By Ariel Sax
Washington’s Elizabeth Quick defended her women’s pole vault title Sunday at the Pac-12 championships, clearing 13 feet, 8 1/4 inches with only two misses.
Following in second was Washington’s Kristina Owsinski, who also cleared 13-8 1/4, but with four misses. Quick said that she was excited to compete with Owsinski and all of her other teammates since it’s her last year competing at Pac-12s.
Quick and Owsinski, who are roommates, both trained hard together and kept each other motivated not only throughout this competition, but also through all their practices and in life.
“She was here for my whole four years,” Quick said of Owsinski. “She’s always been my motivator, and we always push each other well.”
Added Owsinski: “We’re always just so competitive – able to push each other a little bit harder in practice.”
Owsinski has been healing from a torn Achilles tendon from a year ago. For her, it’s all about being confident trusting the skill, the pole, and doing what she knows to do from practices.
“I definitely haven’t had as much training and as much build up as a lot of these girls have coming off of a collegiate season year,” said Owsinski. “It’s cool to be back to where I was with pole vaulting.”
Starting out the competition, both Owsinski and Quick realized that the bar was a little too low, so they passed over the first two heights. They wanted to keep themselves fresh and not overdo it in the beginning.
Being the last two left in the competition, they both decided to pass 13-10 and head straight for 14-0; however, neither was successful in clearing the height.
“It would’ve been fun for both of us to clear that bar and move it to what maybe would’ve been a school record – which would’ve been cool to attempt,” said Owsinski.
Owsinski believes that scoring the points and having a unifying team mentality should be above a desire to win. She said they both had a great run and will continue on to regionals and NCAAs in hopes of reaching new personal records.
Washington has five of its own graduating this year, but Quick believes that the Huskies have a lot of younger athletes who will step it up for the future of Washington’s track and field.
