Emma Stolte Sets Records, Vibes Amid Standout Senior Season for Vikings

According to senior distance runner (cross country and track) Emma Stolte, when she reluctantly started running in grade school in her hometown of Townsend, Mont., she was terrible.

“I hated the idea of running cross country, but all my friends were going to try, so I did too,” she recalled. The early results were not promising.

She came in last at every practice and couldn’t complete a mile. “At that point I hated running,” she said. 

Stolte began her sports career playing soccer “just for fun” and after her sixth grade running experience, told her friends she was switching to volleyball in the seventh grade.

When that year came around “something in my gut told me to stick to cross country and I haven’t stopped since. I’m not very good at sports that involve a ball,” she admitted. And, she slowly got better at cross country, eventually learning to love distance running in track.

“I found my love for the sport. This is my 11th year running. I have always run distances. In track, I ran the mile and two mile most of the time. I tried the 800 competitively for the first time my senior year in high school and really liked it. I have so much love for running it’s hard to explain. When I run a race or see my teammates PR, it makes me very emotional,” said Stolte.

Her favorite is the 1500 “because it’s the perfect mix of distance and speed. It’s long enough that tactical moves can be made. At least to me, the last lap feels like a full sprint. I group the mile and 1,500 in in my head. I also have a lot of love for the mile because it’s a distance I’ve been doing since I was little.”

By the time she finished Broadwater High School she’d won four state titles between the individual cross-country title (2021), two titles in the 1,600 meters (2021, 22022) and one in the 800 meters (2022).

“I enjoy running distances because, when I’m running, it feels like nothing else in the world matters. Running distances is also an extremely mental game and I really like that aspect,” she said. 

And, that’s not a surprise. Stolte was also a four-time academic all-state honoree in cross-country and three-time academic all-state in field and track. She was her high school class valedictorian and an Individual qualifier and Placer for the Academic Olympics.

In high school, she began thinking about medicine as a career. “It may sound cheesy, but I like the idea of helping people.”

To no one’s surprise, Stolte began hearing from colleges her senior year. She heard from other colleges but was particularly interested in a direct message from the Viking coaching staff because Portland State fit several of her criteria…she wanted to leave the state for college and she wanted to experience city life, being from a small town (Townsend population: 2,210 and 39 students in her high school graduating class)…and maybe not be too far from home.

“I was talking to a few other schools but always knew I was going here at the end of the day. I ended up taking a visit and was really nervous about everyone liking me. I always knew I wanted to go out of state, and I really wanted to go to a city since my town was so small. I really wanted to broaden my views of the world, and I knew Portland State could do that for me,” said Stolte.

At PSU, she has always impressed athletically and academically.

“Emma’s biggest strength is her consistency and discipline. She understands pacing. She races with confidence and she doesn’t back down when things get tough. That combination of physical preparation and mental toughness is what makes her effective at distance events,” said cross country and track & field head coach Joseph Blue.  

That toughness was tested with two tibia fractures her sophomore year.

“Injuries are super difficult and they impacted me emotionally and mentally. The summer of my sophomore year, my goal was to make the traveling squad because I knew the conference cross country meet was in Missoula on the course where I became a state champ. I felt it would be sort of a full circle moment,” she said.

As the meet approached, she knew she wouldn’t be healthy enough to go. “I was devastated. My whole family was going to be there, my friends from high school, too. But I wasn’t able,” she recalled.

Stolte took six very difficult months off from running. She biked, swam and did other things to stay fit. She was able to race one of the final races outdoors that year.

“I could not have been happier. I’m really proud of that year because I never gave up. I was in so much pain, but I trusted the process and was able to overcome it,” she said. Although she had a shin flare-up this cross country season, she finally got her “full circle” moment at the conference meet last fall because it was in Montana and her family and friends and high school coach were able to see her run. And not only run, but earn All-Big Sky honors with a ninth-place individual finish.

Stolte’s injuries played a constructive part in her maturation as an athlete, said Blue. “She’s had to become more patient, more intentional with recovery and more aware of her body. What stands out is how she’s handled it. She’s stayed engaged, trusted the process and continued to show up. That resilience has allowed her to come back stronger and more mature as an athlete”.

As her undergraduate time draws to a close, she lists no fewer than 18 highlights between cross country and track — including two years as team captain, Big Sky Conference honors and climbing into the top runners all-time lists at PSU in cross country and distance track events. In fact, she broke her own school records in the 1,500 meters and 5k at the Bryan Clay Invitational this past weekend. She set the 5k record with a 71-second last lap – four seconds faster than she ran any other lap – to break 16 minutes for the first time, finishing at 15:59.87.

She said she especially enjoyed her chance to work on campus at the PSU’s Student Health and Counseling Clinic.

Stolte will graduate this spring with a Public Health and Pre-clinical Science degree. And, by the way, she’s carrying a 4.0 cumulative GPA. She listed reading as a hobby but said between athletics and classes, that’s fallen by the wayside…”unless you include biology or organic chemistry text books…I read those”. And, she’s readying herself for the 7.5-hour Medical College Admission Test in a few weeks. 

She plans to begin medical school in the fall of 2027. OHSU and the University of Washington would be her “dream” schools. During her gap year she plans to travel and work as a phlebotomist. Ultimately, Stolte is thinking about sports medicine, but “I’m also super interested in primary care or pediatrics.”

Although Stolte found a home at PSU and in Portland, she’d ultimately like to take her medical skills into a small community.

“It’s been really fun to see and have new experiences. I also just really love my teammates. We are all a pretty silly bunch, but we have a lot of fun.

Among her highlights with her teammates, she said, was returning from a long trip back from a meet her junior year. “On the second day back, we spent the night in a hotel with a pool. The entire team played water football and it was so much fun.“

A recent trip also sticks in her mind where “we were able to go to the beach and see the Golden Gate Bridge.” And her favorite part of trips (other than doing well athletically) has been “singing in the car with my teammates (and coaches, too). One of our favorites to sing is “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield.

Stolte has fulfilled both the athletic and academic promise she brought to PSU as a freshman.

And she has at least fulfilled the coaches’ expectations. “In a lot of ways, Emma has exceeded our expectations. Not just in performances, but in how she handles adversity and how she contributes to the team culture. She’s someone we can rely on, and that’s huge,” said Blue.