SCHENECTADY — Grace Heiting missed a game to earn an academic award last week, then won an athletic award for the two she played for interim head coach Jessica Davos’ Union women’s lacrosse team.
That sequence of events made sense to Josh Sciba, who coached Heiting during her career with the Union College women’s hockey team and has grown accustomed to the idea that the 21-year-old from Woodbury, Minnesota, becomes more productive the busier she gets.
“When you think of Grace, you think of someone who is so dedicated to their craft and everything she does, and you just see that in every facet of her life,” Sciba said.
Heiting earned a share of the Liberty League Co-Offensive Performer of the Week honors earlier this week after a two-game streak in which the senior scored 11 goals, registered three assists, accumulated 17 draw controls, caused nine turnovers and four ground balls rallied in a 1-1 span for the Union women’s lacrosse team. Those games were against Clarkson and St. Lawrence, which gave Heiting extra motivation given they’re schools she also faced while playing for Union Hockey.
“When I started this weekend, I had a little chip on my shoulder because of that,” said Heiting. “It helped make it a little personal.”
As Davos also pointed out, the two-sport star also had “the freshest legs” for Union going into those games. Shortly before her two-game scoring blitz, Heiting had missed a game against Middlebury to attend a biology conference in Philadelphia, where she presented her thesis and received the American Physiological Society’s Travel Award in Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology. Heiting and lab partner Andrew Sheahan — a senior tight end on the school’s football team — were among a group of Union students who traveled to the conference with Professor Scott Kirkton. Heiting’s PhD thesis is entitled ‘Hypoxia decreases hopping frequency and increases lactate production in late-stage locusts’ and she has been working on related research since the end of her second year at the school.
Heiting will complete his studies in biology and Spanish this spring. Her future is in medical school, but her plan for the next school year is to visit Maine to use her final year of hockey eligibility to earn a Certificate in Arts and Humanities in Medicine.
Laughing, Heiting admitted that participating in just one sport and one academic career will make for a slightly more relaxed school year than usual. After first hearing about Union when the school’s men’s hockey team won the national championship by beating Minnesota in 2014 — “That was the team everyone hated,” Heiting, who grew up a Gophers fan, said of Union – Heiting later went to Union school with only plans to play for the Union Division I women’s hockey team, but joined the school’s Division III women’s lacrosse team at the end of her freshman hockey season. Heiting said she asked Sciba for permission to play both sports and the coach encouraged her to try.
“If you know Grace,” Sciba said, “she has to be active and doing things.”
And she is very successful in these things. Heiting led her hockey team with eight goals scored last season and is this spring’s top scorer with 37 points for her lacrosse team, which aims to equal its Liberty League record of 3-3 when it meets in Vassar this weekend plays. She is also an outstanding student and involved in other school activities beyond her sport, and she has received numerous awards throughout her Union career – including a place as a top 3 finalist for the Mandi Schwartz Student-Athlete of the Year Award earlier this year 2022, which recognizes individuals who are “leaders in their teams, in the classroom, and in the community.”
“Grace is the quintessential Union College student-athlete — a dedicated performer in the classroom coupled with leadership qualities on the ice and lacrosse field,” Sciba said at the time Heiting was announced as a finalist. “Additionally, all of the research and community service she has been involved in has made her one of the most diverse individuals to ever come through our program. Union women’s hockey is better because of players like Grace.”
Davos has only been coaching Heiting for a short time, but said she was immediately impressed by how quickly Heiting was able to transition from the ice to the lacrosse field.
“When you see her racquet skills, her handling is absurd – and she gets that from her hockey because her wrists are exceptionally strong,” Davos said.
Heiting said her busy sporting and academic career at Union was “overwhelming and stressful” at times, but that didn’t show in the results she achieved. She thanked her advisors, classmates, coaches, professors, and teammates for helping her pursue so many different opportunities throughout her undergraduate career.
“Everyone here wants you to be successful,” said Heiting. “I am very grateful for that.”
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Categories: College Sports, Sports, Union College
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