By Jenny Sanchez
EUGENE, Oregon – Inching to the front in the final 50 meters, Texas A&M freshman Sammy Watson won her first NCAA title in the 800 meters on a wet Saturday at the NCAA Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field, upsetting form-chart favorite Sabrina Southerland of Oregon.
Watson finished with a time of 2 minutes, 4.21 seconds to beat second-place finisher Abike Egbeniyi from Middle Tennessee State by 0.12 second.
“It’s crazy,” said Watson. “It’s nice knowing all the hard work paid off with all the trials, the tough workouts and the doubt. It meant something, and it came to something.”
Up until the break to the rail coming around the final turn, Watson was behind Egbeniyi, who had led the pack for the majority of the race, spreading out the runners of the group. Through 700 meters leading up to the finish line, the Aggie runner continued to pump her arms to give it her all without the thought of panicking.
Inching closer to the pack leader, Watson told herself, “Just pump your arms and don’t panic. You’re built for this. You trained for this moment.”
Looking up and taking a glance to the big screen, Watson squeezed past the Middle Tennessee runner, dipped at the finish line and fell to the ground.
“The times I spent to train for this moment mean that much more to me,” said Watson, who grew up in Rochester, New York. “I feel like I gave it my all in this college experience to race with some girls on my level and better. Willing to work through a race and work through a pack and stay relaxed …. that has been worked on this year to get to today.”
This finished a stretch of successful races for Watson in her first collegiate season. At the Reveille Invitational in December, she posted a time of 2:42.12 in the 1,000 meters, which ranks seventh on the collegiate indoor all-time list and bettered the Texas A&M school record of 2:43.12 set last season by teammate Jasmine Fray.
With her first collegiate season with the Aggies in the books, the 18-year-old freshman came into the race eager to win the title before the thought of going pro.
Watson’s decision to go to college, it seems, was a wager worth making.
“I wanted this bad since September,” said Watson. “Hopefully there are more stories that I can tell in the next couple of years to do better and be better, but I did want to put this on my resume. I do not have any regrets on not going pro because I knew I can do that later.”
Oregon’s Southerland was the favorite coming in to the final on Saturday, but she finished seventh in 2:06.99.
“I’m not going to let this one race define me,” she said. “And I feel like it does not reflect who I am as a runner or a as a person. It is pretty disheartening to have this outcome, but this isn’t the end.”
