NCAA preview: Falcons jumpin' for joy about journey to Joplin

By MARK MOSCHETTI
SPU Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – Know when Anna Patti really started to enjoy being a distance runner?
 
When she stopped running just for fun.
 
And yet, with the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships now just a couple days away, Patti is having the time of her running life – as well she should be.

She's coming off a fourth-place performance in the NCAA West Regional meet two weeks ago in Oregon. She heads to Missouri this week well within reach of becoming an All-American for the first time in her career. She has a chance to lead the nationally ranked Falcons to a team finish somewhere inside the top 20.
 
The fact that Patti has come this far, done this much, and still hasn't reached her limits truly became possible once she decided that having fun on the run was fine …
 
… but experiencing the joy of what running can bring was even finer.

 

"It's still fun. But now I know how much more could be accomplished if you're using all of your focus and all of your energy," she said.
 
Nearly one third of the way through her final year in SPU maroon, it's hard to argue with the success of that mindset.
 
Just consider the first 11 pages of the 2015 calendar:
 
-- In February, she won the 5,000 meters at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference indoor track championship meet.
--  In March, she participated in her first NCAA indoor national meet, running the mile anchor leg on Seattle Pacific's distance medley relay team that came within one-hundredth of a second – maybe even less than that – of earning an All-American award.
-- In May, she employed precisely the right strategy to win the 10,000 meters at the GNAC Outdoor Championships.
 

-- Just two weeks after that, she raced in her first NCAA outdoor nationals, placing 19^th in the 5,000.
-- Finally, there was that West Regional cross country meet on Nov. 7 at Western Oregon, in which Patti ran with the leaders for a good chunk of the race before coming very strong across the line in fourth place.
 
"It has been such a pleasure to watch her become such a completely different runner," Falcons assistant coach Audra Smith said. "She's a different runner now even than she was last spring, just with the kind of confidence she brings to the table."
 
Or, as assistant coach Chris Reed put it, "She didn't get good at this by accident. She has made decisions over the course of her life the last few years that have led to the success she has had.
 
"It has been a real joy for me to be part of that ride."
 
COMING FULL CIRCLE
Saturday's national cross country meet on the Tom Rutledge Cross Country course in Joplin, Mo., will be Patti's third NCAAs in that sport and her fifth overall, including the indoor and outdoor track meets she race in earlier this year.
 
Joplin is also where she ran in her very first national competition, as a freshman on the 2012 Falcon XC squad.
                                                                                                                                               
"I was talking to Chris (Reed) about the things I could remember from the course," said Patti, who did not factor into the team scoring that day (she was the No. 6 Falcon finisher, and 132nd overall). "And to come back and be a totally different runner and have the full college experience … for Lynelle (fellow senior Decker) and I, it's going to be a special thing to share our knowledge and fond memories."

 

Fond memories for the soft-spoken 21-year-old, who starred at Lindbergh High School in Renton, just southeast of Seattle, really started accumulating during her sophomore year. It was then when something just seemed to click inside of her.
 
And she hasn't slowed down since.
 
"I came into college wanting to run, but I had no idea what that would really mean," she said. "It took a bit to familiarize myself with the region and the conference."
 
As she did, everyone started getting very familiar with her.  From three ever-rising All-Region races on the cross country trails (14^th as a sophomore, seventh as a junior, and now fourth as a senior) to GNAC title-winning and NCAA-qualifying runs on the track, Patti went from unknown to well-known.
 
Smith, who arrived on campus as an assistant coach right at the start of Patti's sophomore year in 2013, has had a front-row seat to watching it unfold. And as much as she has seen Patti reach higher and higher with her physical talent, it's her mental approach to things that has left an impression
 
"She'll admit it – she has fears, we have fears, we all get nervous," Smith said. "Anna knows how to deal with them. … she just knows that, no matter what, 'I'm going to go to perform and do my thing.'"
 
"We have enough confidence in her to step on the line," she added. "And after what she did, showing what she did two weekends ago (at regionals), I think that kind of sealed the deal for her."
 
SHE'S ALL IN
Although there's plenty of racing still to be done on indoor and outdoor tracks, Patti's college cross country career is down to its final 6,000 meters.
 
Where did the time go so quickly?
 
She's trying not to think about it.
 
"It's very exciting – and the excitement really outweighs any other emotion right now," she said in the same pleasant, matter-of-fact tone that characterizes most any conversation with her. "We all wanted our last race of the season to be on the national stage.
                                      
"As a team, we talk about grit a lot – our grittiest races have been our best," Patti added. "On my best days, I have a lot of it."

 

SPU's coaches are counting on that from all seven runners, but especially from Patti.

"When you're sitting down in a meeting and we're doing the best we can at providing them with encouragement and confidence and race planning and all of that stuff, Anna and Sarah (Macdonald), out of anybody in the group, will have big eyes," Smith said. "They're looking at you, they're nodding their heads – they're all in."

 

Added Reed, "This is a chance to really prove herself against some of the best individual runners in the country. She has somewhat of an unassuming nature. But she is quietly and incredibly confident. She is just so focused."
 
Patti's focus carries over to the classroom, where she's an accounting major with a 3.57 grade-point average. She started in education, then realized that teaching didn't come naturally to her. But finances did – so much that she already has a job lined up with a local accounting firm.
 
"I took my time deciding (on a course of study). But there's hope for people who decide at the last minute," she said with a laugh.
 
Deciding to alter how she approached her sport of choice wasn't last-minute.
 
But given what she has accomplished at SPU – especially the past two-plus years – it definitely was timely.
 
"It has become a lot more serious for me," Patti said. "It's something I've really grown into. I'm really glad about that."
 
And while this particular aspect of running isn't necessarily her top priority anymore …
                     
… it's a safe bet that Anna Patti is still having some fun with it, too