By Stephanie Daly, News Staff

This is the second in the series of articles profiling the five top male and female senior athletes at Northeastern, culminating in the Huntington News male and female’ Senior Athletes of the Year.

When asked to describe senior cross country runner Brittany Moriarty, who broke the 23-year-old Northeastern outdoor record in the 1500-meter (4:33.72), her coach used one word:’ tough.
‘She’s just dedicated. She is all about her team,’ said head coach Sherman Hart. ‘She is all things tangible a coach would want in an athlete and she’s talented.’
Moriarty earned All-CAA honors when she placed fifth in the 6K in the CAA Championship (22:33) and also went on to compete in the NCAA Northeast Regional Championship that same year. She competed in the CAA Championship all four years at NU where she placed third her junior year in the 1500. In her junior year, Moriarty also broke 5 minutes for the first time while running the mile with a time of 4:59.84 in the New England Championship.
Even as a sophomore, Moriarty was a leader on the team, Hart said.
Hart said he remembered Moriarty’s race at the CAA Championship her sophomore year. He said Moriarty gave everything in that race, where she ran 10 seconds faster than he expected and passed out at the finish line.
‘It was one of the more inspiring moments that I’ve seen as a coach,’ Hart said. ‘It was the first event of the second day. We were behind and that just kind of woke us up and changed our attitude.’
The senior captain also said the CAA Championship that year is one of her best memories competing as a Husky.
‘ ‘We won the CAA championship all around. That was just an amazing weekend,’ Moriarty said. ‘We were the first team at Northeastern to win a championship at CAA, so that was pretty important for us.’
Before coming to Huntington Avenue, Moriarty was a Division I state champion in the 800 her junior and senior years at Andover High School and also earned All-Conference honors in the 800 and 4×800 her final two years in high school. She was named a Boston Globe and Boston Herald All-Scholastic and MIAA Outstanding Athlete of the Year as a senior.
Moriarty said location played a part in her decision to come to Northeastern.
‘I’m from Andover. so it was pretty close to home so my parents could come to my meets,’ Moriarty said. ‘The other thing would be the co-op program because I came in undecided, so I thought getting some experience would help.’
In her first year in red and black Moriarty won the 1500 at the Mason Spring Classic (4:46.40) and placed 18th in the 800-meter at the CAA Championship. As a sophomore, Moriarty placed second in the 1500-meter at the Snowflake Classic (4:46.40) and was part of the ninth-place 4×800-meter relay at the ECAC Championship
Moriarty has a year left at Northeastern where she said she will be going on one more co-op and then attending classes her final semester. She said if she does not get a job right after college, she would like to do some travelling.
As her track days at Northeastern are done, Moriarty said she is going to miss her teammates.
‘The girls on the team, they’re my best friends, my second family,’ Moriarty said. ‘Not being here everyday with them is what I’ll miss the most.’