THE  SCHEDULE:        Seattle Pacific at Club NW Spring Break Open
                                       Saturday, March 29, 2014, field and running 9:00 a.m.
                                       West Seattle Stadium / Seattle, Wash.
                                       No live Webcast or live results
  
       Weekly release, with complete updated season lists (PDF)
       Club NW Spring Break Open schedule (PDF)
 
SEATTLE – For the next three weeks, the Seattle Pacific Falcons won't have to go far to find good track and field competition.
 
SPU will be sticking close to home during the upcoming stretch of the schedule, beginning on Saturday with the Club Northwest Spring Break Open. The meet at West Seattle Stadium begins at 9:00 a.m. with four field events and the 10,000-meter run. The last event is scheduled for 3:50 p.m.
 
The Falcons are back in town after some strong performances at two different venues in Oregon last week. That included a national-leading run by McKayla Fricker in the 800 meters at the Oregon Preview in Eugene, and a slew of personal-best marks by several different athletes at the Lewis & Clark Spring Break Open in Portland.
 
Seattle Pacific will be in the JD Shotwell Invite at University of Puget Sound next Saturday, and in the Washington Open at Husky Track on April 12. A select group of SPU athletes will fly off to California next week for the Stanford Invitational.
 
PARKING PROSPECTS AND TICKET TALK
Parking at West Seattle Stadium can be a challenge, as the facility is adjacent to West Seattle Golf Course. If it's a nice (or even if it's not), the limited number of spaces can fill up in a hurry, so fans planning to attend are encouraged to arrive as close to 9 a.m. as possible.
 
While there is no formal admission charge to the meet, fans attending are asked to make a small donation, all of which goes to support Club Northwest's teams.
 
FRICKER TABBED AS GNAC TRACK RUNNER OF WEEK
After posting the top 800-meter time in NCAA Division II and bringing SPU from behind on the anchor leg to win the 4x400 relay, McKayla Fricker has been named the women's Runner of the Week in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
Falcon senior Fricker (Canby, Ore.) clocked a 2:08.00 in the 800 at last Saturday's Oregon Preview, taking second place in that race behind Shannon Leinert of the Oregon Track Club
 
Fricker finished her day by surging thorough the last 200 meters to give SPU the victory in the 4x4 with a time of 3:54.16.
 
This is Fricker's fourth Athlete of the Week award this year. She won it twice during the winter indoor season – once for a then-national leading time in the 800, and again with teammates Kishia Mitchell, Tasia Baldwin, and Jasmine Johnson in the 4x400 relay. She also won once during cross country.
 
SCOUTING THE CLUB NORTHWEST SPRING BREAK OPEN
The Falcons will be going in their favorite events this week as they seek to get onto the qualifying list for the GNAC Championships, or move up the list.
 
The sprints will feature SPU's veteran crew of Tasia Baldwin, Kishia Mitchell, and BryAnne Wochnick in the 100 and 200. All three of them also are entered in both the 4x100 and 4x400 relays.
 
Sophomore Lynelle Decker will take a break from the1,500 this week and go for the 800 instead. She ran a PR of 2:11.57 at last year's GNAC meet, and if she is anywhere near that, it will put her on the NCAA provisional qualifying list. The mark to beat is 2:14.00.
 
Sophomore Anna Patti and freshman Sarah Macdonald, both of whom have set PRs in the 1,500 during the first month of the season, will try to go even faster. Patti clocked 4:45.38 on March 8 at Oregon State, and Macdonald went 4:46.00 last Saturday at Lewis & Clark. Making GNAC will require a 4:39.86 or better.
 
Freshmen Maddi Hommes, Cheryl Hong, and Ali Sowers each are entered in five of the seven heptathlon events, although there is no official hep competition at this meet. All three are in the 200 meters, 100 hurdles, long jump, and javelin. Hong also is doing the high jump; Hommes and Sowers are in the shot put. After this week, the only event none of them will have tried outdoors yet is the 800, and Hong has yet to do the shot put.
 
Freshman Kyra Brannan will be in the 200 and will do the long jump outdoors for the first time in a Falcon uniform. Her outdoor PR from high school is 18-10 ¼; she went 18-3¾ indoors at the GNAC Championships in February.
 
McKayla Fricker will take the day off from the 800, but is listed as the anchor on both relays.
 
Juniors David Ferguson and RJ Straker, both of whom set PRs last week in Portland, are in the 100 and 200. Sophomore Ben Smith got into the 20-foot range in the long jump last week for the first time this season, going 20-3 ½. That puts him within range of his lifetime best of 20-7 ¾.
 
STILL NO. 1
After all of the final results were in last weekend, McKayla Fricker remained atop the D2 national list for the 800 meters. Her time of 2:08.00 is nearly two seconds faster the next-best time of 2:09.85 posted by Shawnee Carnett of Concord (W.V.) – the same person who edged Fricker for the indoor NCAA 800 title on March 15 in North Carolina.
 
Not only is Fricker the D2 leader, she's quite literally less than a stride away from having the top time across all three NCAA divisions. In Division I, four runners have faster times, but not by much. The top mark is 2:07.92 by Annette Eichenberger of Air Force. The other three are 2:07.93, 2:07.94, and 2:07.99.
 
The best Division III clocking is 2:14.94 by Alicia Burns of Puget Sound.
 
PARADE OF PRs
Maybe it was the relatively nice late March weather in Oregon last weekend. Whatever the reason, the Falcons took advantage of their opportunities to record 14 individual personal-best marks.
 
Freshman Maddi Hommes and junior RJ Straker were at the front of that group. Hommes (Lynden, Wash. / Lynden HS) PR'd in all three of her events at the Lewis & Clark Spring Break Open in Portland, going 17.21 in the 100-meter hurdles, 4-11 ½ in the high jump, and 15-8 ¾ in the long jump. That last distance was more than a foot and a half farther than her only previous mark in the long.
 
In that same meet, Straker (Pasadena, Calif.) broke 23 seconds in the 200 meters for the first time, clocking 22.86. He also ran his best-ever college time in the 400 with a 51.31.
 
SPU's 1,500-meter runners in Portland recorded some of the most significant time drops. For freshman Sarah Macdonald (Tucson, Ariz.), her winning time of 4:46.00 was an improvement of 7.2 seconds. Sophomore Adam Avischious (Colorado Springs, Colo.) shaved almost five seconds off his old 1,500 PR to finish in 4:03.41, and junior Turner Wiley (Issaquah, Wash. / Issaquah HS), at 4:06.99, was nearly seven seconds better.
 
Others putting up PRs in either Portland or Eugene were sophomore Lindsay LeBrun (Portland, Ore.) in the 400, freshman Hannah Calvert (Enumclaw, Wash. / Enumclaw HS) in the 1,500, freshman Cheryl Hong (Federal Way, Wash. / Jefferson HS) in the 100 hurdles, freshman Ali Sowers (Lacey, Wash. / Northwest Christian HS) in the high jump, and junior David Ferguson (Inverness, Ill.) in the 400.
 
The highlight PR, of course, was McKayla Fricker's 2:08.00 in the 800 at the Oregon Preview. It was her first time below 2:09, beating her old mark of 2:09.42, set last April 19.
 
THE INSIDE SCOOP
Head coach Karl Lerum was one of the guests on this week's edition of the "GNAC Insider" podcast. The weekly show, with Kevin Young and Evan O'Kelly behind the microphone, includes athletes and coaches from different sports, as well as administrators from around the conference.
 
The show airs every Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., and can be accessed through the GNAC home page at www.gnacsports.com, or by clicking on this link.
 
To hear Tuesday's show, click on this link. The segment with Lerum begins at approximately the 12:55 mark, and goes for 12 minutes.
 
TRACKING THE GNAC
Although it's still very early in the season, a number of Falcons already are putting themselves into good position among their conference counterparts.
 
Led by senior Kishia Mitchell's mark of 57.09, SPU runners rank 1-2-4 in the women's 400 meters. Senior BryAnne Wochnick (Portland, Ore.) is second at 58.51, and junior Tasia Baldwin (Tacoma, Wash. / Foss HS) is fourth at 58.79. In the women's 1,500, the Falcons are 1-4-5, with sophomore Lynelle Decker (Vancouver, Wash. / Mountain View HS) at 4:36.08, sophomore Anna Patti (Renton, Wash. / Lindbergh HS) at 4:45.38, and freshman Sarah Macdonald at 4:46.00.
 
Seattle Pacific's 4x400 relay team of Mitchell, Baldwin, Wochnick, and senior McKayla Fricker is No. 1 at 3:54.16. Fricker, of course, also has the conference's top time in the 800.
 
Alaska Anchorage currently has the top three times in the women's 100-meter dash, and the top four times in the 200.
 
Click on this link for a complete look at GNAC leaders. Click on this link for a look at Division II national qualifiers.
 
POLLING PLACE
The SPU women have jumped into the national top 25 in this week's U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) rankings. The Falcons are No. 22. Last week, while not in the top 25, they were close, sitting at No. 29.
 
Seattle Pacific is one of five GNAC teams and one of nine from the West Region currently on the national list. Chico State is No. 2 overall behind Angelo State of Texas. Other GNAC schools are No. 11 Western Washington, No. 13 Central Washington, No. 16 Alaska Anchorage, and No. 18 Northwest Nazarene.
 
In the West Region rankings, SPU moved in at No. 10. Chico State is No. 1.
 
AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for news, notes, and results from around the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons will have a split squad next week as March turns into April. SPU will take 11 athletes to California for the San Francisco State Distance Carnival on Friday and the prestigious Stanford Invitational on Saturday. That group will include all of the team's national-caliber athletes. The rest of the Falcons will their chance to compete in the JD Shotwell Invitational at Baker Stadium on the University of Puget Sound campus in Tacoma. Field events start at 10:00 a.m., with running events at 11.