Next Great Buff
Dominick Houston-Shepard is Marshall's dual-sport star
Ashton Jeanlewis
Apr 26, 2018, 9:36 pm
Entering April, Houston- Shepard was ranked No. 1 in Texas in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 36.76 seconds Vype
The Marshall Buffs have another one on their hands.
Another elite level, dual-sport athlete who calls Thurgood Marshall High home. He’s the next big thing on Buffalo Run.
His name is Dominick Houston-Shepard.
He’s made his name on the football field, torching defense all the way to the Region III title game last season. After an early transition to wide receiver, he hasn’t looked back.
“My freshman year I switched from defensive back to wide receiver because I love to score,” said Houston- Shepard.
Believe it or not, football isn’t even his primary sport.
No one in the nation has the combination of speed, flexibility, drive and natural ability that Dominick displays when he runs the hurdles.
Entering the month of April, Houston- Shepard was ranked No. 1 in Texas in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 36.76 seconds. That time was also good for third fastest in the country.
“I started as an 11-year-old,” Houston-Shepard said. ”My summer track coach was a hurdler herself, so she told me she was going to train me. That same season I won gold at the AAU Junior Olympics.”
That coach knows a thing or two about hurdling, considering she’s the three-time Big West 100-meter hurdle champion Tanya Davis Moore.
Moore runs a club track team that saw the potential of a young Houston-Shepard. He’s more than delivered on the promise Moore saw in him all those years ago. He still has loftier goals in mind as he eyes the state hardware.
After a fourth place finish in the 110-meter hurdles at state last year, Houston-Shepard has run with a vengeance in 2018.
In the 110-meter hurdles, Houston-Shepard has five first place finishes, including running a 14.16 at the Victor Lopez Classic. In the 300-meter hurdles, Houston- Shepard has reigned in three first place finishes, including a personal record at the Victor Lopez Classic.
But winning these meets in the hurdles aren’t the ultimate goal this season.
“My goal is to win state in both hurdles,” said Houston-Shepard.
So what’s the magic ingredient that FB Marshall has built their track legacy on?
“We consistently have some of the best athletes because of our work ethic,” said Houston-Shepard.
This article appears in the April Issue of VYPE Magazine. Pick up your copy at any one of our locations today!
It’s been an excellent weeklong stretch of games for the Astros tempered by the news of yet another season-ending injury to a starting pitcher. To get the bad news out of the way, it comes as no surprise that Ronel Blanco needs Tommy John surgery and is done until at least the middle of next season. While Blanco had not been nearly as good through nine 2025 starts as he was last season, he was still taking his regular return and on average getting into the sixth inning. Blanco turns 32 years old at the end of August. He’s not even salary arbitration-eligible until 2027. That last fact may be good news for him. The Astros will likely keep Blanco next year in hopes he can contribute in the second half of the season, since they will pay him barely the Major League minimum salary ($780,000 next year) That’s in contrast to Jose Urquidy, who in the midst of his salary arbitration years would have cost about three and a half million dollars to keep, so the Astros non-tendered him.
With Blanco joining Hayden Wesneski in the “See you next year! Hopefully.” club, it struck me as interesting that the Astros let Lance McCullers throw 102 pitches in his Wednesday outing vs. the Athletics. That’s eleven more than he had thrown in any of his prior four starts. McCullers holding up physically would be a huge boost, but the new essentials in the Astros’ rotation are Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown. Framber has settled in to the tune of a 1.93 earned run average over his last four starts. Brown’s season ERA is 2.00. Brown has had five days of rest before all eleven of his starts this season. This Sunday is Brown’s presently next scheduled outing. He would work on four days of rest if on the mound Sunday against the Rays.
Taking the last two games from the Mariners was huge (for the second half of May anyway). Keeping the good times rolling by sweeping the two-game miniseries from the A’s was less significant but still nice. Maybe not quite nice enough to have Frank “The Tank” from the movie Old School belting out “We’re going streaking!!!” but it did give the Astros their first four game winning streak of the season. They still have not lost more than three straight.
On a heater!
Speaking of streaking, time for annual mention of one of my all-time favorite baseball factoids. The 1916 New York Giants hold the MLB record for the longest win streak with an incredible 26 in a row. Earlier in the season the Giants ripped off 17 in a row. Combine the two streaks and that’s 43-0! The 1916 New York Giants finished in fourth place. In all their other games the Giants went 43-66. The American League’s longest ever winning streak is of fairly recent vintage. The 2007 Cleveland Indians won 22 straight. There have been only two other winning streaks since 1900 of at least 20 games. The 1935 Chicago Cubs won 21 straight. The Art Howe-managed 2002 Oakland A’s won 20 in a row, and were the inspiration for the movie Moneyball. The Astros have three 12 game winning streaks as the longest in their history.
Expect the unexpected
Tuesday’s win over the A’s brought the Astros to the one-third completed point of the regular season. Isaac Paredes was definitely their best offensive player to that milepost. His “on pace for” numbers were the best on the ballclub 33 home runs and 93 runs batted in. Paredes also led in runs scored with 29. The last Astro to lead the team in all three of those categories was Alex Bregman who did it in both 2018 and 2019. That Bregman was clearly a better player than this Paredes, but Isaac healthy and making “only” 6.625 million dollars this season is a heck of a lot better value than Bregman at 40 mil for the Red Sox, especially given that while Bregman was off to a sensational start for Boston, he’s now out for at least a month with a quad injury.
Hunter Brown is on pace to win 20 games. The last Astro to get there was Gerrit Cole on the last day of the 2019 regular season. The day before that Justin Verlander won his 21st game.
The Cleveland Guardians’ bullpen was awesome last season, by far the best in the league with four relievers who each pitched in at least 74 games posting ERAs of 1.92 or lower, headlined by closer Emmanuel Clase’s microscopic 0.61. One-third of the way through this season for the Astros: Bryan Abreu sat at 1.90, Steven Okert 1.82, Josh Hader 1.57, Bryan King 1.52.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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