The 400-meter relay is an event that requires impressive speed and artful precision.

A quartet of runners from Homewood-Flossmoor — junior Joshua Bridges, sophomore Jesuseun Adeyiga, senior Matthew Lewis-Banks and senior Marcell Ellis — combined those traits in last year’s state meet. They won the Class 3A championship in 41.78 seconds.

All have returned for this season. Repeating the feat is prevalent in the minds of the foursome, but each realizes the event isn’t going to simply reward them with another title based solely on past laurels.

“We’ve been talking about that a lot actually,” Homewood-Flossmoor coach Nate Beebe said. “We try to keep them grounded and make sure that they understand that someone will try to steal it from them. It isn’t going to just be handed to them.”

Bridges, the leadoff runner, knows he sets the tone for the Vikings.

“You get to get out first and give your team a good start out to the race,” he said. “We won the state meet last year, but right now we’re really motivated to break the state record and get into the 40-second range, which no one in Illinois has done.”

Cahokia owns the state meet record of 41.12, set in the 2015 final.

While it was unexpected that last year’s team of underclassmen would take home the top prize, confidence grew steadily in the unit.

“It was a little bit of a surprise,” Adeyiga said. “It was the first time a team from H-F had won a relay, but it also wasn’t a surprise because we went into state as the No. 1 seed so we knew that we could do it. We knew what we could do when we really perform.”

But even the team that finds itself on top of the podium at season’s end faces challenges. Lewis-Banks realized the Vikings needed him to deliver at a critical juncture in the state final.

“When I got the baton, the runner from East St. Louis was a couple of steps ahead,” Lewis-Banks said. “But as third leg I know that it is my job to get Marcell a cushion so he can bring it home and that’s exactly what I did.”

Ellis, a transfer from Morgan Park, operates in the anchor spot. Much of the spotlight falls on the final runner, but that’s an opportunity Ellis relishes.

“It’s kind of fun being the anchor,” Ellis said. “We have some of the best sprinters in the state and I’m very confident in my team.

“If I am behind, for me it is about staying calm and staying patient and staying in my acceleration. I have to stay focused and run my race.”

Lewis-Banks was the only one of the three who was not a part of the fourth-place 800 relay, but he finished eighth in the 110 hurdles.

All four could be a vital component in piling points up for H-F’s larger goal: a team state championship trophy.

H-F finished in a tie for fifth place in last year’s team standings with 28 points. Edwardsville won with 42.

“The whole group, not just those four guys, understands what the big goal is and they want to be a part of it,” Beebe said.

Steve Soucie is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.