IT’S GETTING LESS AND LESS unusual to see high schoolers breaking through on the world class level in the sport, whether it’s Sydney McLaughlin and Mondo Duplantis in the mid-2010s or Cooper Lutkenhaus and Quincy Wilson now.
When that breakthrough happens, it often happens really fast — even if the approach is measured and meticulous. For Texas preps Mia and Mariah Maxwell — training and competing with Coach Danny McCray’s Houston-based APXP Performance — well, you could say it happened in just over 7 seconds.
Because there the twins were, just beyond the finish line at the USATF Indoor Championships in New York on March 1, being interviewed by NBC’s trackside stalwart Lewis Johnson after they finished 2nd and 3rd behind pro Jacious Sears in the women’s 60. Mia had tied the HSR with 7.13 behind Sears’ 7.04, while Mariah was just 0.01 back at 7.14.
“It was definitely kind of unreal,” says Mariah now. “I didn’t really get a chance to process it until the meet was over, and I was watching videos of my race and the interviews. It all happened so fast. It was just really crazy.”
As her sister would agree. It didn’t really hit Mia until the plane ride home. “I was like, ‘Wow, I really just did that.’ And it was really cool, and I think it made the moment even better sharing it with Mariah.
“I know in high school our coaches didn’t really get her the opportunity to run the short sprints as much as I did. So being able to see how she’s evolved from that, like mentally and physically, and being able to share those moments with her, is really cool. It was definitely a moment to remember.”
To some, the “sharing it with Mariah” part might not seem significant… because, after all, they’re identical twins who are nearly identical super-fast sprinters, right?
Well, not so fast. The journey to that moment hasn’t been the same for the Texan seniors (they get their classwork in at Atascocita HS in Humble). Mia was a bit faster and broke through to the highest level more quickly while also becoming the nation’s best triple jumper. Mariah has gradually embraced her calling as the better long sprinter while eschewing the jumps (for now), yet at the same time, getting faster and faster at the short stuff.
Hence, in New York, they arrived almost together at the finish line — literally and figuratively — and that’s part of the reason why it was so significant. But it’s also a significant part of an ascension (a long-term breakthrough) that really began in earnest in May of ’24, when the twins first joined APXP after their soph year at Atascocita. Their jumps coach, Marlin Hargrove, had fervently recommended that McCray invite them to do so.
“He was in my ear for over a year about these two girls and that I needed to coach them,” McCray says. They came to APXP (in Houston suburb Katy) as soon as the state meet was over, Mariah training for summer meets and Mia rehabbing from injury, working on mechanics.
“I knew after watching them the first week they were there [how good they would be],” he recalls. “I told their parents what they would end up being and they didn’t believe me [at first].… Obviously, they had a lot of untapped potential. First, it was about getting Mia healthy and Mariah to have her confidence.”
But really you have to take a few more steps back to tell this story. The twins gave T&F a whirl as pre-teens when they lived in Indiana. It didn’t take. Then, after moving to Texas, they joined their friends in checking out different sports in 8th-grade.
“We tried volleyball first, but we didn’t even finish the tryouts,” Mariah says. “Then we tried basketball, which was OK, and then after that the coaches saw the speed that we had playing basketball so they’re like, ‘Okay, so why don’t y’all run track?’
“We started winning, and it kind of just took off from there.”
The twins started off running for their school, but it was when Coach Hargrove saw them jump and took them under his wing that the ascension really began.
“He immediately knew that we had something special,” Mia says. “He was the first coach that was like, ‘These twins definitely have something in them. They just need help getting it out.’… He opened our shell up with the sport and opened our eyes to what we could become.”
By the end of their soph seasons at Atascocita, Mia had run 11.65 and tripled 40-8, while Mariah had run 24.26. But neither made it to 6A State in an individual sprint. They were ready for what APXP had to offer.
“I missed the state qualifying spot by not much, and I remember Coach McCray telling me that that would never happen again… and it didn’t,” Mia says.
But while Mia was focused on rehab that summer of ’24, Mariah “began her journey.”
“I would say Coach McCray taught us pretty much everything about the sport,” she says. “The science of the sport [especially], because he was our first sprint coach and trainer, and the basic biomechanics of sprinting.
“And he also helped me with my confidence. Before I came to APXP, I wasn’t really confident in my abilities. He would tell me things that I could do and I would be like, ‘OK,’ but I didn’t really believe him.”
And then when it happened, I was like, ‘Oh, he’s serious. I could really run that fast.’”
“That fast” turned out to be sharp improvements to 11.53 and 23.82 that summer, earning her 3rd and 1st, respectively, at USATF JO Nationals.
Says Mia, who didn’t begin training in earnest until the fall, “I say this all the time: Without Coach McCray, I don’t think we would know pretty much anything technical with the sport. Before we met him, we were just out there running, and we didn’t really know [what we were doing].
“Off the track too, like diet-wise, treatment-wise, he’s still teaching us things that we will keep through our college and pro life.”
That first winter with APXP, the twins made it to 3rd (Mariah) and 4th (Mia) in the Nike Indoor 60 (with near-identical 7.30s). Mia also won the triple jump and was 3rd in the 200, and Mariah 6th in the long jump.
Back at Atascocita in the spring of ’25, it was back to Mia running the 100 and Mariah the 200 in almost every meet, along with relays. Mia was on a stunning path that would see her go from 11.40 to 11.20 and then finally twin 11.04s to win State and then the Brooks PR Invite.
“It happened so fast,” Mia says. “I just remember thinking, ‘Dang, this is crazy.’ I just wanted to win, so I was just trying to stick to my form and technique, because I knew at that point that it all was just down to my mental. Once I crossed the line and saw that time, I was like, ‘Wow, this is what [Coach McCray] was talking about.”
Meanwhile, Mariah surged under 23 in the 200, winning the state title there, then the two continued to score high podium finishes at the Nike, U-20 and JO championships. Mia claimed Nike TJ and 100 titles.
Late that spring was also when the twins made a decision that they would not compete for Atascocita their senior year.
“It was a difficult decision to make,” says Mia, “because we do have a good relationship with the girls on the team and the coaches, but unfortunately, in the sport, you have to be a little selfish at times. You have to think about yourself and your future down the road, and that’s what we were thinking after we ran these fast times: ‘Hey, Mariah needs to get some 100s in, and Mia needs to get some 200s in so we can be dominant sprinters,’ and things like that.
“I feel like the indoor season that we started our first year not running with high school track definitely backed up our decision,” adds Mariah.
Indoor season began with a unique, watershed moment for each twin, now also members of the NSAF’s Nike Elite program. At the North Texas Jumps Showcase in December, Mia exploded to a 44-6 TJ that just missed the HSR and was No. 2 all-time.
“I just knew that I wanted to do something crazy… because I just really wanted to prove, not to myself but to others, that I’m a jumper as well,” she says, “so I remember just popping out that first jump. Coach Hargrove always says, ‘Set the tone.’ So that’s always how I have to do.”
It was also special for Mia and her jumps coach of nearly four years, sharing a monster breakthrough. “I remember Coach Hargrove would always talk to me, like how I have something special.… So it was really bittersweet. He’s like, ‘Oh, we did it. We’re getting there!’ It’s really cool to see how not only have I evolved as an athlete… he’s learning more, I’m learning more, and it’s really nice being able to share that experience with him as he was technically our first coach.”
A month later, Mariah made headlines like never before, smashing the 300 HSR at the VA Showcase in her debut at the distance: “It was my first time running a 300. I really didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how I was gonna feel after the race, but I turned around and looked at the clock, and I heard them say national record, and it was crazy.”
A whirlwind of success continued, with their landmark USATF 60s and their well-chronicled 200 (Mariah) and TJ (Mia) titles at Nike Indoor.
Outdoors, while Mia has taken a short break from competition, Mariah has continued to improve her 200 résumé. First, she laid down a windy 22.25 (3.8) at Texas Relays. Two weeks later she dashed to 2nd at the Tom Jones Memorial by a mere 0.04 to former NCAA champ and Olympic finalist McKenzie Long, 22.40-22.44, into a 2.2 headwind. The twins will continue to hone in on their long-term goal for ’26, which is showing out at the World U-20 Championships in Eugene in August.
Coach McCray can’t say enough about the twins’ dedication and leadership, whether it’s effusing over the 1:40 each-way drives they’ve made countless times from Humble to Katy for training, or how they set examples for a stellar APXP group that includes elite preps like Dillon Mitchell, Chinweoke “Sam” Onwuchekwa, Parker Coes and Josh Shelton.
“They’re the most disciplined athletes I’ve ever known,” he says, “It shows that they and their family value coaching, that they’re dedicated to the things that make them better… and they are still managing their schoolwork to the point where they are both in the National Honor Society.
“And their 10-year-old sister Madison might be even better!”
There is little question that this spring and summer will hold many more moments to remember during their shared, yet unique journeys.
