NCAA Indoor 800m Champion Sabrina Southerland Signs With The Brooks Beasts

By Jonathan Gault
September 5, 2018

NCAA indoor 800-meter champion Sabrina Southerland has signed a contract with the Brooks Beasts.

Southerland at World Juniors in 2014 (photo by Chris Lotsbom for Race Results Weekly)

Southerland, 22, competed for Georgetown University for three years and graduated in 2017, but did not truly flourish until heading to the University of Oregon for her final year of eligibility in 2018. After failing to make the final in five previous trips to NCAAs, Southerland entered the 2018 NCAA indoor meet as the 14th seed in the 16-woman field but exited as the surprising champion after running a 1.55-second PR of 2:01.55 in the final.

Outdoors, Southerland lowered her PR to 2:00.72 (#10 in the USA this year) and went on to finish 7th at NCAAs and 8th at USAs.

“She’s run 52.1 in a 4 x 400 split, her one 1,500 [this year], she won in 4:16,” said Brooks Beasts coach Danny Mackey. “Her fifth year was awesome. She just improved so much from leaving Georgetown and I think that amount of improvement in that short of time with that much range tells me she has a really good upside.”

Southerland’s agent Ray Flynn said that Southerland plans to stay in Eugene this fall to complete her master’s degree and plans on moving to Seattle to begin training with the Beasts after the fall semester.