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SEATTLE -- Loads experience and multiple defending conference champions on the women's side. Depth in the distance events, with a blend of experience and youth in other areas on the men's side.

Taken together, the Seattle Pacific Falcons are ready to come in from the cold for their first strides, jumps and throws of 2010 when they begin the indoor track season on Saturday morning at the UW Indoor Preview.

The first meet of the year begins at 9 a.m. for both running and field events at the Dempsey Indoor facility on the University of Washington campus. That is a change from the previously announced starting times. The complete schedule is available by clicking on the above link.

Unlike the outdoor season, when they frequently have to hit the road for their meets, the Falcons will get to spend most of the winter right at home. SPU has four meets prior to the GNAC championships, and all of them will be at Dempsey. The conference meet is Feb. 20 at Northwest Nazarene in Nampa, Idaho. Seattle Pacific will host a last-chance national qualifying meet on Feb. 27 at Dempsey, and the NCAAs are set for March 12-13 in Albuquerque, N.M.

FALCONS IN A NUTSHELL
The SPU women come into the season pursuing their seventh consecutive Great Northwest Athletic

Conference championship. Matter of fact, through the first six years of indoor track, no other school has won the women's crown. Senior distance stars Jessica Pixler (Sammamish, Wash./Eastlake HS) and Jane Larson (Fall City, Wash./Cedar Park Christian HS), and junior pole vaulted Melissa Peaslee (Fox Island, Wash./Gig Harbor HS) are among last year's GNAC placers and NCAA qualifiers who are back in action.

Seattle Pacific's men welcome senior distance runner Chad Meis (Renton, Wash./Seattle Christian HS) back into the fold after he opted not to compete indoors last winter. Also returning is senior Justin Felt (Eugene, Ore.), an NCAA Division II provisional qualifier and GNAC runner-up in the long jump in 2009, and senior Nathan Wagner, a seventh-place conference finisher in the high jump.

SPEAKING OF THE FALCONS
Coach Karl Lerum looks up and down his rosters and likes what he sees heading into the opening meet of the new season.

“Our women as a team should vie for the conference championship, but also can finish in the top five both indoors and outdoors,” Lerum said. “We have a lot of people who have been going to nationals for a lot of years -- and not just going, but vying for titles and All-American finishes.”

Some events in particular already have Lerum anticipating very positive outcomes.

“I'm excited to watch the triple jump this year -- we have about five who are going to be good triple jumpers,” he said. “And our multi events will continue to be strong -- we have six training for the heptathlon.”

The men's team has grown in size to 21, and has the makings of a strong distance corps.

“The depth of our distance team is as good as it has been in years,” Lerum said. “We have some strong 800 and mile kids.

“Our guys are young, but we're hopeful that we can develop many of them into strong meet-caliber people. They're young and motivated.”

SCOUTING THE UW INDOOR PREVIEW
Although the conference meet is more than a month away, the Falcons will get a good look at some of the competition they'll be facing. Of the seven GNAC schools that sponsor indoor track, five of them are scheduled to be at Dempsey on Saturday. Joining Seattle Pacific are Western Washington, Central Washington, Saint Martin's and Western Oregon.

Most everyone will be entered for the Falcons. Coach Karl Lerum said the women's 4,000-meter distance medley relay team of seniors Lisa Anderberg (Edmonds, Wash./Kamiak HS), Jane Larson (Fall City, Wash./Cedar Park Christian HS), Jessica Pixler (Sammamish, Wash./Eastlake HS) and junior newcomer Crystal Sims (Portland, Ore.) will try to make the NCAA Division II automatic qualifying standard of 11 minutes, 47.90 seconds. The provisional qualifying time is 12:17.40.

For Pixler, owner of four NCAA indoor crowns, the relay will be her only event this weekend. Larson, runner-up in the mile and seventh in the 5,000, also is entered in the 4x400 relay.

Junior Melissa Peaslee is entered in the pole vault, in which she placed 13th at last year's NCAAs. She also is running the 200 meters.

Justin Felt, an NCAA provisional qualifier last winter in the long jump, will make his season debut in that event. Last year, Felt hit the qualifying mark of 23 feet, 2¾ inches (7.08 meters) right on in the SPU Last Chance meet. That remains the provisional qual standard this season. The automatic mark is 23-11½ (7.30 meters).

2009 FALCON REPLAY
The SPU women enjoyed another solid season and continued to set the standard in the GNAC. Along with their sixth conference crown in as many seasons, Falcon competitors accounted for five event titles. Freshman Alison Worthen won two of those, taking the high jump with a conference-record leap of 5 feet, 8½ inches, and the long jump at 18-6½. By the end of the meet, Worthen had accounted for 38 of SPU's 181 points, a GNAC record for an individual athlete.

Jessica Hinton (200 meters), Jane Larson (5,000) and the distance medley relay of Lisa Anderberg, Kate Harline, Jessica Pixler and Latasha Essien also captured conference crowns.

At the NCAAs, Pixler won her third straight mile title, and teamed with Larson on a 1-2 finish for the second straight year. Pixler also captured the 5,000-meter championship, with Larson placing seventh; Worthen took fourth in the high jump, and Melissa Peaslee was 13th in the pole vault. The Falcons finished sixth as a team with 35 points.

Justin Felt earned NCAA provisional qualifying status in the long jump. He was runner-up in that event at the GNAC meet. Nathan Wagner took seventh in the high jump, and Daniel Friesen was eighth in the mile.

ON THE HONOR ROLL
-- Jessica Pixler was named the GNAC Female Athlete of the Year for the third year in a row.
-- Pixler also took home the Division II Indoor Track Scholar Athlete of the Year award from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
-- Alison Worthen earned GNAC Freshman of the Year honors. She was one of four Falcon athletes across the sports spectrum to be named the conference's top freshman in 2008-09, joining Anna Herold in volleyball, Natty Plunkett in cross country and Jordan Harazin in women's basketball.
-- Janae Larson, who is not back this season, was the 2009 GNAC Newcomer of the Year.
-- Karl Lerum was named the GNAC Coach of the Year. He also earned West Region Women's Coach of the Year Honors from the USTFCCCA for the third straight season.

WELCOME BACK
After taking last winter off to focus on the spring outdoor season, senior Chad Meis is back for indoor

action in 2010. Meis spent much of his '09 indoor hiatus putting in extra distance work and training for the 3,000-meter steeplechase, which was a new event for him.

Meis is entered in the mile on Saturday. His best time in the event is 4:19.28 in 2008. The Seattle Pacific indoor record is 4:14.01, set by Brian Cronrath in 2007.

Returning to action after being forced to the sidelines with an elbow injury for all of the indoor and outdoor schedule in 2009 is Brittany Aanstad (Lake Stevens, Wash./Lake Stevens HS). A multi-event athlete, Aanstad is entered in five events: the 200 meters, 60-meter hurdles, high jump, long jump and triple jump.

WELCOME ABOARD
Two talented juniors have joined the Falcon women. Crystal Sims (Portland, Ore.) and Terra Schumacher (Sublimity, Ore.) bring multiple talents to the SPU program. Both come from Mount Hood Community College, a traditionally strong team at the CC level.

Sims, the cousin of current SPU basketball player Nyesha Sims and former track star Nyema Sims, won the heptathlon in last spring's Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges (NWAACC) multi-event championships, scoring 4,305 points. She won the 100 hurdles (15.67 seconds), long jump (16 feet, 8¾ inches) and tied for first in the high jump (5-0¼). Sims also was second in the 200 (25.97), third in the shot put (30-7 ¾) and third in the 800.

In the Southern Region championships, Sims was second in the 100 (12.95), 200 (25.98) and 400 (57.64) and ran on Mount Hood's victorious 4x100 and 4x400 relays. At the NWAACC championships, she took part in six individual events, placing third in the 400 and fifth in the high jump. She also ran on the second-place 4x100 relay.

Schumacher won the 100 hurdles at the Southern Region meet in 15.2 seconds, took second in the 400 hurdles (1:48.44), was fourth in the 100 (13.20) and joined Sims on the two winning relays. She went on to win the NWAACC crown in the 100 hurdles (14.30 seconds), took second in the pole vault (11 feet 8½ inches) and was on the runner-up 4x100 relay. 

COACH KARL LERUM
In his own quiet way, Karl Lerum has continued the long tradition of track success at Seattle Pacific.

Now starting his fifth year at the helm, Lerum has been named the West Region women's indoor Coach of the Year for three straight years. The Falcons have won all six GNAC indoor women's team championships, and Lerum has been in charge for the last five of those.

Last winter, Seattle Pacific followed up on its conference crown by placing sixth at the NCAA Division II meet. A total of nine Falcon women posted a combined 10 NCAA automatic qualifying marks and 14 provisional marks.

Lerum took over the Falcon coaching reins from Jack Hoyt in October 2005. He worked as an assistant to Hoyt in 2000 and again in 2003, and in between spent two years as an assistant coach at Trinity College, an NCAA Division III school in Hartford, Conn.

As an athlete, Lerum made his mark in two sports at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. On the football field, he set -- and still owns -- the school career records for receptions and receiving yards. On the track, Lerum has the Lutes record in the 400 meters and is among the school's top 10 in the decathlon, 110 hurdles, long jump, 100 meters, and javein.

After college, Lerum was on the San Francisco 49ers roster for the 1998 and 1999 preseason, and played with NFL Europe's Amsterdam Admirals. In 2003 and 04, he was the head coach of the Oslo Vikings football program in Norway.

Lerum is a graduate of Franklin Pierce High School in Tacoma. He has a bachelor's degree in history from PLU and a master's in history from Trinity.

UP NEXT
The Falcons have next week off, then return to Dempsey Indoor on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 29-30, for the UW Invitational. That meet attracts top talent from throughout the western United States encompassing all NCAA divisions and club teams. Last year in that meet, Seattle Pacific's Jessica Pixler broke the GNAC indoor record in the 5,000 meters with her time of 16 minutes, 12.65 seconds.