are the same women who ran last year, I think the chemistry piece was less of a challenge this year,” she said. “I think because the chemistry is there, they’re willing to try and see what happens.”

Sydney and Maya Tucker conceded that they have questioned a few changes advocated by Walker-Hall, such as their hand positioning for baton handoffs and their depth in the exchange zones. But they agreed that Walker-Hall’s suggestions have paid off.

“She definitely does trial-and-error a lot, and I like that about her because she doesn’t keep us in our same ways,” Sydney Tucker said. “She always keeps us on our toes. I think there’s always a reason why she changes something up.”

The runners are no strangers to sterling performances. Maya Tucker owns the school record in the 100 after running 11.38 seconds at the Towson Invitational on March 29 and ranks second in the 200 at 23.42 seconds. Cuervo tops the list for the 200 (23.29 seconds in 2023) and ranks second in the 400 (54.77 seconds in 2022), and Sydney Tucker ranks fifth in both the 100 (11.74 in 2023) and 200 (24.13 in 2023).

Although she said she and her teammates don’t seek to break the record, Maya Tucker said there’s a euphoric feeling when they learn what they’ve done.

“There’s definitely still an excitement because we’re running against ourselves,” she said. “It’s not always the competition. We’re running to see if we can be better than we just were. It’s exciting to see that we can continue to get faster and faster.”

Of the foursome, this will be Sydney Tucker’s final outdoor track season. She said that future drives her to try to reach next month’s NCAA Championships. “Because this is my last outdoor season, I want it to be special,” she said.

Walker-Hall said the next objective for the foursome should be slipping under the 44-second threshold.

“They’re capable of being under 44,” she said. “It’s just a matter of them doing it, and what’s great about them is, I’m returning three of the four of them for next year. So the sky is still the limit for them.”

As significant as the record is, Maya Tucker has already prepared herself for the inevitability that it will get broken by another group recruited by Walker-Hall.

“I feel like we started a good foundation for her to be able to recruit how she wants to now,” she said. “More fast girls will want to come here. So I would hope [the record falls]. I would like to see it get broken eventually because that would just show we started something.”

How quickly? Maya Tucker laughed. “Well, maybe a few years down the road.”