Aledo freshman Graydon Morris has been running exceptionally fast all year with several top finishes in big Texas meets, but Morris shocked the south region when he ran a blazing 15:06 to finish 7th and nab a spot to nationals. In his post-race interview, Morris said he's been thinking about this race since last year, and even with the nerves, it all came down to trusting his training. "It was a little intimidating standing on the line seeing that many people there, but then once I got into the race I just kind of trusted my training and kind of everything fell into place I guess," Morris explained.
Digging all the way back to 2000 there has never been a freshman to represent the south region at Foot Locker Nationals. In fact, Morris will be the first freshmen at Foot Locker since this year's NCAA 4th place finisher Futsum Zienasellassie. Zienasellassie and Morris are the only two freshmen to make it to the national meet digging back the past 16 years. The last underclassmen runner to make the meet out of the south region was Thomas Porter from Fredericksburg in 2006. The year before that Southlake's Colby Lowe was the most recent Texas underclassmen to make the meet.
Morris will be joined by four other Texas guys including fellow underclassmen Alex Maier. Maier finished 3rd at the meet to advance behind New Braunfels Canyon Sam Worley and North Carolina's Connor Lane from Cardinal Gibbons. Finishing in 4th was Pflugerville Henderickson's Daniel Viegra, and 6th was Reed Brown rounding out the texas quintet.
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