Justin Fitzgerald/sports@cherokeescout.com Murphy senior Sarah Pullium throws the discus at the 1A state championships Friday. Her title in the event was her seventh overall with the Lady Bulldogs, a school record.
Greensboro – It had been nearly three hours since Murphy High School senior Sarah Pullium had won her third discus 1A state title, and it was finally time for the medal ceremony.
Thanks to the meet officials being behind on paperwork, Pullium and the other top four finishers in the event weren’t given their awards until right before the boys 4x400-meter relay, the final event of Friday’s 1A state championships.
When she finally put the gold medal around her neck, it marked the end of one of the most successful athletic careers in Bulldogs history. With her win in the discus, Pullium became just the third 1A athlete to win the event at least three times since the N.C. High School Athletic Association split track into four state meets in 1994 and just the 10th in state history since the first state meet in 1972.
Pullium was also a part of two team track state championships in 2018 and 2019 as well as two girls basketball state championship teams in 2020 and 2021. The seven state championships are believed to be the most in school history.
“Murphy’s a special place,” Pullium said. “They definitely put an emphasis on sports. We like to win, we like to grind and have fun. It’s awesome that I could’ve helped contribute to many of the state championships there.”
Pullium has been a standout athlete for the Bulldogs in volleyball, basketball and track and field. She’s a two-time All-Smoky Mountain Conference selection in both volleyball and basketball, but track and field is where she has had the most success.
Pullium got introduced to the discus in middle school, taking after her father, who threw the discus when he was a student at Murphy. She quickly found success, winning the conference middle school championship in seventh and eighth grades. In high school, she broke Wendy Moss’s 29-year-old school record in just her second meet.
That sounds like the start of a charmed throwing career, but the rest of her freshman season was a bumpy ride. Pullium changed her throwing technique to a more advanced one after breaking the record, which led to her scratching out of multiple meets, including the conference championship.
“Me and my dad sat down and said I’m going to have to change in order to do better and succeed,” Pullium said. “So we did that, and it was very hard.”
Luckily for Pullium, her throw earlier in the season allowed her to qualify for regionals, which she won. The next week at the state championship, she won in dramatic fashion.
Riverside senior Adeline Howell matched Pullium’s school record mark from earlier in the season, and Pullium responded with a new personal best and school record of 121 feet and 10 inches to win the state title.
She continued to dominate as a sophomore, re-breaking her school record at both the conference and state championship meet. After her junior year track season was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pullium felt fortunate she still had her senior year.
“I really had no idea to cope with it,” Pullium said. “I was just thankful this wasn’t my last year, and I wasn’t a senior then. I was just trying to focus on the positives and look to my next season.”
As a senior, Pullium picked up where she left off as a sophomore. She broke her own school discus record three times during the regular season. The third record breaking throw of 132 feet, 4 inches, eclipsed her season goal of 130 feet.
At the conference meet, she smashed both the school and meet record with a throw of 140 feet. That would’ve placed second in the boys discus.
Still, Pullium knew she had two more meets to go. She’d put in the work all year, whether it was throwing a 2-pound sandball on a concrete wall to mimic the twist of her torso during the discus or going to Murphy on the weekends with her dad to get extra throws in. It’s that work she relies on in competitions instead of superstitions.
The only thing she has to do when she enters the circle is tap her shoes against the pavement to make sure her shoes are clean. After that, she takes a few turns with her body, then stops and starts to throw when it feels right.
Though she didn’t set a new personal best at either the regional or state meets, Pullium went over 130 feet at both competitions and won easily. She also finished second in the shot put after winning both the Smoky Mountain Conference and 1A West Regional championship in the event.
Pullium has finally been able to savor some of her athletic accomplishments, even though she’s hungry for more at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, where she’ll continue her track and field career.
“I’m still hungry and I’m still excited to go to Charlotte,” Pullium said. “That’s on my mind, but I’m not upset with how this went. I’m so pleased with this. To say that I’ve been here and won state three separate times it’s awesome, and I’m proud of myself.”