Wednesday marks the start of the 97th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, known for hosting the most talented high school, collegiate and professional athletes.

Texas women’s track and field had a rocky end to its indoor season, placing 12th out of 16 at the Southeastern Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships. But heading into this esteemed home meet, many stand-out athletes are equipped to compete after achieving personal feats at the conclusion of the indoor season and their most recent meet at the Kirk Baptiste Invitational in Houston, Texas.

Close to her hometown of Kingwood, Texas, freshman Nita Koom-Dadzie won both the women’s 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash at the Kirk Baptiste Invitational. Making a name for herself in her first season as a Longhorn, she is set to compete in those same races, along with the 4×100 relay, this week.

Sophomore Carleta Bernard will also be competing in the same events. At the end of her 60-meter qualifying race in College Station at the SEC Championships, she recalled how she wanted to improve heading into the outdoor season. With the race exposure gained during the indoor season, along with earning a personal best of 7.25 seconds in that event, she’s determined to keep making strides going into this home meet.

“Every meet has been a struggle, so each meet, I’ve been having to learn to bounce back to just refocus,” Bernard said. “It’s just giving me more race experience, and it’s preparing me for outdoors.”

Wednesday morning will be centered around the heptathlon, where freshmen Meagan Humphries and Texas’s multi-event debutant Tabea Eitel look to shine.

Senior Meredith Adams won the women’s discus event in Houston with a personal-best throw of 50.91 and will be back for the Relays. Her impressive throw in Kirk Baptiste moved her to No. 10 on the Texas All-Time Performer List.

Joining her will be senior Chrystal Herpin, also competing in the shot put. From one Texas city to another, she’s been incredibly successful in the shot put event, so this week in Austin should not be too different. In College Station, Herpin threw a season-best throw of 17.30 meters, and in Houston, she won the event with a throw of 16.31 meters.

The distance team will be making its outdoor debut for this season.

Assistant coach Sarah Smith said she is looking forward to seeing her distance runners, such as graduate transfer Elizabeth Stockman and senior Eva Jess, take the track in a familiar environment.

“(The distance runners) will have a great opportunity to open at home, which is always really nice,” Smith said. “It’s a little bit more of a controllable environment and provides a lot of great opportunities for everyone that we have here.”

At the conference championships, Jess broke the 5000-meter program record for a second time.

“We need to make sure that we are working to get everybody prepared to compete at that level because that’s what the expectation is,” Smith said. “So there were definitely some highlights of the (SEC Indoor Track and Field Championship), but overall, a lot of work needs to be done.”

Stockman will be participating in the 1500-meter run, and leading up to this week, she has been busy “gearing up” for this race and “continuing to get stronger and grow with the team.”

She holds four program records at Richmond, in the indoor and outdoor distance medley race, the indoor 3000-meter race and the outdoor 5000-meter race. She said moving to the Forty Acres has provided her with the opportunity to see a new team atmosphere and improve as an athlete.

“This is my last year, so it’s been bittersweet, but it’s been fun,” Stockman said. “It’s been cool to get to experience the team as a whole and just see the environment that Texas is.”

Along with the 1500-meter event, Stockman will compete in the 4×800 race and the 5000-meter race, which is an event that Jess will also take part in. According to Smith, Jess thrives when the races are longer, as “the longer (the race,) the better (she does.)”

The meet will take place from Wednesday, March 26 to Saturday, March 29 at Mike A. Myers Track and Soccer Stadium. With each of these athletes and the feats they accomplished up to this point, that same energy and determination should show, especially when competing with the home-field advantage.