7 minute read
NORSE STAR
She runs. She hurdles. She jumps. She throws.
MARK MOSCHETTI • FOR GO HUSKIES MAGAZINE
But long before she discovered her hankering for the heptathlon,
Ida Eikeng was already a multi-event athlete. She played handball. Played soccer. Played ice hockey. Did cross country skiing. Tried gymnastics. All while growing up in Norway, where she was born in Porsgrunn.
Then, once she found track, she initially gravitated toward the sprints and the hurdles, and eventually grew to love the javelin. “I would do a bunch of events just for fun,” the University of Washington sophomore standout said. “It was too hard to give up events because I found all of them so fun. So, I just stuck with them. It was when I was 16 or 17 that I really started to do the heptathlon.”
Now, she has become the highest-scoring heptathlete in school history with her total of 5,920 points at last year’s NCAA Championships, giving her fifth place in the meet and an All-American award.
Already with a score of 5,916 this year, tallied in April at the prestigious Mt. Sac Relays in Walnut, Calif., Eikeng is setting her sights on the Pacific-12 Conference title that slipped away from her last year, as well as on a return to the NCAAs. “I felt pretty good about Mt. Sac,” said the 22-year-old Eikeng. “It was good to be able to score that (high) as early as April. So, I just feel really excited for the rest of the season — and nationals, especially.”
Eikeng’s journey to reach this point was unusually long — and not just because it’s 4,575 miles from Porsgrunn to the Pacific Northwest. In fact, Seattle wasn’t even her first stop. Instead, it was Lexington and the University of Kentucky, as a freshman in 2018. But while there, Eikeng took part in just one meet — an indoor contest in which she did the shot put and nothing else.
She joined the UW program in the spring of 2019 and redshirted but did compete unattached in two meets (one of which was a heptathlon). She redshirted again for the 2020 indoor season, doing three meets unattached.
Then, just as she was ready to get going officially as a Husky during the 2020 outdoor season, the pandemic hit. Sports shut down, and Eikeng returned to Norway. “It was rough. I thought I was so well prepared for that season coming up when Covid shut it down,” she said. “I had to go home when that happened. But I’m just so happy that it let me have more time to work and stay prepared,” added Eikeng, who is majoring in psychology. “I felt I got do a lot of work. I feel good now, but it was definitely not fun in the moment.”
That work had Eikeng on the cusp of the Pac- 12 heptathlon title last year in Los Angeles. Atop the standings by 146 points ahead of second-place teammate Lyndsey Lopes, Eikeng finished last among the 13 in the race and wound up third overall while Lopes snared the crown. Lopes graduated. But Eikeng is back and ready for another try at it.
“I was definitely disappointed by last year, but that made me motivated for the rest of the season and to try to redeem myself a little bit from my performance (at Pac-12s),” said Eikeng, adding that she wasn’t fully recovered from a hamstring injury at that time, but knew she needed to complete the hep to qualify for nationals. I’m very motivated to do better than last year.”
Senior Olivia Ribera
Senior Sophia Cantine
Sophomore Naomi Smith
Sophomore Ida Eikeng
Sophomore MaKala Kelby
Going Long or Throwing Long — Still A Record
Haley Herzberg and MaKayla Kelby typically don’t cross paths during a meet. Herberg is busy running around ovals, and Kelby is spinning around circles.
But junior distance star Herberg and sophomore thrower Kelby are crossing paths when it comes to the Husky record book. Herberg put her name into it on Feb. 11 at the Husky Classic on the Dempsey Indoor track when she clocked 15 minutes, 39.19 seconds in the 5,000 meters.
Kelby joined her a couple weeks later at the Pac-12 Invitational, also at Dempsey Indoor, when she broke her own record in the shot put. She had a toss of 55 feet, 3½ inches, well beyond her old mark of 53-7¾ which she set last year. With big postseason meets still to come this spring, she’s well within reach of the school outdoor record of 55-7, which has stood since 1988. Kelby set an outdoor personal best of 54-5½ in the UW-Washington State dual meet in Pullman in April 22.
Speaking of the throws, Beatrice Asomaning is having quite a spring for herself. On the third and final day of the Raleigh Relays in March, she shattered her previous personal best in the hammer with a mark of 178 feet even — 14 feet farther than she’d ever thrown. She wasn’t even in the UW’s all-time top 10 prior to that, and immediately jumped into the No. 6 spot. Then at the Husky-Cougar dual, she flung the discus exactly 180 feet. That made her just the third Washington woman to reach 180.
It’s Time For The Pac-12s
With the regular season now in the books, Washington turns its attention to the Pacific-12 Championships, set for May 13-15 at Hayward Field in Eugene.
The Huskies are coming off their highest-ever placing in the conference meet, taking third last year with 77 points. They had five previous fourth-place finishes, but never higher than that. Athletes who factored into more than 50 of those points (counting both individual events and relays) are returning.
Makenna Barton, a junior from nearby Woodinville, chipped in 10 of those points last spring by winning the pole vault — and she did so in dramatic fashion. She cleared 13 feet, 5¼ inches on her third and final attempt, thereby staying alive. Then it was back-to-back personal-best marks of 13-7¼, and finally 13-9¼ to win it.
Herberg also made the award podium last season for her third-place finish in the 10,000 meters, going 32 minutes, 51.96 seconds for the second-fastest time in Husky history. While Ida Eikeng will compete for the heptathlon title, Hannah Rusnak will be setting her sights on it, as well. She won it in 2019 and was in contention last spring before three fouls in the long jump knocked her down the standings.
Eikeng also could be a javelin title contender. Her mark of 182-3 at the Raleigh Relays in late March was still atop the conference list in late April. She was fourth last year at Pac-12s with a throw of 167-0.
Among the UW competitors to keep a close eye on is distance runner Anna Gibson, a junior. She placed ninth in the 1500 finals last year, but late this spring was atop the conference rankings in both the 800 and 1,500. She set a UW-WSU dual meet record in the 800 with a 2:04.89.
Junior Aaliyah Wilson
Junior Anna Gibson
