BELLINGHAM — Sequim’s Claire Henninger’s athletic career hit a lot of road bumps, including a big disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but her persistence paid off as she can now call herself a national champion.
Henninger, who was a three-time all-Olympic League goalkeeper for the Sequim High School girls soccer team, graduated high school in 2018 and moved on to play soccer at Western Washington University.
She didn’t get a chance to start full-time until this season. All she did was start 23 out of the Vikings’ 25 games this year, go 18-2-3 on the season, allowed just 12 goals in 23 starts and helped lead Western Washington to an NCAA Div. II championship. WWU defeated West Chester University of Pennsylvania 2-1 in the national championship match on Dec. 3. Henninger made two saves in the win and didn’t allow West Chester to score over the final 66 minutes.
“I’m grateful for every single one of my teammates and my coaches. I genuinely believe that this is the best place that anyone would want to play soccer at in the nation,” Henninger said during her postgame press conference.
Claire Henninger
For her role in the victory and the postseason, Henninger was named to the NCAA Div. II all-tournament team. She also made the second team in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and the GNAC all-academic team.
Henninger redshirted in 2018, started five matches as a redshirt freshman in 2019, was only able to play four matches in the COVID-shortened 2020 season and played in five matches last year. This year, she finally blossomed as the Vikings’ starting keeper.
Henninger said WWU has a lot of players from the Seattle and Portland, Ore., areas, players from big 4A schools who also got to compete in clubs and with elite teams.
“I feel to come from the Peninsula and play at Western is such a privilege,” Henninger said.
“My first year I needed a lot of technical development. It took a lot to get up to that level,” she said. Henninger said at the college level, not only is shot-blocking crucial for a goalkeeper, but starting the team’s attack and distributing the ball to her teammates.
Henninger isn’t done with the Vikings. She already earned her bachelor’s degree in June 2021 and is a graduate student working on her master’s in sports and exercise psychology. She plans to use another year of eligibility next year to come back and play another year at WWU.
Henninger is not the only Sequim athlete to win a collegiate national championship in recent years. Elise Beuke won two national championships in 2017 and 2019 with the University of Washington women’s rowing team.
To watch Henninger’s press conference, people can go to: www.tinyurl.com/WWUPressConference.
And for a recap of the championship match, people can go to: www.tinyurl.com/WWUchampionship.
