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Triple Threat

Nearing the end of their four years together, hurdlers Carly Lester, Darhian Mills, and Morganne Hill chase a perfect ending.

By Washington Huskies

May 21^st, 2019

SEATTLE – Who would want four perfect years?

That’s the rhetorical question senior Carly Lester would periodically put to her teammates and fellow 400-meter hurdlers Darhian Mills and Morganne Hill.

“What kind of person would that build?” says Mills.

Lester, Mills, and Hill couldn’t say, because things have not gone perfectly in their collegiate careers thus far. But through any hardships, the three that arrived as freshmen in the fall of 2015, have had each other to turn to for motivation or inspiration. And the successes have far outweighed the struggles.

Over the past four seasons Washington has ranked as one of the NCAA’s best 400-meter hurdle squads, this year ranking first, second, or third in every week of the ratings. Mills, Hill, and Lester have been the core of that group for four seasons now, trading off personal-bests or national rankings but always being there together for the day to day grind, the workouts and the weights and the plane rides.

Now, even though they may not have had four perfect years, they can still achieve a perfect ending.

morganne hill

“I think a big selling point for UW was (then-assistant coach Raul Sheen) saying ‘oh we’ve got some girls coming in to provide some competition’ and I knew that was an important feature because fresh out of high school, I didn’t want to be a big fish,” Morganne Hill says. “Competition was what’s going to drive my personal success and would keep me entertained. I didn’t have a lot of that in high school so I was looking forward to it.”

Hill was one of the top-ranked recruits out of California, ranking seventh nationally in the 300m hurdles. Lester set the Colorado state record in the 300m hurdles and ranked fourth nationally. Mills was the local product, from Bothell’s Inglemoor High School, who won consecutive 4A state titles and ranked 18th nationally her senior year.

The prospect of finally getting someone at their level to train with meant a lot to all three.

“That was one thing that I looked at when I went to other schools,” says Lester. “Who am I going to be training with? Cause I think training partners are incredibly important. There were schools that offered me that just didn’t have other people, and I could go to another team and be the best on the team but what does that actually do for me? So knowing that I was going onto a team where our times were relatively close, that made me happy.”

For Mills, having the practice competition makes race day feel more normal. “When we are racing, they are often my main competition,” she says, “so I get to be in a race state of mind every practice when I am running with them. That also helps me mentally, because I am competing every single day, so when race day comes, it is nothing new to me.”

carly lester

But being big fish dropped into the same pond still took some getting used to. Mills and Lester “did not like each other at all,” says Mills.

“Oh yeah, we were not friends,” Lester agrees. “Which is so crazy!”

It took a horror story to get things on track.

Says Lester, “We invited Darhian to watch American Horror Story one night and that was when we finally started to get to know each other. Then she was in my room almost every night in the dorms, talking over a bowl of cereal, and we just got closer from there.”

“We have a lot of personality,” says Hill. “We always prided ourselves, as freshmen people were like ‘you have a really cool crew.’ Normally there’s a specific leader in group dynamics or cliques like that, and we took things from one another but we’re still our own people.”

While all three were happy to have the training partners and practice competition, track is still an individual sport and the goal is to get to the line first. So it hasn’t always been easy to instantly flip the switch from friend to competitor and back again.

“We’re all very strong in our opinions and views, and so it’s hard not to carry that into a practice and think, this is my competitor, and have that amplify tensions if there are any,” says Hill. But navigating such tensions is also an education of another sort, and preparation for any career after track. “I think they neutralize me and bring out different sides to me. The group dynamic is like a little family which is nice when you’re away from your family to have that to fall back on.”

darhian mills

The three all have different strengths when it comes to their racing as well. Knowing those strengths and keying off of them in their own races can help, according to Lester.

“Darhian is fast!” she says. “Earlier this year she was doing 60- meter start stuff in the Dempsey and I feel like she shocks people with how fast she is because you don’t expect it. So she’s really fast on the front end and that’s something I know. When we’re in races I try to stay near her because I know she runs the first half really well and I know it will push me to run a fast time if I can stick with her.

Lester describes Hill as a great strength runner, “And she can be really consistent throughout the race. I know that as well and never count her out of stuff. I think I’m a strength runner as well at the end, my second half is my better half. We can learn from each other how to run our race based on how other people are doing.”

“Darhian just has this killer, fighter instinct. I’ve seen her in high and low points, and seeing her at a high point you remember that, it’s an energy you can’t forget,” says Hill. “Carly’s very similar, she’s very driven, she takes it seriously and gets down to the technicality of every single detail, and she pays attention to everything and really gives 110 percent every single time, and that’s something I really admire.”

Heading into this week’s NCAA West Preliminary Championships, the three all rank in the top-25 in the West Region, but will all be shooting for the top-12 and a ticket to Austin for the NCAA semifinals. Mills and Hill could both potentially have another outdoor season due to redshirting once in their careers, but Lester is in her final season of eligibility.

It will be the second trip to NCAA Prelims for all three, but the first time all have made it in the same year. Their individual paths had to take a few detours before they all arrived back together as one of the best hurdle groups in the country.

Freshman season in 2016 saw Mills miss the outdoor season with an injury, while Lester and Hill had solid first years but did not break 60 seconds, running season-bests within .05 seconds of each other. One year later, Mills had a breakthrough season, taking fourth at Pac-12s in a big PR of 58.77 seconds. But meanwhile, Hill was out of action for all of that season while Lester had taken a one-year sojourn into the heptathlon.

Last year, Lester and Hill got back into the picture and quickly picked up speed, with Lester opening her season with a 59.14-second PR and reaching her first Prelims. Hill then posted the fastest PR of the three to that point as she made the West Prelim quarterfinals with a time of 58.65 seconds. But Mills had a season of frustration; though healthy, she struggled to get back under 60 seconds, and missed the cut to Prelims.

“My redshirt freshman season was a really good season, every time that I was on the track, I PR’d,” says Mills, who explains how that set some unreasonable expectations for 2018. “Going from that to a new season and having super high goals, and a time that was reachable for me, but I needed to gradually get there, rather than just skip 59, 58, 57. I will always have nerves before races, but last year it was more like anxiety to the point where I was exhausted before I even ran.”

Now Mills has bounced back faster than ever, a product of “being confident in myself and trusting my training” and she is coming off a PR at Pac-12s where she finished in fourth-place once again, but more than a second faster than 2017, as she ran 57.69 seconds, the fourth-fastest in school history.

Nobody is happier for her Mills her teammates.

“After the meet at Long Beach (Mills ran 58.35 for her first PR since 2017) I went up to Darhian and said, ‘It’s good to have you back, I’m so happy for you,’” says Lester. “That’s how I treat her after every race, no matter what the outcome is, who wins, I’m just happy for us finally being successful.”

Hill says, “It’s rewarding when you see them overcome a personal struggle, because you feel like you’re part of that success, because you’ve been so close to it and you know exactly what they’ve been working on, you’re happy for them because you’ve been through it too and you’ve been through the same steps and you know they would be there for you in the same moment.”

Mills remembers some specific words from Lester during the midst of her struggles. “She told me that no matter what time I ran, she was proud of me. Having people around you that don’t lose faith in you, allow you to keep the faith in yourself. I think we have all done a great job with lifting each other up, being there for each other when it is good and when it is bad, trying to help each other succeed, and succeed on our own.”

Lester looks back on her one year trying the multi-events as both a lost opportunity to continue improving in the hurdles, but also as a necessary reset that showed her where her passions laid after a tough freshman season.

“I feel like I needed that year, where I was all over the place,” Lester says. “I didn’t know what I was doing with track and I kind of was at a really low point, and it just helped me develop my love for track again. I needed my sophomore year to reflect on myself and realize it’s me, I’m the one not fully committed to this program, that’s why I’m not running well.

“It showed me that I’m meant to be a 400 hurdler, that’s what I’m best at.”

And Mills and Hill were part of the culture that brought her back to her first event, for the right reasons.

“Just their support in a general sense, with school, with track, with life, is what helped me stay here,” she says. “Knowing that Washington won my heart and it’s the people here that make me want to stay. It’s not necessarily the program, it’s the people that make the program what it is. They were big on keeping me rooted on who I was as a person.”

Another person that has never lost faith in any of them is Husky volunteer assistant Mark Macdonald, who has been the one constant during their careers, starting at UW in 2016 when the three were freshmen.

“Mac’s belief in me has never wavered, even through the struggles of last year,” says Mills. “I did not break a minute last year, and Mac would still point out every single positive thing I did when I walked off the track. He never focused on the bad. For me, having Mac as my coach for the whole time I have been here has been what has made me love this sport every single day, no matter how bad it was last year.”

Lester concurs. “He’s always speaking affirmations into us about how good we are, what we did well, and you could fix this but I think you ran well. He’s always hyping us up and I absolutely love that. I don’t necessarily thrive off of somebody who’s going to pick out every single flaw that I have, and so Mac tells us how good we are and how good we can be, and I love that about him.”

Another twist in their journey came last year when suddenly they had to make room for Hanna Tarleton’s out of nowhere success story. The former Division III transfer battled injury issues for multiple seasons but in her first track season in three years she was outstanding, running the top time on the squad of 58.24 seconds and finishing 15th at West Prelims, just missing an NCAA Outdoor trip by three spots.

Tarleton’s comeback put things in perspective for the younger Dawgs.

“I watched her warm up and it isn’t intense and I will ask her before a race how she feels and she will say ‘I feel fine’ and then she goes out there and kills it,” Mills says. “Then I ask her how she is after and she says, ‘I feel pretty good.’ She is never over the top, she is even-keeled and having fun. So I learned from her that the race is supposed to be the fun part, so enjoy it.”

Hill says Tarleton had a great work ethic and never complained, which helped Hill to focus herself. “In high school is I was on my own a lot, so I never questioned what we were told to do, I just did it. And being around Hanna brought me back to that same mentality which I appreciated. I felt like I lost that for a brief moment, and I think that that’s what makes me good, is just going with the process and giving it 100 percent and not questioning. That was my favorite thing about Hanna.”

With less than a month left in their seasons, Hill, Lester and Mills know what they need to do to be successful on the track. What happens next in life? There’s more to be discovered.

First things first though, getting the fine points of the 400-meter hurdles to align and advance as far as possible.

“Before this season I was really vocal about my goals, but now I am taking it race by race,” says Mills. “I know what I can do but I have to actually do it. I know my end goal, but that isn’t what I am chasing right now. Right now I am just focused on competing every time that I get on the track, because all of the girls next to me are competing for the same thing. I just have to go out there and run the race that I am in, and that’s it.

Hill is as fit as she’s ever been, and posted one of the best times of her career in the Dual Meet in poor conditions, running 59.13. West Prelims is the perfect spot for her to post another career-best time, and she knows what that will take.

“Staying in my lane, literally and mentally,” says Hill. “That’s the only execution I need. I have a very bad habit of getting distracted in races and I’m too focused on what everyone else is doing and how I compare to them that I’m not pulling the steps I need. I have the step pattern, I have the structure, I have the fitness. So having the confidence, being comfortable and just focusing on my race, that’s what’s going to help me PR.

“And you just have to have faith.”

Faith plays a major role in Lester’s life and helps her know that she can end this season on a high.

“My faith plays a big role in what I do, and I know that He’s helping me have a good season and to end on a good note,” says Lester. “Staying confident in that aspect of my life helps me not to get stressed out about how I’m running. But I feel like I’m on the right track. I’m figuring out where I need to run better in my race, and learning every time I get on the track.”

The next steps after track will likely lead them in different directions, as they chase the passions they have discovered as students.

Lester spent last summer in The Netherlands doing research on a small organic farm, an experience she calls among the most incredible of her life that began with one single class. “I took a class on urban farming and agriculture, and the whole food system really spoke to me and awakened this passion about the environment,” she says. “My short term goal is to work for an environmental company, not sure what that’s going to look like but I love research so hopefully that can be involved. Long term is to open my own bakery and café, and I want to locally source from farmers here in Washington.”

Mills and Hill are both Communication majors and excited to see where that leads them. Mills has been accepted into Washington’s Master’s program for Intercollegiate Athletics Leadership which she will start this summer.

Says Mills, “Being around athletics every single day of your life has a huge impact on you, and seeing how coaches and those in administrative positions really affect you. I know how these people have impacted me and I want to have that impact on others.”

Hill’s Communications major is geared towards marketing and sales, and so this quarter she has taken on an internship with an I.T. staffing firm that came through the Foster Business School sales program. It has been the first step into the professional world and helped her start to consider the next big set of questions.

“I think just getting into the professional world is good for me because I’ve never had a true job, sitting behind a desk and trying to contribute to a company,” says Hill. “That was another big selling point coming to Washington, knowing the academics was one of the most prestigious schools, and preparing myself for life after sports and preparing your mind. Hone in on every aspect of who I want to be as a person, once I’m older who am I going to become after the whole student-athlete experience? What can I learn? What kind of connections can I make? Who are my people? Where’s my location? All those questions!”

Those answers will come. Their time as student-athletes has prepared them to clear any obstacle, and four perfect years might not have brought them all to this point together.