For Ponte Vedra senior Ellie Moritz and her family running track at Georgia Tech is a tradition that she will proudly continue.
Moritz’s father and uncle ran for the Yellow Jackets and her sister is currently on the team as a senior.
“We have really good family ties with Georgia Tech,” she said.
The program’s current head coach Alan Drosky also coached her dad in the early 1990s.
“I had already seen the campus with my sister going there but visited again in December and I was reassured it was the place for me,” Moritz said.
She had not run competitively growing up until her parents convinced her to give it a try her freshman year of high school.
Over the years she has really started training and striving to be the best runner she can be, and the results have been there to back it up.
According to Moritz, her personal best was 24.50 her freshman season, a time she got down to 19:40 in a couple of years.
“I love seeing when all the hard work pays off,” Moritz said.
Oddly enough, it was the pandemic that really helped her find the next level of performance.
“The pandemic hit, and I had nothing else to do but run,” Moritz said.
As part of the Georgia Tech running program, she will be asked to perform in multiple disciplines, including cross country, as well as the indoor and outdoor track seasons.
She specializes in running longer distances, which means the events she will be most likely be suited for at the next level will be the 6k and 3k for cross country; the 10k, 5k and 1500 for outdoor track and field; and possibly the mile distance during the indoor season.
“I feel like you’re able to get in more of a zone with the longer distances,” Moritz said. “If you have a bad part of a race, you can make it up.”
Moritz was the lone senior on this year’s Ponte Vedra girls cross country team, but it was a leadership role she embraced and the group went on to win the Class 3A team state title for the first time in school history.
She hopes to continue that momentum and confidence gained from her senor season as she enters college.
“You have to really commit your lifestyle to running at the college level,” Moritz said. “You’re around a bunch of people that just love running. It’s definitely going to be a humbling experience, but I know I’m fast and I am only going to get faster. I can feel the potential is there.”
She will enter college as a business major but also wants to focus on the marketing side of things.
