CHARLOTTE, N.C. (BVM) — Ardrey Kell junior Xavier Branker constantly pushes himself to get faster. His competitive spirit and desire to improve transformed him into a state champion in track. 

Branker’s father ran track in high school and college. After hearing stories from his dad, Branker decided to join his school’s track team in seventh grade. 

“I played tennis for a little bit, but my dad started telling me about how he ran track,” Branker said. “So I joined my middle school team in seventh grade, and I just did jumping events then, but I got into hurdles the next year and then I kind of just took off from there.”

Unlike other sports, improving in track is seen on paper. Getting faster is reflected in your times and can be tracked from one’s first run to their last. That is one of the reasons Branker said he loves to run track.

Another reason is the competition. Competing against different athletes on his team and other teams is what motivates Branker to constantly improve. 

“My main motivator is my teammates,” Branker said. “It’s nice to have teammates that are faster than you because they can really push you in practice, and if I’m not pushing the practice, I’m not doing anything in a race.”

Branker won his first conference championship in his sophomore season at Ardrey Kell. This year he defended his title, beating local competition along the way.

“My times were much faster this year, so it was good to have some improvement and actually run against some people, since it was conference, I knew most of them because they’re all local, so that was also nice,” Branker said. 

At regionals, with the temperatures rising, Branker would attempt to punch his ticket to the state championships. 

“Those are the first two hot meets of the year, so the hardest part of it is definitely staying hydrated and getting enough food,” Branker said. “I didn’t have a great start in 110 hurdles, but I came back to win at the end.”

At state, Branker competed in the 110-meter hurdles, the 300-meter hurdles and the 4×200-meter relay. Despite what he felt was an underwhelming performance the previous year, he was confident in his abilities to come out on top. 

“I was there last year and it didn’t really go as planned,” Branker said. “I was still kind of fighting through an injury… I knew I had what it takes to win, so I just had to execute.”

Branker executed well. The 4×200 relay team finished fourth overall, and in his other two events, Xavier won the 4A state championship. 

In the 110 hurdles preliminary, Branker finished with the second-fastest time, behind Porter Ridge’s Brandon Benitez. In the final, the heat started to hit, but Branker fought through it to beat Benitez by one-hundredth of a second.

“That was the first one that he started getting to me, so I don’t remember the first half of the race,” Branker said. “I remember kind of locking in the second half,”

In the 300 hurdles, Branker finished with a time of 38.16 seconds, winning by .81 seconds. He captured his second state title on the same day.

“I didn’t even really comprehend, and I kind of just laid out, got some water because I was struggling after that,” Branker said. “I think like 15, 20 minutes later, I really sat and like, ‘Wow, I did this twice. This is great.”

Afterward, he celebrated with his family, teammates and coaches.  

“I think my mom was probably the proudest of me,” Branker said. “It was nice to go back to my team after and get congratulated by everybody, it was so much fun, and my coaches were so proud.”

Branker will attend nationals June 16-19. He has high hopes it will bring out more in him. 

“I’m just looking forward to racing people faster than me because that’ll bring out a lot much better times,” Branker said. “I have decent amount of hope for this 400 hurdles. If I get it all together, I think I could top 10, maybe the top five.” 

Branker has one more year at Ardrey Kell and has some personal goals he wants to achieve. More than that, he wants to find an opportunity to run to the next level.

“I want to get to college, so that’s the main thing that’s pushing me,” Branker said. “I’m just trying to improve little by little, get some attention from coaches.”

No matter how he ends his high school career, Branker wants to be remembered as a competitor and a good teammate. 

“I want to be remembered, and I want them to look back on me like, ‘wow, he was a great athlete, he was so much fun to be around’’ Branker said. “There’s a couple of people that were on my team that I still think about and that were just great role models, and I want to be like that.”

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