MICK GARRY • mgarryargusleader.com • May 2, 2009 University of South Dakota sophomore Emma Erickson was running unattached on Friday night.
It’s a track term that, in her case, explains she’s redshirting this season. Unattached in this instance would also describe her final 200 meters in the Howard Wood Dakota Relays women’s featured 800 race, which she won with a Howard Wood-record time of 2:07.14. Erickson was running in a group with North Dakota State’s Laura Hermanson and another unattached runner, Angee Henry, for about 600 meters. And she went off, unattached. The former Gayville-Volin standout edged both runners with a steady kick the other two could not answer. In doing so Erickson defeated one of Division I’s top half-milers in Hermanson, who won the Drake Relays 800 handily last weekend. It was another in a series of college highlights for Erickson, who won national Division II titles in the indoor and outdoor 800s last year as a freshman. “The race set up perfectly,” said Erickson, who won the 800 at the Kansas Relays two weeks ago. “I let Hermanson set the pace. I was going to hang in there until the last 200 and then try not to die. It was a great race because of the people who put it together and because Laura Hermanson and Angee Henry were out there running. I have to give a huge thanks to those two for being here to compete.”
The wind of the afternoon had settled down some by the time the race went off under the lights. The trio separated themselves from the rest of the pack shortly after the start and waited, it appeared, for Hermanson, to dictate what happened next.