Winning the Distance Medley Relay at nationals wasn’t enough for junior Emily Oren. She was determined to win one more race— and beat a Division II record while doing it.
Last weekend, Oren led the women’s track team to a second place finish at the NCAA Division II national championships. On Friday night, Oren ran the last 1600 meter leg of the Distance Medley Relay that resulted in an impressive 11:25 finish, only two seconds short of a national record. The next day, Oren ran the fastest 3K since 1985, beating the national record time by 14 seconds with her time of 9:16. Her teammate junior Kristina Galat finished four seconds behind her, also beating the national record along with the third and fourth place finishers.
Although Oren has received ample praise for her performance last weekend, she never shies away from crediting her own victories to her friend and teammate junior Kristina Galat. In the middle of the 3K on Saturday, Oren’s tiredness began to discourage her from running her race. In that moment, she saw Galat pull away from the group. Knowing her teammate ran the longer 5K the night before, Oren sped up to Galat and found a second wind.
“I could not have won the 3K without Kristina,” Oren said. “When I run with her it feels just like a work out.”
Oren ran a different kind of race two years ago, finishing in last place in both of her events. Without these failures, however, Oren doesn’t think she would have been able to run as successfully as she did last weekend.
“Losing at that same track helped me win first because I knew, ‘Well, I can’t do worse than that,’” she said. “I look back and think, ‘Well, that was embarrassing.’ But I needed to get dead last. It kept me humble.”
Head coach Andrew Towne agreed that learning from failure is invaluable in running.
“The reason we’re successful is because we failed at some point,” he said. “It would be nice to learn those lessons without failing, but that rarely happens.”
The Charger win last weekend led the track team to its best finish in its indoor season history. Towne acclaims its healthy development to recruiting good fits for the program like Oren, rather than solely seeking good runners.
“I’ve always said we’re going to be a quality program rather than the quantity programs seen at D-I schools,” he said. “Em came in with a good bit of talent and was one of our focal points in recruiting. She was a good fit because she came for Hillsdale’s academics, not just its track program.”
Oren’s younger sister sophomore Molly Oren originally agreed to run at Belmont University in Tennessee, but she transferred to Hillsdale after bleak summer training. The sisters are good friends and plan to run marathons together after they graduate.
“It’s interesting how Emily has gotten so much faster while having different coaches,” Molly said. “She’s not running for her coaches. She’s running for God and because it’s fun. And even though situations change, she can crank out two national championships.”
