Salem freshman Chaya Murray is already showing potential to be one of the Quakers' best. (Photo by Ron Firth)

SALEM — Salem freshman Chaya Murray set a school record in her first high school meet and hasn’t slowed down since.

Her much-anticipated arrival on the scene included four wins at the Columbiana County Meet and four school records so far.

Murray heads into the Division III state track meet on Friday morning with the top time in the girls 200-meter dash in 24.64 seconds.

“Amazing,” Salem senior Karlie Sampson said. “I’m in awe of her.”

“She’s a once in a generational athlete,” Salem senior Lucas Adams said. “Her senior year it’s going to be nuts. She’s going to running in the mid-23s.”

Murray also will run the anchor leg on the 400- and 1600-meter relay teams.

She joins senior Angie Hoffaker, junior Abby Knickerbocker and Sampson on the 400 relay and senior Laura Hovorka, Knickerbocker and Sampson on the 1600 relay.

“I think we expected it with Chaya Murray,” Hoffaker said. “She is really fast. She keeps PRing every meet.”

“She makes it look so easy,” Sampson said. “She runs in the 4×400 and looks so strong in the last 100, when I’m dying.”

Murray will run in three preliminaries in an hour and 40 minutes Friday at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium on the campus of Ohio State University.

“We know deep down what we can accomplish is big,” she said. “I don’t think there’s pressure. We all have fun.”

Besides the 200 dash, Murray also has the top time in the area in the 100 dash (12.20), 400 relay (49.40), 800 relay (1:45.88) and 1600 relay (4:00.90).

She also ranks among the leaders in the 100 hurdles (16.47), 400 dash (63.17) and long jump (15-feet-11).

“She’s been a workhorse,” Salem girls coach Ted Yuhaniak said. “She so good in a lot of different things.”

Murray’s success is only a surprise to people who don’t know her.

“I knew how hard she was working in the winter,” Salem sprint coach Austin Noel said. “I think she carries a lot on her shoulders.”

Murray said the race that impressed her the most was when the 1600 relay ran four minutes flat at the Eastern Buckeye Conference Meet.

“That was pretty nice,” she said. “I just want to continue working at it, be healthy and safe, and dominate at state.”

Murray showed what she is made of after false starting in the 100 dash to open the Austintown regional meet.

“Just something happened,” Murray said. “It happened and I didn’t let it affect me.”

“She was upset initially and she should be,” Noel said. “But she came out in the next race and brought us back in the 4×1.”

All eyes will be on her at the state meet, especially in the 200 dash. It will be an open field as the top four finishers from last year graduated.

“I’m sure there are some nerves she doesn’t tell us about,” Yuhaniak said. “She’s so calm. I just think it is she’s confident.”

“We don’t think about it, we just do it,” Murray said.

She has been to the state meet before to watch her sister Annika run there.

“It was exciting,” Chaya said. “The stadium was big, there were a lot of people and the competition was insane.”

It would be even more insane to leave Columbus on Saturday night as a state champion.