Haley Moody Shines in Freshman Cross Country Campaign
11/8/2007 12:00:00 AM
By Scott Latta
UA Media Relations
Alabama women's cross-country coach Randy Hasenbank would tell you that freshman runner Haley Moody has a lot of potential when it comes to running at the college level. Her attitude, he says, is where it needs to be, as is her work ethic. Just one year removed from high school, she has the making of being one of Alabama's strongest runners by the time her career at the Capstone is through, he says.
But if results are any indicator of success, it has only taken one season for Moody to stake her claim.
In Alabama's season opener, Aug. 31 at the Belmont Opener at Vanderbilt University, Moody finished first on an Alabama squad that ended the day fifth. Two weeks later, at the Crimson Classic in Tuscaloosa, she was first on the team again. At the Loyola Lakefront in Chicago, it happened again, then again in October at the Chili Pepper Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark.
As Alabama heads into NCAA Regionals this Saturday in Gainesville, Fla., Moody, a true freshman from Morristown, Tenn. has been the top finisher in every race for the Tide this season, including Alabama's 10th-place finish at the SEC Championships, Oct. 27, where she finished in the top 15 overall.
Her performance in Lexington against the SEC's best earned her second-team all-SEC and first-team All-Freshman SEC.
"She's got great potential and great work ethic and great attitude and she wanted to win that race the other day," said Hasenbank of Moody's run at the SEC's. "She got 13th, but she really believed in herself that she could go out and win it. She's definitely got the mentality that she can go out and run and compete at a championship level, which is really important."
Pulling a runner with Moody's talent from out-of-state was not an easy task for the Alabama coaching staff, particularly Hasenbank, who arrived late in the recruiting game for Moody's signing class. Much of the groundwork had already been done by other coaches, who were going to races and establishing relationships with high school juniors, while Hasenbank was just trying to prepare for his first season as Alabama's head coach.
So he made a short list of the recruits he wanted at Alabama, and Moody was at the top. He called her, and eventually got out to see her. She had taken almost one-half of a second off of her 3200m time??a remarkable improvement??in getting the time down to 10.50. So Hasenbank gave it a shot.
"We had very good conversations early on," he said. "She liked the plan, the style, the approach, and the University of Alabama sells itself. I think we recruited her very well."
Luckily, both Hasenbank and the University of Alabama had one major thing in their favor regarding the Tennessee native.
"I definitely didn't want to go to UT," she said. "I came here to visit and liked the coach and got pretty close with some of the girls on the team. There are only 12 of us so we're pretty close. I just liked the school and the town and decided this was where I wanted to go."
For Moody, it didn't take long to realize the potential impact she could have on a young Alabama squad, which features six freshmen. In the Belmont Opener, Moody finished seventh overall, just 10 seconds behind the race's winner. It was then, she said, she knew she wanted it.
One week later, she would get it: at the Crimson Classic, Moody took third overall ?? a performance good enough to earn her SEC Freshman of the Week honors by the Southeastern Conference.
It was then that it began to become apparent what the goal for the rest of the Alabama team would be. Close the gap.
"We do 400-meter repeats and they're all within a second or two on the repeats, but it's in the longer stuff where Haley has such great endurance and is talented and gifted in that area that she'll separate and get a big gap on the group," Hasenbank said. "That's why the tempo runs and the long runs she's mastered. She's very good at that, and the rest of the squad we have to work on that. That's our goal, to close that gap."
Having such a major contributor so early in her career is not unusual at the high school level, Hasenbank said, where young runners can come in and make an impact on rosters early in their development. In college, however, it can be tougher. The competition, especially in the talented SEC, is at the highest level, which makes Moody's quick progression on the Alabama roster all the more impressive to the second-year Alabama coach.
"As a high school coach many times we had high school runners come in and impact," Hasenbank said. "At the university level, not so much. It's been a growing process, but she's come in very motivated and taken to the training very well. She's eager to learn. We've been patient in some aspects of the training and aggressive in others so she hasn't been spent yet and is progressing nicely."
In the hierarchy of SEC runners, Hasenbank said Moody is already on the outside fringe of the South's elite. To get better, he said, she'll have to develop a training base that allows her to stay healthy, picking and choosing which races are important and focusing on the physical preparation. Consistency is the key.
And with the NCAA regionals upcoming, it's clear that any goal that was set for her before the season has been long since passed. With a top-four finish, she'll advance and continue her shot at a national championship. It's a tall task, Hasenbank says, but not out of the question.
"She knows what she needs to do," he said. "We're not in the team hunt just yet but individually she needs to be in the top four. If she pulls that off she goes to the national championship. There are probably eight to 10 individuals good enough to take those spots and I think she's good enough to be in that group. She's got that youthful enthusiasm and she believes in herself which is important."
For Moody, however, any focus on individual performance takes a backseat to her overall goal as an Alabama runner: working to improve a team with one-half of its roster composed of freshmen.
A strong performance at regionals, she knows, will go a long way toward that goal.
"We want to improve," she said. "We want to build on what we have and just be better than last year."
