Saturday was the last day of the NCAA West regional meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with eight Husky women set to compete for a spot at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
As has been the story for most of Andy and Maurica Powell’s tenure on Montlake, the middle distances carried Washington. Three runners qualified for the Huskies, two in the 1500 meters and one in the 800 meters.
Senior Sophie O’Sullivan didn’t run outdoors this season until the Pac-12 Championships two weeks ago, where her times were good enough to qualify her as the No. 11 seed heading into Fayetteville. But on Saturday, O’Sullivan showed hardly any rust as the championship races approach. The European U23 champion – O’Sullivan competes internationally for Ireland – pulled away from the pack with Texas Tech’s Juliet Cherubet, who edged out O’Sullivan for the win in the first heat. Cherubet set a facility record of 4:09.04, smashing Christin Wurth-Thomas’ time of 4:12.70 from 2008. O’Sullivan was well under that pace as well, running a season-best 4:09.61.
In the second heat, Pac-12 champion Chloe Foerster controlled the pace for most of the race, easing to a No. 3 finish in her heat, well within the top five positions needed for an automatic qualification. The sophomore finished with the No. 11 fastest time of the day with a 4:17.63 in a race where the top finisher would have been No. 9 in O’Sullivan’s heat.
Foerster will return to her home state of Oregon alongside O’Sullivan, who qualified for her second consecutive NCAA Championship in the event.
In the 800m, Washington’s hopes came down to the wire. Senior Samantha Friborg was unable to find her signature stride down the final stretch, finishing No. 21 overall and No. 7 in her heat with a time of 2:07.49. But sophomore Wilma Nielsen ran a 2:03.11 in the second heat, just half a second outside of what would have been an auto-qualifying third place.
Nielsen had to wait for the third and final heat of the evening to see if she qualified for one of the three wild-card spots in Eugene. Three women pulled apart from the rest of the pack, setting the fastest, No. 3 fastest, and No. 6 fastest times of the day. But No.4 in the heat was well behind in 2:03.84, making Nielsen the fastest of the non-automatic qualifiers and punching her ticket to the championship races.
Elsewhere in Fayetteville, four other Huskies saw their seasons come to an end. 5,000 meter runner Julia David-Smith, the No. 34 seed coming in, hung onto the lead group until two laps to go and finished No. 19 overall with a time of 16:18.72 in humid conditions. Triple jumper Lauren Heggen was No. 44 with a mark of 40-6 1/4 in her first NCAA West regional appearance. Discus throwers Beatrice Asomaning and Kaia Tupu-South were No, 16 and No. 21 overall, respectively.
Tupu-South set a personal best, first throwing a 178-1 on her first attempt and then bettering it with a 178-10 on her final throw to become the No. 5 in program history in the event. Asomaning threw 181-0 in her final event in purple and gold, finishing as the No. 2 best woman to throw the hammer and the discus in school history and the best in the indoor weight throw.
Nielsen, Foerster, and O’Sullivan joined 11 other Huskies on the docket for the NCAA Championships, which begin June 5 in Eugene.