TAMPA — The Tampa Bay Sun is not the only team to restore the "Champa Bay" slogan to this part of Florida. The USF men's 4x400 meter relay team won a national championship at last weekend's NCAA meet in Eugene, OR. The race itself was filled with drama when Gabriel Moronta, the Bulls' final runner, was in third place for most of the last lap.
"I felt that if Gabe was close, it was going to be interesting. And he made it very interesting," USF head coach Erik Jenkins said calmly. That's an understatement. Moronta passed runners from Florida and Texas A&M over the final 50 meters to cross the line first.
"As soon as I gave him the stick, I knew [we were going to win]," Corey Ottey said with a smile. It was Ottey who handed the baton to Moronta on the final exchange. "I knew he was in great shape, but seeing it happen in real time, I’m like ‘Whoa, the moment is finally here.’ I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like… thank God."
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Less than an hour before the relay, Moronta was disqualified from the individual 400 meters for taking two steps out of his assigned lane, stripping him of a silver medal.
"It was a lot of emotions before that, in the warm-up," Gabriel said when describing how he rebounded from the earlier disappointment. "I just stopped thinking about myself, and I just thought about my teammates and what I have to do. I have to get the job done for them, as well. It’s not just about me. So I was just thinking of what I had to do to prepare and get the job done."
Moronta's teammates felt like it was their job to get Gabriel to the top of the medal podium.
"We knew we had to go out there and give him something to go back home with. "Outside of the 400 that would’ve been his last shot. So we knew we actually had to come together, do exactly what we need to do," said second-leg runner Alexavier Monfries. "I’m watching him the whole way around. I’m like “Catch him, Gabe. Catch him, Gabe.” He actually went out there and he did it. I always say to him, out everybody, we’re really proud of him. Because he actually deserved this a lot."
"Going into the meet, I was just like, this is my last year, and I just have to go out with a bang and I gotta give it my all," Moronta, a transfer from Mississippi State, added.
The national profile of the USF track and field program continues to rise. A top-15 national finish for the men's team makes a nice addition to the AAC indoor and outdoor championships the team won in 2024 and 2025.
"I think they continue to set the standard at which we want to compete at," Coach Jenkins said frankly. "We hope that in years to come there will be people that will come in here and run faster than they did. And hopefully we’ll get a few more national champions in the future."
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