Women's Track & Field | 6/6/2018 5:27:00 PM
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FAIRFAX, Va. – Whether it is at the Atlantic 10 Championships or near the end of a long, grueling practice,
Sarah Moore's demeanor rarely wavers.
Her positive attitude and trademark smile are contagious and boost her teammates and coaches on the George Mason track and field team.
"One thing Sarah does come with is a really great attitude about competing," head coach
Andrew Gerard said. "She is known for being up and excited. She genuinely gets excited about it."
She certainly has had a lot to smile about the last two weeks.
The sprinter will compete in the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Thursday at historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. The junior from Silver Spring, Md., will run in the semifinals of the 400-meter dash at 8:30 p.m. (EST) on Thursday. The race will be broadcast live on ESPN2. The top two runners in each of the three heats, along with the two next best times, advance to the final at 7:44 p.m. (EST) on Saturday.
Moore qualified for the national meet for the first time in her career after finishing 11th in the East Preliminary on May 25 with a personal-best time of 52.09 – the second-fastest time in school history.
"I'm still not processing that I'm going to nationals," Moore said last week. "It is really crazy. Honestly, nationals wasn't on my mind at all. I just wanted to perform well at this meet. I don't have words to describe how I felt."
The sports management major picked a great time to have the best two races of her career.
Already having collected gold medals at the 2018 A-10 championship in the 400-meter dash and as a member of the 4x400-meter relay team, Moore qualified for one of the 48 spots at the NCAA East Preliminary Championship thanks to a personal-best time of 53.41 at the A-10 meet.
Though Moore's time of 53.41 was impressive, and ranked ninth all-time in program history, in the East region it was just the 37th fastest time. And only the top 12 in each region advance to the national meet in Eugene.
So it wasn't far-fetched to say Moore needed to make quite the leap in order to crack the top 12, which meant she'd have to run 52.37 or faster based on the qualifying times in the East region.
"You have been doing this long enough you know anything can happen," said associate head coach
Randy Bungard, who oversees the sprinters. "But it just wasn't expected – by her or me. We were just hoping she would go in and run a season-best and represent her and Mason well. And she just ended up running really well."
Having run at the East Preliminary Championships the year before benefited her when she strolled into this year's meet in Tampa two weeks ago.
Well-rested after last competing 12 days before at the ECAC Championships, where she won another gold medal as a member of the 4x100-meter relay team, Moore posted the fourth-fastest time in her heat – the first of the day. Her time of 52.789 was a personal-best and was the 20th fastest of the preliminaries, advancing her to the quarterfinals as one of the top 24 times.
The next day, on May 25, starting out of lane eight for the second straight day, she ran the fifth-fastest time in her heat. But her heat turned out to be the fastest of the three that day, getting five runners through to nationals.
Her personal-best time of 52.09 stood as the ninth-fastest before the third and final heat. Some 52 seconds later, her time outlasted six of the final eight runners in the third heat to punch her ticket to Eugene.
"She had a certain calm about her. She felt like she had nothing to lose," Bungard said. "One of the last things I told her before the first round as they were marching them out, I said, 'Have fun and just go race.'"
For Moore, her goal entering the meet was simple: improve on her 2017 performance at the NCAA East Preliminary Championships, where she finished 43rd with a time of 55.28.
"I did terrible last year so I guess this year I was more motivated to come out with a better time," she said. "I wanted to the end year on a good note. I wanted to see my hard work validated. This year has been pretty long and a pretty hard-working year. I think I had a lot of expectations for myself during the indoor season and I didn't meet them. So in the back of my head, I was just working hard to let my hard work be validated.
"It was the craziest experience. It was so surreal. I couldn't believe it. I'm still in shock. Up until now, I never thought I'd be on that level to be competing at nationals."
The 5-foot-3 sprinter jumped on the recruiting radar of many collegiate coaches late in her high school career. She started running track her freshman year at James Hubert Blake High School. But she wasn't a sprinter at first. She ran longer distances, competing in the 800 and mile.
"I wasn't good at long distances," said Moore, who also played volleyball and soccer in high school.
Her junior year, she made the switch to sprints and hurdles at the urging of James Hubert Blake's new track coach, Brandon Tynes. She founded her niche in the 400-meter dash.
Her breakout year came in 2015 as a senior as she finished sixth in the 400 at the New Balance Nationals indoor meet. She also helped the 4x400-meter relay team of the Five Star Track and Field Club win the gold medal at the 2015 AAU Junior Olympic Games in the 17-to-18-year-old division.
It was about that time that George Mason came on the scene. Then-assistant coach
Kia Id-Deen, who is now a volunteer assistant coach at North Carolina, ran into Moore at indoor nationals that March and showed interest. Moore didn't think much of it. But as the season went on, the Patriots, Id-Deen and her husband, Abigi Id-Deen, also then an assistant coach at Mason and now at UNC, kept in contact.
"They showed me love," Moore said. "Mason was the only school that stayed with me the whole time – even before I was good, what I would consider good, at track."
Long before track came into the picture, Moore had Mason in her sights.
"Mason has always been my No. 1 school," Moore said. "I liked the whole idea of Mason – the whole diversity aspect was cool to me, how close it was to home to me. I can literally get home on the Metro. It was really close. When I was looking at Mason there were a lot of benefits – more than the other schools I was looking at. Then, track was a plus because I knew the track program was good. I love the community here (at Mason). I feel like everyone is so genuinely friendly and accepting. It is just a great place to be. The atmosphere is so comforting. I don't ever feel out of place, which is awesome."
Hailing from Silver Spring, Moore said living in a diverse community wasn't new to her. But she did like walking into a university and athletic department where she didn't just see white and black.
"I think it is cool to get to know different people," Moore said. "It is cool that I come here and there is African people, black people, white people, people from Germany, people from Spain. It is really cool."
Moore is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Solomon and Moni. They moved to the states more than 25 years ago. Moore, who is the second-youngest of four, has an older brother, Sola, who lives in Nigeria.
To Moore, her parents' home country has always been part of her fabric, too.
"I think everyone wants to know where they come from," Moore said. "It is nice to identify as something. I think that for me to identify as just being black would be too broad. Obviously, I'm black. But to say I am Nigerian is to go deeper. And it is deeper because that is where my family is directly from. I'm not just an African-American. I'm Nigerian-American.
"Growing up, my mom wanted us to have a good sense of our culture. Growing up in America, we are going to be American but I think my mom wanted us to remember we have a heritage."
On Thursday, she'll try to add to a strong collegiate career that already features seven A-10 gold medals (indoor and outdoor) and three ECAC titles. And regardless of the result, Moore will emerge with a smile on her face.
"I'm so looking forward to nationals. I'm so excited," she said. "I just want to progress, whether that would be place or time. Whatever is supposed to happen I would be down for. Obviously, it would be awesome to make it to the next round and place in the final. I'm content just going."
