SEATTLE – Two meets so far this season, and two conference honors for Seattle Pacific's Ali Worthen.
 
The Falcons senior, who posted an NCAA Division II provisional qualifying score in the pentathlon last weekend, has been named the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Athlete of the Week for women's indoor track and field.
 
Worthen (Coos Bay, Ore.) racked up 3,729 pentathlon points last Friday on the first day of the UW Invitational at Dempsey Indoor. That was way beyond her previous best of 3,447 points, set as a freshman in 2009, and also easily beat the provisional minimum of 3,330 points. It's the fifth-best score so far this season in all of D-2, and is the second-highest GNAC score of all time.
 
In that spot on the national list and with that point total, Worthen is in solid position to earn a ticket to Mankato, Minn., for the NCAAs, set for March 8-10. Last year, a total of 13 pentathletes were accepted (the minimum is typically 12), and the lowest score among those 13 was 3,404 points.
 
This is Worthen's fifth GNAC Athlete of the Week honor for her Seattle Pacific career – four of them for indoors, one for outdoors. Her first one this season came on Jan. 16 after she posted NCAA provisional marks in the 60-meter hurdles (8.85 seconds) and the high jump (5 feet, 6 inches) at the season-opening UW Indoor Preview.
 
The Falcons are off this week. Next up are the Husky Classic, set for Feb. 10-11, and the UW Indoor Indoor Open on Feb. 12, all at Dempsey on the University of Washington campus.