SEATTLE – Crystal Sims, who won four of the seven events on the way to claiming the heptathlon title at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Multi-Event Championships, has been named the GNAC Athlete of the Week for women's track and field.

Sims (Portland, Ore.), a junior in her first year at Seattle Pacific, posted the top marks in the 100-meter hurdles (14.95 seconds), shot put (36 feet, 9¾ inches), the 200 meters (25.87)  and the long jump (17-7). Her total of 4,769 points was a personal best and gave her a 442-point bulge on runner-up Raquel Gonzalez of Central Washington. Her time in the 100 hurdles was the first of her career below 15 seconds.

Sims' performance at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho, marked the second straight year she has won a conference heptathlon championship. Last year as a sophomore at Mount Hood CC in Oregon, she won the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges (NWAACC) title, scoring 4,305 points. In her only previous hep as a Falcon, she tallied 4,506 at the Cal Multi Meet in Berkeley on March 24-25.

She was one of four Falcons to get into the top eight last week in Nampa. Junior Jennifer Pike (Vancouver, Wash./Skyview HS) placed third; junior Katy Gross (Everett, Wash./Cascade HS) was fourth; and sophomore Brittany Tri (Lake Stevens, Wash./Lake Stevens HS) was eighth.

Together, the four Falcons racked up 22 team points that will count toward their final total at the GNAC Championships this Friday and Saturday at Western Oregon University in Monmouth.

Entries for the conference meet will be finalized Monday night, and Sims will be part of the Seattle Pacific contingent. She have her choice of several events, as she is an automatic qualifier in the 100, 200, 400 and long jump, and is a provisional qualifier in the 800 and the 100 hurdles.

Competition at GNACs begins Friday afternoon at 4 p.m., and will be mostly field event finals, with a few running event preliminaries. On Saturday, field events start at 10:45 a.m, with running at 12:30 p.m. The last event is set for 3:25, with awards starting at 3:30.