With NCAA Championships approaching, it could be Grace’s race

Oregon State seniors Kaylee Mitchell (left) and Grace Fetherstonhaugh are among the favorites to claim the steeplechase title at the NCAA Championships. They went 1-2 in the Pac-12 Championships (courtesy Pac-12/Jimmy Su)

For six years, Coach Louie Quintana has been building the Oregon State women’s track and field program with the goal of developing a Pac-12 individual champion.

At the 2023 Pac-12 Championships at Walnut, Calif., it happened.

Twice. By the same person.

Grace Fetherstonhaugh didn’t come out of nowhere, but she has come a long way since she arrived on the OSU campus in 2018, a fresh-faced freshman from New Westminster, B.C.

On May 13, the redshirt senior ran away from the field in claiming the conference steeplechase championship in 9:39.23, the fastest collegiate clocking in the nation to date. The next day, she added to her laurels by winning the 5,000 in 16:01.78.

“Grace was historic,” Quintana said after the meet. “She was the athlete of the meet in my book. Nobody performed better than she did.”

Last Friday, Fetherstonhaugh was named the Pac-12 female track athlete of the year. In the process, she admits to having surprised herself a little bit with her double dip.

“Definitely,” Fetherstonhaugh says. “In my head, I had a goal to win a Pac-12 race earlier in my career. At some point, I thought it might not happen. I was happy to be able to make it happen.”

Again, twice — in one of the top track and field conferences in the country.

“It’s a dream scenario,” Quintana says. “A real talented athlete comes in as blue-chipper and then matures and lives up to that promise. We knew she was really good. At the time she came to Oregon State, we were selling a bit of a dream. She took a chance on me, on the vision of what we could accomplish here, and has been a major cog every step of the way.”

Fetherstonhaugh and distance-running mate Kaylee Mitchell led the way as the Beavers totaled 55 points for eighth place and were 6 1/2 points from fifth in the team standings. Mitchell, a redshirt senior from Salem’s Sprague High, finished second in the steeplechase in 9:45.21 and came back to finish seventh in the 1,500.

The Beavers reinstated women’s distance running and cross country in 2004 after an 18-year hiatus and in 2013 began to gradually build toward a full program. Since then, it’s been tough to break through while competing with perennial powers such as Oregon, Southern Cal and UCLA. Fetherstonhaugh is the first to reach the victory stand, and it took a bit of a gamble to get there wearing orange and black.

The summer after her senior year of high school, Fetherstonhaugh placed 11th in the steeplechase at the World U20 Championships in Finland.

“My goal was to be top 10,” she says. “I didn’t make it, but I made the finals, so I was happy with that. It was an eye-opening experience. Going there as a 17-year-old, I had so much fun racing on a world stage. I was like, ‘I want to keep doing this.’ ”

Fetherstonhaugh turned down scholarship offers from Penn State, Washington State, and “a few Canadian schools” to sign with Oregon State. Why?

“Mainly Louie,” she says. “When I first talked to him, I loved his philosophy. It fit with my high school coach’s philosophy. I liked the long-term process. It would be fun to be part of a program that was building. It would be good to not have too much pressure on myself, but still have the goals. Mainly, I just wanted to work with Louie.”

Fetherstonhaugh was part of Oregon State’s first team to qualify for the NCAA Championships as a freshman in 2018, “but it wasn’t always smooth for Grace,” Quintana says. “The first year and a half, she wasn’t performing up to her personal standards or the promise we thought she showed. But she kept grinding. Her M.O. is grittiness and hard work. She made herself into a champion.”

“I had a hard time my freshman year,” Fetherstonhaugh says. “It took me awhile to get adjusted to the training. I didn’t know I was allergic to grass. I had to work through it. I was so lucky I came to Oregon State. Everyone was willing to help me through it. I had such a great bunch of teammates. All my friends were super supportive.”

The last three years, she has done her running alongside Mitchell, her training partner who transferred to OSU after a freshman year at Seattle Pacific. Mitchell has sometimes had the upper hand, finishing third in the Pac-12 steeplechase in 2021 and improving to runner-up in both 2022 and ’23. Kaylee placed sixth in the NCAA steeplechase last season and owns the school record of 9:34.59.

Fetherstonhaugh, meanwhile, was fifth in the Pac-12 steeplechase in 2021 and fourth in 2022, finishing 10th at the NCAA meet. Fetherstonhaugh, who owns the school 5,000 record in 15:58.93, gives Mitchell much credit for her own success.

“Having each other to work together and having Louie to tell us what to do has made the biggest difference in my career,” Grace says. “Every year, we have built up. We push each other. And we’re good friends. We hang out all the time. We have lots of fun together.”

Fetherstonhaugh admits to a certain satisfaction to having herself and Mitchell cross the finish line 1-2 ahead of Oregon runners Harper McClain and Malia Pivec, who finished 6-7.

“I never got recruited by (the Ducks), so it’s fun to beat some of them,” Grace says with a smile. “But really, I don’t think about it too much — I’d call it a friendly rivalry.”

Quintana says Fetherstonhaugh has exactly what it takes to achieve greatness.

“She is talented, she really enjoys running and she is just so competitive,” he says. “It’s such a great mix. When you have those things swirling around, it’s a little easier for me as a coach on the back end.”

Fetherstonhaugh appreciates the work Quintana puts in on her behalf.

“He has such high goals, but not in a way that stresses anyone out,” she says. “He has a vision for what he wants to do, and he also cares about people, too, which is so important. He is an amazing coach.”

Oregon State’s all-weather track was installed and the Whyte Track and Field Center opened in 2012, but only this year have stands been added along with other infrastructure thanks to an $8 million project through fund-raising by the OSU Foundation and the school’s athletic department.

The Beavers were ticketed to play host to this year’s Pac-12 Championships.

“We had some supply-chain issues, had to move a sewer line, and the process getting the piping here was delayed by several things,” Quintana says. “A crew wasn’t available to start working on the project until it was too late.”

Quintana says Oregon State will move back into the rotation to host the Pac-12s in the future.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to have meets here next year,” Fetherstonhaugh says. “The program has been slowly building, making good steps along the way. We’re getting some traction of more people wanting to come here.”

“We are fighting tradition,” Quintana says. “In recruiting, (top athletes) are always going to be attracted to the teams that are pulling the best kids in the country every year. If we were to be able to land three, four, five kids who are the talent of Grace or Kaylie Mitchell, that could change.”

Fetherstonhaugh says she wouldn’t have changed anything.

“I’m glad I came here,” she says. “I came here to run. That was the main thing, along with school, but I really love Corvallis. I love being part of this community. There are so many other things that are great about it. I’m really happy here.”

Fetherstonhaugh has her bachelor’s degree in sociology and is in her first year working on a Master’s in college student services.

“I want to work in student-athlete development,” she says. “I put on an event in collaboration with Special Olympics and (Oregon State’s) student-athletes, which was a great experience. I want to have that kind of impact.”

Fetherstonhaugh and Mitchell will run only the steeplechase at Regionals this Thursday through Saturday in Sacramento. They need to make the finals — finish among the top 12 — to advance to the NCAA Championships June 8-10 in Austin, Texas.

“Grace has the combination of strength and speed to be a contender for the national title,” Quintana says. “Kaylie does, too. It’s pretty wide open. There are probably six or seven (runners) who are legit contenders. In my mind, Grace and Kaylee have an equal chance at winning.”

Fetherstonhaugh just wants to get to Austin.

“The goal is to qualify,” she says. “I didn’t think about it before Pac-12s. I like to set my goals one step at a time, because it’s overwhelming sometimes.”

Early this season, Fetherstonhaugh says, she wrote “Pac-12 champion” on a mirror at her Corvallis home.

“I wrote something similar this morning about the NCAAs,” she says.

Was it “national champion”?

“I don’t want to say,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. It would be crazy if I did. I don’t want to count myself out of it.”

Fetherstonhaugh and Mitchell both have one season of eligibility remaining in cross country and indoor track. They will use that to train and get into top shape for a major competition in 2024.

“We’ll both be looking forward to the Olympic trials,” Grace says. “It’s cool that I get to train with someone who has the same goals.”

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