As four women walked onto Hayward’s track Friday night for the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Oregon
showed out in full force and the sky released rain like it disapproved of the sparse lineup. A field of four
was not the original plan — the expected total of 10 athletes had been minimized drastically in the hours
prior. Then the range of competition was cut to a lonely three when, on the approach to the start line, a
coach pulled another athlete from the track. Sage Martin, wearing her College of Idaho purple and now
hovering in anticipation at the start line, absorbed her surprise. It was just her and two others now. This
was not ideal.
“I was definitely a little bit bummed because there were supposed to be some really quick girls,” Martin
said. “But then I just laughed about it. I came here to run fast and we did that.”
Martin, a junior at the College of Idaho, won the Oregon Twilight steeplechase in 10 minutes and 23.11
seconds, setting a personal best by 7 seconds. It was a race against herself — Danielle Hotalling from
Creighton University kept pace with Martin until around the fifth lap and then followed by a distance of
roughly 70 meters for the rest of the race. Hotalling closed in 10:30.21 and Willamette University’s Zoe
Heino in 11:12.85.
The nearly-empty field was an acute disappointment despite Martin’s success. She and her head coach,
Dominic Bolin, were the lone travelers from their team to make the trip from Caldwell, Idaho, to Eugene,
Oregon. They came specifically to seek out a competitive field that would challenge Martin, and the
challenge slipped out of their hands anyway.
“The big thing about coming here was the competition. She basically hasn’t had competition all year,”
Bolin said. Martin has won nearly every outdoor event she’s competed in this season by a wide gap.
“Coming in, she was the fourth seat so there were supposed to be girls there to push her.”
The College of Idaho’s track and field program is small compared to other teams at Oregon Twilight. As
a school in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, it’s rare for a College of Idaho athlete to
compete against a field that includes NCAA Division I competitors. But Martin has a rare talent. She was
excited to go up against athletes from Portland State University and elsewhere.
Her race plan had been to follow the stronger runners and let them carry her to a faster time. But even
though that didn’t happen, she felt strong on her own.
“I don’t know why it’s like that. Sometimes when you run your fastest times, it’s the easiest ever,” Martin
said.
Martin’s previous personal best in the steeplechase happened on Hayward’s track last April. She went on
to finish third in the event at the NAIA Outdoor Championships that year, earning the second All-
American title of her college career. This year, she’s qualified to compete at nationals in the 1,500 meters,
the 5,000 meters and the steeplechase.
Her dream is to win the latter — the steeplechase is her favorite event. If she can help College of Idaho at
outdoor nationals, they have a shot at winning the championship. It would be the first such feat in school
history. But a win in the steeplechase would require Martin to outrun women who have recorded times of
10:11.00 or faster, times that are significantly beyond her PR.
In Martin’s quest to find a challenge and prepare for her season’s finale, everything that could have gone
wrong, did go wrong. In spite of this, she was exuding happiness hours after her win.
“Today just felt like floating,” Martin said. “I was really stoked to be here at Hayward. I felt like nothing
can go wrong in my life.”
