Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
Jan 4, 20232 min
"Anotha one." - Socrates, probably.
On Tuesday night, Alabama's Sam McDonnell announced that she will be transferring to UCLA for the upcoming semester. The true freshman is expected to have full eligibility across all three seasons of competition, minus one year of cross country.
McDonnell's transfer announcement came just hours after The Stride Report confirmed and reported that Virginia superstar Mia Barnett was also transferring to UCLA this semester.
McDonnell's recent move, while not anticipated, is also not surprising.
The now-former Crimson Tide rookie originally hails from California, previously attending Newbury Park High School. Now, she'll venture back home and join her former high school coach, Sean Brosnan, who is now the distance coach at UCLA.
The true freshman entered the NCAA with a wildly impressive resume, boasting times of 2:08 (800), 4:21 (1500), 4:37 (1600), 4:38 (mile), 10:12 (3200), 15:54 (3mi XC) and 16:48 (5k XC) during her prep days. McDonnell also placed 5th in the mile at the 2022 Brooks PR Invitational and secured a massive 6th place finish at the 2021 RunningLane XC National Championships.
Easily one of the more elite distance talents from the Class of 2022, McDonnell was viewed by The Stride Report as the future of Alabama's distance corps. The Crimson Tide women will soon be without long-time veteran Mercy Chelangat while fellow All-American Flomena Asekol has only one season of cross country eligibility remaining.
Of course, with Hilda Olemomoi looking like Alabama's next true superstar, there was still plenty of long-term firepower to pair with McDonnell as she continued to develop in Tuscaloosa.
Admittedly, McDonnell's first collegiate cross country season was fairly modest, although she did make numerous appearances in Alabama's varsity lineup throughout the fall months.
But with McDonnell now gone, the Alabama coaching staff will need to explore the rest of their relatively young (and talented) roster for long-term scoring value across all three seasons. Luckily, the Crimson Tide recently landed an outstanding group of recruits from the Class of 2022 that, over time, could prove to be quite dangerous.
However, McDonnell's eventual introduction to UCLA is arguably more important than her departure from Alabama.
The former Newbury Park High School star will now reunite with her high school coach, Sean Brosnan, who also just added a true NCAA star in Mia Barnett via the transfer portal. And with each of these women holding numerous years of eligibility, the future suddenly looks incredibly bright for the Bruins.
After what feels like an overnight heist, Brosnan has now dramatically altered the trajectory of this UCLA women's program for the better. McDonnell will still need to translate her high school success to the collegiate level, but when paired with Barnett, she gives UCLA two women who have run under 4:39 in the mile.
Greater recruiting efforts are still needed in order for UCLA to contend with the upper-ranks of the PAC-12 (and eventually the BIG 10). But Sean Brosnan is proving that his hiring was a good one and that he can recruit just as effectively as anyone else on the west coast.