By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – Catching up with Jahzelle Ambus is tough enough when she's wearing racing shoes.
 
And practically impossible when she's wearing wheels.
                                                                                 
Just ask Jalen Tims.
 
The two Seattle Pacific seniors, who've been teammates, training partners, and besties since linking up in 2013 at Lane Community College, got the urge to go rollerblading one day while they were attending the school in Eugene, Ore. It wasn't new for them, but it had been awhile.
 
"There was this hill we were approaching," Tims recalled, "and we were so skeptical. And then she just went for it – straight down, no brakes. I'm on the rail slowly inching my way down, but she just goes straight down.

 

"That's just Jahzelle," Tims said, "just going head-long into something and not really thinking much about it. … But it always works out."
 
Even sans wheels on her feet, Ambus' indoor track season has worked out marvelously. She'll try to bring it to a speedy conclusion this weekend at the NCAA Division II Championships in Pittsburg, Kan.

On Friday, the Portland native will race in the individual 400 meters at 3:05 p.m. Pacific time, then run the 400-meter leg on the 4,000 distance medley relay at 5:45.
 
If she can jump one or more spots from her No. 9-seeded position in the 400, Ambus will advance to Saturday's 3:25 p.m. Pacific time finals. She'll anchor SPU's 4x400 relay in the last event of the meet at 5:00 p.m.
                                                    
"I don't think I've processed it all yet," Ambus said of competing in not just one, but three national-caliber events. "I made a little checklist a couple years back, and going to nationals was on there. Sometimes, it didn't look like that was going to happen.
 
"But I'm excited that we're going to Kansas to compete against some top D2 athletes."
 
That kind of NCAA workload might seem daunting. But assistant coach Audra Smith, who works with Falcon sprinters, has no doubt Ambus can handle it.
 
"We've talked about breaking it down one race at a time. Each one is so significantly different," Smith said. "She brought that up and said, 'I'll have four 400s.' And I said to her, 'And you're going to want be a part of every single one of those'
 
"She's ready to go."
 
VOICES BELIEVED IN HER
From different corners and different times of her life, Jahzelle Ambus could still hear the voices.
 
Growing up, there was her momma's voice, "telling me to get a scholarship through track," Ambus recalled. "Hopefully, I would get recruited. And then Karl (Lerum, SPU's head coach) called me my last year at Lane. I jumped at the opportunity to continue running and have a scholarship for it."
 
Last spring, there was Rob Lowery. He's the always-well informed voice of "GNAC Insider", a weekly Internet podcast featuring athletes and coaches from around the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. "He alluded to me making it to nationals," Ambus said. "That conversation kind of resonated with me all through fall training."
 
Then, there was Ambus' own voice. Before the season-opening UW Indoor Preview on Jan. 16, she was asked about her goals for the year – especially in the 400. "I'll be shooting for a 55, a 54," she replied.
 
Later, Ambus spoke to Smith, telling her that she was regretting something she had said during the interview. Smith asked what it was, and Ambus reiterated the comment about wanting to run 54.
 
Smith had no problem with Ambus saying that, telling her, "Good – I'm glad we're on the same page."
 
THEN SHE WENT AND DID IT
Ambus immediately made the NCAA provisional qualifying list, going 56.57 in the Jan. 16 meet. She did a 56.92 three weeks later at the Tracktown USA High-Performance meet in Portland.
 
But her best race of the regular season came on Feb. 12 at the Husky Classic. Ambus teamed with Lynelle Decker, Chynna Phan, and Anna Patti on a distance medley relay team that finished 4,000 meters in 11 minutes, 42.33 seconds – the fourth-best mark in D2 at that time (and still No. 9 heading into the NCAAs).
 
"Relays are so much more enjoyable. You have three other energetic bodies chasing after the same goal," said Ambus, who is soft-spoken, but also very well-spoken. "You just kind of thrive off of each other, and the butterflies are a little easier."
 
The next week, at the GNAC Championships in Nampa, Idaho, Ambus zipped to a 55.56 in the 400 preliminaries – breaking her own school record of 56.18, which she set in winning the 2015 conference crown.
                                                                      
Less than 24 hours later, Ambus got her 54 – a 54.87, to be precise – to win her second straight 400 title (and third overall, including the outdoor championship she won last spring). It was a GNAC meet and overall record. And not only was it another school indoor record, it was the fastest 400 time in Falcon history, indoors or outdoors. It beat the outdoor 54.98 clocked by Joleen Schwarzmiller in 1998.
 
"I didn't even have (54.87) as a goal – honestly, I was just trying to place," Ambus said afterward. "To break 55 means a lot. I'm glad that the hard work is paying off."

 

She then beat defending champion Jamie Ashcroft of Alaska Anchorage in the 200 in a school and GNAC meet record 24.35 seconds, and ended her day by anchoring a 4x400 relay team that went 3:46.30.
 
Her total haul: two titles (the relay was edged by Simon Fraser), two school records, two conference meet records, one conference overall record (the 400; Ashcroft still has the 200 standard at 24.25), and three national top-10 times (counting the relay).
 
Even with all of that, Ambus was as humble as she was fast.
 
"I've never been an 'It's about me' person," she said. "I actually preferred basketball (which she also played in high school) because of the team aspect. But I went for it, and it worked out for me. I'm thrilled."
                                      
JAHZELLE, THE 400 RUNNER
Sometimes, even Ambus can't believe how well the 400 has gone.
 
"I knew coming in (to SPU) that I wasn't going to focus on the 1 and the 2, which I had at Lane," she said. "I was a little anxious about that. My biggest goal then was to run it in under a minute."
 
That goal has been left as far behind as all of those records.
 
"Now, a lot of people ask me, 'What's your event?' and '400 runner' comes out,'" she said, laughing a bit. "That's new."
 
Having taken a break between high school and college, Ambus, an exercise science major, is now 23, older than most of her counterparts. But the sport definitely hasn't gotten old.
 
"Through fall training, I kind of saw that my hunger for it wasn't dying," she said. "I'm just trying to stay positive and in the right frame of mind."
 
Her close friendship with Tims factors into that.
 
"We just sort of clicked when we were at Lane," Tims said. "The more we trained together, the closer we got. When I'm scrambling or I need to get myself together, she has her act together. Or if she can't find her debit card or something, I'm on top of it."
 
Ironically, one of the things that ultimately convinced Ambus to come to SPU was …
 
… roller skating.
 
Yup. When Smith was giving Ambus the Brougham Pavilion tour, she showed her the locker room. There on the floor was pair of skates.
                                                                                                                                                               
"We were very impressed with her demeanor. She was so polite and kind," Smith said. "These roller skates were sitting there by themselves, and I said, 'I need to put those on,' and she said, 'You probably should.' So I put them on and skated around while showing her the rest of the facility.
 
"She said that's what sold her."
 
Catching up with Jahzelle Ambus has been tough to do ever since.