Breakout underclassmen highlight bright future for UAA track and field

The 2025 NCAA Division II national outdoor track and field championships will be taking place in Pueblo, Colorado, later this week with many of the top athletes at that level duking it out for medals and All American honors.

Even though they won’t be joining fellow standout underclassman Joshua Caleb to represent the University of Alaska Anchorage, sophomore hurdler Liv Heite and freshman jumper Mya Campbell are proud of the incredibly strong 2025 outdoor seasons they each produced.

“These young women are here every day, putting in the work and now the expectation and the tone is going to be set when the new underclassmen come in,” UAA associate head coach Ray Shadowens said. “It’s really fun when you have good athletes, and it’s even more fun when they’re young.”

Heite earned All-Region and All-GNAC honors in her second year with the program. Her most notable accomplishments include breaking the program record and posting the fourth-fastest time in GNAC history in the women’s 100 hurdles with a mark of 13.81 in the conference championship prelims.

She also ran the third-fastest time in program history in the 400 hurdles in a time of 1:01.22 in the conference championship finals. During the indoor season, she ran a school-record time of 8.64 in the 60 hurdles.

“I’m really satisfied and happy with everything I accomplished, especially the school records I broke and a lot of (personal records) I ran,” Heite said. “It was a really great season with the team in general. I really enjoyed the whole team this year. We had good team culture.”

Breaking a school record was one of her goals heading into the season and she was able to accomplish that feat in two events with the 60- and 100-meter hurdles.

“She has just skyrocketed in her talent,” Shadowens said. “We definitely got lucky getting her.”

Another goal was qualifying for nationals and even though she made the provisional mark, Heite just missed out of the top 22 mark to qualify for this year’s event, coming in at 31st in the 100-meter hurdles.

“I still have two more years here and I’m going to work towards that for the next two years and hopefully it will work out one of those times,” she said. “I’m confident that I can make it next year or the year after.”

Campbell followed a strong indoor season in which she earned All-GNAC honors with a third-place finish in the long jump with a personal-best mark of 18-6.

“I feel like my freshman season went well, better than I had expected,” Campbell said. “My favorite highlight was indoor GNAC because I hadn’t expected to place. I was just hoping to reach my goal of jumping at least 18 feet, but I ended up finishing with an 18′6.”

At the Pee Wee Halsell Invitational in late April, she posted the second-best mark in school history in the long jump with an 18-10.75. The following day at the Ralph Vernacchia Open, she bested herself with a first-place mark of 18-11.25. While she didn’t best herself a third time at the GNAC championships, Campbell still earned All-GNAC honors by coming in second with a mark of 18-7.75.

“The success gives me a lot of confidence,” she said. “At the beginning of the year, I was scared I wouldn’t be able to even jump what I had at the end of high school, let alone get further. But now I think I can improve my distances and times more.”

Campbell exceeded her coaches expectations for her first year and has them really excited about how she can develop over the remainder of her career.

Shadowens praised her for always being “very even keel” and receptive to instruction as well as selfless when needed as she also anchored their 4×400 relay team.

“Her emotions usually just stay in a straight line and her biggest thing is that she came in with a really open mind,” he said.

Disparate journeys to becoming Seawolves

Identifying top-notch talent in Alaska can be difficult when recruiting due to the limited resources available to some potential recruits.

“You never know what kind of competition it is or what the weather is going to be like,” Shadowens said.

Campbell proved to be an exception given that she grew up in the Mat-Su, where she attended Redington High School and participated in multiple sports in addition to track and field.

She believes her immediate success with the program is a testament to the talent Alaska has.

“It shows that we don’t have to be from some big town or place that has access to a track year-round to perform on the same level as everybody else,” Campbell said. “There is a lot of incredible athletes here and we all have an opportunity to make a big impact on the sports we do.”

Keeping the best local talent close to home is a priority for the Seawolves staff and having someone like Campbell is a prime example of what they aspire to be without venturing out of the state to continue their athletic career.

“We have a great recruiting class coming in, including some young Alaskan athletes and a couple more international,” Shadowens said.

While the UAA coaching staff didn’t have to look far to find Campbell last year, landing Heite took a much broader scope as she was born and raised in Olpe, Germany.

“We’ve had a connection with Germany before and it’s kind of identifying the talent,” Shadowens said. “As well as Liv is doing right now, she was a girl who actually didn’t run the 100 hurdles a lot and was kind of primarily focused on the 400-meter hurdles.”

The coaches noticed Heite had run some fast 100-meter hurdle times in the past and began to talk with her about exploring it further and trusting in their development plan.

“It’s always a big adjustment regardless if it’s just someone coming from an Alaska high school or coming across the world,” Shadowens said. “We always tell our athletes that we’re preparing you for the full four- or five-year game plan so it can beat up a freshman a little bit.”

After graduating from high school, Heite wasn’t sure what she wanted to do until she came across the opportunity to participate in a track and field abroad program.

“Doing track in Germany is a little more complicated with college because we don’t have college sports,” Heite said. “I was like, well, I’ll just go to the U.S. and try it there.”

Her original plan was only to spend one year overseas but she fell in love with Alaska so much that she decided to extend her stay to pursue a collegiate career.

“I came here and immediately really liked the team a lot,” Heite said. “Back home, my team is smaller and it’s just different than here where I connected to my teammates really fast and obviously I get along with the coaches very well. I trust them 100% and I just know that this is the best place for me to keep growing as far as I can and as far as I want.”

Both of the Seawolves’ rising stars have their sights set on improving their top marks from this year and getting even better moving forward which will help the program as a whole continue to improve with them as young role models.

“I’m so glad I was given the chance to be a part of this program,” Campbell said. “Everyone pushes each other to get better everyday, with the support we give each other and the talent we have I just know the program is only going to continue to go up.”