Completed Event: Track and Field versus NCAA Indoor Championships on March 13, 2026 ,
Track & Field
vs NCAA Indoor Championships
Grand Canyon University Athletics
Smith speeds ahead from soccer to track
5/12/2026 11:25:00 AM | Women's Soccer, Track and Field, Paul Coro
Forward closes GCU soccer career, takes to sprints quickly for Lopes
At Grand Canyon, the soccer practice field lies inside the Lopes' track.
There, for three years, Hannah Smith was the fast forward who zoomed by or chased down teammates with speed that she could not have fathomed transferring from cleats on grass to spikes on that oval of synthetic rubber.
But GCU track and field head coach Tom Flood could. He always has a need for speed, and his Lopes soccer fandom as a spectator turned into scouting when he saw Smith run at an early-season home game.
Less than seven months after she captained her final Lopes soccer game, Smith is part of a 4x100-meter relay team that broke the GCU record heading into this weekend's Mountain West Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Fresno, California.
"I knew I was faster in my sport, but I watched them on the track and thought they were beyond anything I could imagine," Smith said.
Smith got up to speed in track, a sport she never had run at any level while playing soccer since she was 5. She went from Senior Day tears and plans to start a finance job near her Eureka, Missouri, home after December graduation to practicing with her new team in early November, a week after her soccer finale.
"You just watch them send the ball along and watch this girl run and chase down the ball and think, 'She's got some track speed,' " Flood said with a 16-year track record of spotting talent for the championship-laden Lopes program. "We're just scratching the surface on her track talent."
Smith was sitting in a class one October day when she received a text message from women's soccer athletic trainer Pasquale Rosado, who was formerly the Lopes track and field athletic trainer, gauging her interest in a Flood offer to try his sport.
"Maybe I would be, but tell him I've never done it before," she replied.
It is becoming hard to tell, as well as Smith has taken to the track. Even for indoor season, Smith went from joining the team in November to running on a banked track in the highest lane at the first December meet. By the Mountain West Indoor Track and Field Championships in February, she was the 12th-fastest runner in the 200-meter race full of track lifers.
"I was definitely shaking in the blocks," Smith said of her first race. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is so scary. Don't false-start.' It was a crazy experience. I don't know that I've been nervous like that in a long time, maybe since my first start in soccer for GCU."
Two of the least-surprised people about her rapid success were her mother, who had suggested she try track for years, and her GCU soccer head coach, Chris Cissell.
The Lopes wear tracker pods that supply metrics on players' distance traveled and running speed. Smith could have been ticketed in a school zone when she topped out at 20 mph.
"She was always just killing it and was one of the fastest, if not the fastest, every year," Cissell said. "I always joked, 'You've got track speed, but you're also an awesome soccer player for us.' Now, she's absolutely killing it, which doesn't surprise any of us in the soccer family at all. For someone to be a good enough athlete to succeed at two Division I sports, that's insane."
After watching Smith run ahead of the pack in every 10-, 15- and 20-yard sprint or 300-yard shuttle for a third season, Cissell was sitting next to Flood in a GCU head coaches' meeting when he half-jokingly mentioned how Smith was fast enough to run on GCU track.
After 41 starts in 61 soccer matches at GCU, Smith quickly transitioned from a sport that was second nature to one where she was learning technicalities about putting force into the ground, lengthening her stride, exploding out of starting blocks and driving her arms. Flood used the encouraging example of Tarleton State's Victoria Cameron, who also did both sports and now ranks fifth in the nation in the 100-meter dash.
Smith also learned that she had found a second family, a group of GCU track and field teammates and staffers who embraced her joining a year in progress.
"You're fast on the soccer team, but if you show up to track, everybody's fast," Smith said. "It was definitely nerve-wracking walking up to the first practice. 'Who is this girl showing up in November and we've been practicing since September?' I didn't know what to expect. You're putting me in spikes for the first time. I'm winging it, but they said it went really well and I kept coming back. Everyone was super-nice to me and helpful. I wasn't even on the team yet and I already felt supported.
"This came out of nowhere, but it's been the best thing ever."
Now with 10 meets of experience that humbles her at times, Smith joined graduate Atena Rayson, sophomore Cassie Small and sophomore Nena Thevenin to break the GCU 4x100 relay record with a time of 44.18 seconds at a March meet in Mesa. Earlier this month, a relay of junior Taliyah Booker, Small, Smith and Thevenin dropped the record to 43.90 seconds, which puts the Lopes ninth in the West for the event.
From being elite in one sport to competing as a novice in another, Smith progressed individually as well to dip her 200 personal best below 24 seconds (23.52 last month in Las Vegas) on a timeline faster than some seasoned tracksters do. But she remains in awe of her teammates, for how talented and helpful they have been.
"The culture has been so awesome," Smith said. "They always celebrate each other's little wins. It feels like I walked into a new family, and they welcomed and embraced me when they didn't have to do that. The culture is just as strong, and that speaks to GCU as a whole, and the kind of people the coaches recruit here. I feel like I left a family and walked into a new family."
And this will not be a one-off for Smith.
As she works on a master's degree, Smith will return for indoor and outdoor seasons in 2026-27. She is even staying in Phoenix this summer, when she will work a finance internship while training on the track.
"I'm super Type A, and I had a plan that I was like, 'This is what I am doing,' " Smith said. "Sometimes, God just has a bigger plan and a better plan than you could've thought of for yourself. I have no regrets. It's been so amazing."
There, for three years, Hannah Smith was the fast forward who zoomed by or chased down teammates with speed that she could not have fathomed transferring from cleats on grass to spikes on that oval of synthetic rubber.
But GCU track and field head coach Tom Flood could. He always has a need for speed, and his Lopes soccer fandom as a spectator turned into scouting when he saw Smith run at an early-season home game.
Less than seven months after she captained her final Lopes soccer game, Smith is part of a 4x100-meter relay team that broke the GCU record heading into this weekend's Mountain West Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Fresno, California.
"I knew I was faster in my sport, but I watched them on the track and thought they were beyond anything I could imagine," Smith said.
Smith got up to speed in track, a sport she never had run at any level while playing soccer since she was 5. She went from Senior Day tears and plans to start a finance job near her Eureka, Missouri, home after December graduation to practicing with her new team in early November, a week after her soccer finale.
"You just watch them send the ball along and watch this girl run and chase down the ball and think, 'She's got some track speed,' " Flood said with a 16-year track record of spotting talent for the championship-laden Lopes program. "We're just scratching the surface on her track talent."
Smith was sitting in a class one October day when she received a text message from women's soccer athletic trainer Pasquale Rosado, who was formerly the Lopes track and field athletic trainer, gauging her interest in a Flood offer to try his sport.
"Maybe I would be, but tell him I've never done it before," she replied.
It is becoming hard to tell, as well as Smith has taken to the track. Even for indoor season, Smith went from joining the team in November to running on a banked track in the highest lane at the first December meet. By the Mountain West Indoor Track and Field Championships in February, she was the 12th-fastest runner in the 200-meter race full of track lifers.
"I was definitely shaking in the blocks," Smith said of her first race. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is so scary. Don't false-start.' It was a crazy experience. I don't know that I've been nervous like that in a long time, maybe since my first start in soccer for GCU."
Two of the least-surprised people about her rapid success were her mother, who had suggested she try track for years, and her GCU soccer head coach, Chris Cissell.
The Lopes wear tracker pods that supply metrics on players' distance traveled and running speed. Smith could have been ticketed in a school zone when she topped out at 20 mph.
"She was always just killing it and was one of the fastest, if not the fastest, every year," Cissell said. "I always joked, 'You've got track speed, but you're also an awesome soccer player for us.' Now, she's absolutely killing it, which doesn't surprise any of us in the soccer family at all. For someone to be a good enough athlete to succeed at two Division I sports, that's insane."
After watching Smith run ahead of the pack in every 10-, 15- and 20-yard sprint or 300-yard shuttle for a third season, Cissell was sitting next to Flood in a GCU head coaches' meeting when he half-jokingly mentioned how Smith was fast enough to run on GCU track.
After 41 starts in 61 soccer matches at GCU, Smith quickly transitioned from a sport that was second nature to one where she was learning technicalities about putting force into the ground, lengthening her stride, exploding out of starting blocks and driving her arms. Flood used the encouraging example of Tarleton State's Victoria Cameron, who also did both sports and now ranks fifth in the nation in the 100-meter dash.
Smith also learned that she had found a second family, a group of GCU track and field teammates and staffers who embraced her joining a year in progress.
"You're fast on the soccer team, but if you show up to track, everybody's fast," Smith said. "It was definitely nerve-wracking walking up to the first practice. 'Who is this girl showing up in November and we've been practicing since September?' I didn't know what to expect. You're putting me in spikes for the first time. I'm winging it, but they said it went really well and I kept coming back. Everyone was super-nice to me and helpful. I wasn't even on the team yet and I already felt supported.
"This came out of nowhere, but it's been the best thing ever."
Now with 10 meets of experience that humbles her at times, Smith joined graduate Atena Rayson, sophomore Cassie Small and sophomore Nena Thevenin to break the GCU 4x100 relay record with a time of 44.18 seconds at a March meet in Mesa. Earlier this month, a relay of junior Taliyah Booker, Small, Smith and Thevenin dropped the record to 43.90 seconds, which puts the Lopes ninth in the West for the event.
From being elite in one sport to competing as a novice in another, Smith progressed individually as well to dip her 200 personal best below 24 seconds (23.52 last month in Las Vegas) on a timeline faster than some seasoned tracksters do. But she remains in awe of her teammates, for how talented and helpful they have been.
"The culture has been so awesome," Smith said. "They always celebrate each other's little wins. It feels like I walked into a new family, and they welcomed and embraced me when they didn't have to do that. The culture is just as strong, and that speaks to GCU as a whole, and the kind of people the coaches recruit here. I feel like I left a family and walked into a new family."
And this will not be a one-off for Smith.
As she works on a master's degree, Smith will return for indoor and outdoor seasons in 2026-27. She is even staying in Phoenix this summer, when she will work a finance internship while training on the track.
"I'm super Type A, and I had a plan that I was like, 'This is what I am doing,' " Smith said. "Sometimes, God just has a bigger plan and a better plan than you could've thought of for yourself. I have no regrets. It's been so amazing."
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