Mount Si senior lifts her way to state title

Published 9:25 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

SNOQUALMIE – At 5 feet, 6 inches and 174 pounds, Erica Tawney is small enough to pass by unnoticed in a crowd of people.

Put her in a weight room, however, and she stands head and shoulders above everyone else.

The Mount Si High School senior recently took first place at the Washington State High School Powerlifting Championships at Ephrata High School. She is the only girl who competes on the school’s weightlifting club.

Tawney began weightlifting the summer before her freshman year. She was on the Mount Si powerlifting team for only one year. The sport is not sanctioned by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), so the team travels to places as far away as Monroe, Shelton and Woodland to compete against other schools that have clubs.

She spends much of her time working out at the Eastside Gym in Redmond, where she has made friends with some well-known weightlifters, including Jeff Magruder, who holds the International Powerlifting Federation World record in the 242-pound weight class for bench-pressing 595 pounds. He also holds the United States Powerlifting Federation bench-press record at 595 pounds, and has staked his claim to the American Powerlifting Federation record for bench-pressing 644 pounds.

Tawney met Magruder through her grandfather, who was a friend to Magruder’s grandfather. At the gym she’s also met Axel Aldensteinssen, who holds records in the dead lift for hoisting as much as 710 pounds, and gym owner and competitive lifter Lonny Haywood.

With such luminaries helping her, Tawney has developed into an all-around weightlifter, able to compete in a variety of events.

“Instead of a one-lift girl, I’Om evenly good at all of them,” she said.

Tawney works out at Eastside Gym four days a week, something that usually goes unnoticed by her high-school teammates. They don’t see her as often in the school’s weight room, so they assume she is “slacking.”

She shakes off the teasing, though, because she knows how much time is devoted to her training. And with her friendly, laid-back, self-assured nature, she doesnOt care what anyone else thinks. That thinking extends to being the only female on the school’s weightlifting team.

“I’d have to ask the guys to spot me at school; it’s a little odd,”she said. “[At the Redmond gym], we all know that I’m lifting for a purpose, it doesn’t feel as weird.”

She does have one ally on the school squad. Fellow teammate Brad Connor lives next door to Tawney and has known her all his life. He is very supportive of her interest in the non-traditional women’s sport.

“She did great in her first year. It must have been really tough,” Connor said. “She’s the only girl, so we kind of give her a hard time.”Tawney has exceeded her high-school team’s expectations. After she won her first match, she said her teammates knew she had what it takes to do well in weightlifting.

“The guys weren’t expecting me to do as well. I think I gained a lot of respect. It was one of the best feelings,” she said.

But Tawney doesn’t do it just to earn respect. She likes the feeling of accomplishment, and the short-lived battle between her and gravity.

“It’s personal – just you and the weight. Nothing else matters,” she said. “When I go up to lift, it’s just me and the bar for three seconds.”

Her focus helped propel her to become a state champion. “My mindset was that I didn’t come here for second. I went to state for first place, and nothing else was going to satisfy,” Tawney said.

At the state meet she set personal records in the squat, 275 pounds, and bench press, 155 pounds. When it came time for her to compete in the dead lift, however, she was tired and needed a nudge.

Her coach, Charlie Kinnune, did what most good coaches do when they have a talented athlete who is minutes away from making her last attempt at earning a state title.

“He grabbed my face [in his hands] and goes, ‘You will get this dead lift. You didn’t come here for second place,'” Tawney said.

The advice helped. She set a personal best in that event, too, dead-lifting 300 pounds. She was the only person on her team to take first place at the meet.

“She is extremely strong, I think her success really comes from within,” Kinnune said. “She is extremely competent. She set her sights on powerlifting, not just to win her weight, but to be the strongest girl in state, and she proved that.”

Tawney said the hardest thing about lifting is the mental aspect of the sport.

This summer she will lift in the junior division of the United States Powerlifting Federation to stay in shape. In the fall she will attend the University of Washington, where her older sister, Traci, goes to school. She plans on studying anthropology and physics, with the hope of someday becoming a forensic scientist.

Like many things in life, those plans could change, and she may opt to go into sports training instead. Because the UW doesn’t have a powerlifting team, she will be working out under the direction of Bill Gillespie, the university’s strength trainer. Tawney thinks he may teach her enough to spark an interest in his profession.

Regardless of what direction college takes her, Kinnune said her abilities in the gym can take her far.

“I think she’s caught the bug and that she’s got a bright future, if she wants to stay with it,” he said.