On Campus: Woodstock grad Grace Beattie sets sights on Illinois State’s record books

Throughout her track and cross country careers at Illinois State, Grace Beattie lived for competition.

As with many college athletes, COVID-19 took the opportunity to compete away and left her with a tangle of emotions.

“I had a really rough winter,” said Beattie, a Woodstock graduate who is a graduate student on the Normal campus. “The whole COVID thing put a damper on my mental health and emotional well-being. I just had a hard time handling not having a purpose.”

Over the past two weeks, Beattie’s purpose as an athlete has been on full display during her final outdoor track season.

Last week at the University of Mississippi, she posted a career-best and facility-record time of 10 minutes, 2.73 seconds in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, which ranks first in the Missouri Valley Conference this season and eighth nationally. The time is just under 13 seconds from the Olympic trials qualifying standard of 9:50.

Two weeks ago, she set the ISU facility record and posted an NCAA West Regional qualifying time of 16:06.28 in the 5,000 meters, which ranks 29th nationally. Both of her times are No. 2 all time among ISU runners.

For her efforts, Beattie was honored as the MVC Female Track Athlete of the Week in consecutive weeks.

“When I was getting back into racing, it was a foreign concept to me,” Beattie said. “I flipped the switch. My coach (ISU assistant Danny Stults) sat me down and said, ‘You care too much, and you want this too much. You need to back off and have fun with it.’ The week after cross country conference, he told me, ‘You’re going to get the school record in the 5K.’ I was like, ‘OK, whatever.’”

Stults’ confidence in her led Beattie to be more open and transparent with her emotions and to embrace competing again.

“I express what’s going on in my head,” she said. “If I feel negative, I share what’s going on. … I’m definitely in a much better spot. I’m an anxious person to begin with, and I’ve always struggled with uncertainty and changes. Happiness in the sport is something I haven’t had in a really long time because we haven’t had the opportunity to have it. So it just feels so good.”

Although she wasn’t competing amid the pandemic, Beattie said she made important steps in her career and her sport.

She worked full time as a counselor at a recovery center for heroin addicts while studying for her master’s in mental health social work with a focus on counseling.

“The pandemic has taught me not just about myself, but the flaws that our society has in terms of the mental health system and all the help that we can use,” she said.

Beattie also ramped up her training and fitness to prepare for her final outdoor season.

“One thing about COVID was that it really allowed me to just focus on miles,” she said. “I’ve never been a high-mileage runner because I was competing every week. But I’ve had almost a year of 75-, 80-mile weeks. It’s done wonders for me because it creates such a strong base.”

That high level of fitness – and her past two weeks – has allowed Beattie to reshape her goals.

Those include moving from No. 2 in the ISU record book to the No. 1 spot in both races and All-American potential in the steeplechase.

“Steeplechase is my best event and what I have the best shot in to be an All-American, which is something that six months ago or three months ago, I probably didn’t think was possible,” she said. “If I had my dream, I would qualify (for nationals) in the steeple and then the 5K would just be the most fun race ever (at regionals).”

Utah State pacesetter: Senior Luke Beattie (Woodstock) broke the Utah State University men’s 10,000-meter run record April 2 by finishing fifth at the Stanford Invitational.

Beattie’s record time of 28:33.45 was nearly five seconds faster than the previous mark set in 2018 by Dillon Maggard, who now is a volunteer assistant coach at USU.

Beattie’s time ranks 13th nationally and is a little more than five seconds from the top-10 times. His record-setting effort also is the best 10K time in the Mountain West Conference this season.

Best Badger: Freshman infielder-outfielder Peyton Bannon is the leading hitter this season for Wisconsin’s softball team with a .317 average. The Richmond-Burton grad leads the Badgers in seven offensive categories while starting 18 of the team’s 22 games.

Bannon has the second-most doubles (eight) in the Big Ten Conference while also having team-leading totals in runs (13), hits (19), total bases (32), slugging percentage (.533) and on-base plus slugging (.882).

The Badgers (8-16) won three of four games last weekend against Iowa.

NACC basketball stars: Dundee-Crown grad Allison Michalski earned All-Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference first-team honors last month and was among three local basketball players honored by the conference. Michalski, a senior forward at D-III Benedictine, averaged 16.8 points and 6.3 rebounds a game for the Eagles.

The honorable mention honorees included Concordia Chicago sophomore guard Bailey Steinkamp (Cary-Grove) and Milwaukee School of Engineering senior guard Kayla Barreto (Huntley).

Steinkamp was second on her team in scoring (11.7) and rebounding (5.9), while Barreto scored 13 points and pulled down 3.8 rebounds a game.

An ace at Augie: Junior setter Olivia Doak (Crystal Lake Central) is leading D-III Augustana College’s volleyball team and ranks third in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin this spring with 8.46 assists a set. She also ranks 10th in the league with 0.39 service aces a set.

Doak had a season-best 55 assists – the second-highest total this spring by a CCIW player – in a 3-2 loss April 10 against Lakeland.

• Barry Bottino writes about local college athletes for the Northwest Herald. Write to him at barryoncampus@hotmail.com and follow @BarryOnCampus on Twitter.