THE SCHEDULE:               Seattle Pacific at Doris Heritage Distance Festival
                                                Saturday, March 25, 2017
                                                Field events 10:00 a.m.; track events 12 noon
                                                West Seattle Stadium / Seattle, Wash.
                                                Live results        No live Webcast
 

        Weekly release, with updated season lists (PDF)
        Doris Heritage Distance Festival home page (HTML)
        Meet schedule (PDF)
        Heat sheets (PDF)
        Doris Heritage video interview (HTML)
        "Runner's World" magazine article on Doris Heritage (HTML)
 
SEATTLE – The Seattle Pacific Falcons finally get to run at home this week. But this isn't just another meet.
 
That circle around Saturday's date on the calendar is for the Doris Heritage Distance Festival.
 
The second edition of the early-season outdoor meet that is named in honor of the running and coaching legend is set once again for West Seattle Stadium. Competition begins at 10:00 a.m. for the field events, and at 12:noon for races on the track.
 
A brief opening ceremony is set for 11:45 a.m., with the national anthem, and a few words of welcome from Heritage. There is no admission charge for the meet.
 
This will be one of two meets in the Seattle area for SPU. The other one is the Ken Shannon Invitational, which is scheduled for Saturday, May 6, at Husky Track, to wind up the regular season prior to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Live results are expected to be available. The appropriate link is available at the top of this story. The meet will not have a live Webcast.

BRING A JACKET, MAYBE AN UMBRELLA, TOO
 

It might not be the shirtsleeve kind of weather that made last year's inaugural Heritage Distance Festival a very pleasant day. But, it's not supposed to be a miserable kind of day, either. The forecast calls for partly sunny, with a slight chance of a shower. Temperatures will be coming off of early-morning lows in the mid 40s, and will be working their way toward the lower 50s
 
Fans should bring at least a windbreaker with them. Like most wide-open stadiums, West Seattle can get a bit breezy at times.
 
PARKING AT A PREMIUM
Those coming to the meet can park for free at West Seattle Stadium. However, the parking lot is shared with adjacent West Seattle Golf Course. Given the forecast of dry conditions, spaces likely will fill up in a hurry between those coming for track and those wanting to get in some early-season holes on the course after keeping the clubs dry in the closet or garage throughout what has been a very long winter.
 
Some very limited on-street parking is available near the stadium. Either way, fans should arrive as early as possible to find a space.
 
GET YER PROGRAM HERE
A limited number of complimentary meet programs will be available at the entrance to the stadium. The programs include meet records and a complete schedule. They will be stuffed with a heat sheet and a copy of this week's Seattle Pacific track & field news release, featuring a scouting report, notes, and complete updated season performance lists.
 
ABOUT THE MEET
Although this is just the second year with Doris Heritage as namesake, the meet has been part of the Seattle-area track calendar since 1989. Put on by the Club Northwest club team, it was known previously as the Spring Break Open.
 
When Seattle Pacific took over operation of the meet last year, it changed to a distance festival format, which features pace-setters for some of the longer races. Most – but not all events – are offered. Those not on the card are the 100-meter dash, 110 / 100 hurdles, 400 hurdles, triple jump, and discus.
 
The hammer throw was not part of last year's meet, but is back for 2017. The 10,000 meters will be a coed race, and is scheduled as the final track event of the day, going off at 3:15 p.m.
 




SCOUTING THE DORIS HERITAGE DISTANCE FESTIVAL
A total of 12 teams will be represented, including GNAC rivals Western Washington and Central Washington. The University of Washington is sending approximately 30 competitors, primarily in the distance races and the hammer throw. A total of 215 athletes are entered.
 
Virtually all of the Falcons will be in action, although most are doing just one event plus a relay.

 

One of the women's races to watch will be the 1,500 meters. SPU junior Mary Charleson (Mill Creek, Wash. / Henry M. Jackson HS) will make her 2017 outdoor debut. Last year, Charleson ran a personal-best 4:30.80 to get into the national top 25, barely missing a trip to the NCAAs. Among the others in that race will be senior Sarah Macdonald (Tucson, Ariz.), taking aim at the D2 provisional qualifying standard of 4:34.00. The presence of the UW runners will make it an especially speedy field, led by Katie Knight (4:21.35 entry time) and Isobel Batt-Doyle (4:22.40).

 

Junior Chynna Phan (Bellingham, Wash. / Mt. Baker HS) had a solid finish to her indoor season, running the 800-meter leg on the Falcons' All-American distance medley relay team, and also getting onto the provisional list in the open 800. She is in that race on Saturday. The outdoor provisional standard is 2:13.33.
 
Freshman Scout Cai makes collegiate outdoor pole vault debut. Cai (Colfax, Wash. / Colfax HS) already has been busy this spring, making the NCAA provisional qualifying list in the heptathlon last weekend in Sacramento. But the pole is her sole focus on Saturday. Cai won back-to-back Washington state small-school title in that event, clearing a personal-best 12 feet, 4 inches last spring.
 
Coming off PRs in both the shot put and javelin, senior Sammi Markham will do both of those events again. The only other Falcon doubling on the women's side is sophomore Geneva Lehnert in the high jump and long jump.

 

On the men's side, sophomore Jesse Phan is set to run his first outdoor race of the season, and it'll be in his specialty: the 800.
 
Junior Ben Halladay (Mukilteo, Wash. / Kamiak HS) in in the 1,500 for the third straight week, and senior sprinter Justin Ramsey (Colorado Springs, Colo.) goes in the 200 and 400.
 
SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- This will be the first time all spring SPU will have its full team at one venue. The women who competed at the NCAA indoor nationals did not race at the season-opening meet in Tacoma on March 4. Last week, the teams were split between Sacramento and Portland.
-- All of the Spring Break Open meet records carried over to this meet. Just one new one was set last year, as Club Northwest's Haley O'Connor clocked 2:12.67 in the women's 800 meters.
-- The oldest record still on the book belongs to Kim Dryden in the women's 5,000 meters. In the 1989 meet, Dryden, competing for Nike Portland, hit the wire in 16:11.6.
-- That one is considered safe for now. But as many as a dozen standards could be seriously challenged or broken. On the women's side, eight of the entry marks (200, 400, 800, 1500, 3000 steeplechase, pole vault, long jump, and hammer) already are better than the meet record. On the men's side, four events (1500, high jump, shot put, and hammer) have entrants who already have done better than the current record.
-- SPU athletes won five of the 13 events on both sides of last spring's meet. For the women, it was Kyra Brannan (200), Jahzelle Ambus (400), Anna Patti (1500), Geneva Lehnert (high jump), and the 4x400 relay team of Lynelle Decker, Maliea Luquin, Jessica Rawlins, and Emma Lambert. Brannan, Lehnert, and Lambert are back.
-- Falcon men's winners were Justin Ramsey (400), Jesse Phan (800), Ben Halladay (steeplechase), Peyton Harris (long jump), and the 4x400 squad of Harris, Phan, Adam Avischious, and Ramsey. All but Avischious are returning.
 




THAT'S ONE ON THE LIST
SPU freshman Scout Cai became the first Falcon this spring to put her name on the provisional qualifying list for the NCAA Division II nationals, easily beating the standard in the heptathlon at last week's Hornet Invitational in Sacramento, Calif.

 

Cai (Colfax, Wash. / Colfax HS) finished the seven events with 4,781 points. The minimum is 4,442.
 
On Friday's first day of competition, Cai won the 200-meter dash in 25.71 seconds, good for 823 points. She also cracked the 800-barrer on Saturday when she picked up 806 for running a time of 2 minutes, 21.32 seconds in the 800 meters. That gave her third place.
 
Other Falcons are closing in on provisional marks. In that same heptathlon, freshman Brooke Benner (Naches, Wash. / Naches Valley HS) tallied 4,421 points, and sophomore Geneva Lehnert (Eugene, Ore.) finished with 4,407. Cai needs another 2 ½ feet to reach the 132-5 mark for the javelin. Senior Kyra Brannan is 6 ¼ inches away in the long jump, and both the 4x100 and 4x400 relay are within one second.

Click on this link for a look at the current national qualifying list.
 
SETTING UP FOR GNAC
The conference championships are still almost two months away. But the Falcon women already are putting themselves into position to contend for a third straight title.

 

SPU has 12 automatic qualifying marks, spread among nine athletes. Of those, three have two automatics apiece: senior Kyra Brannan (100-meter dash, long jump), senior Cheryl Hong (200, 400), and sophomore Geneva Lehnert (long jump, heptathlon).
 
In addition, the Falcons have 35 marks, spread among 15 women (11 of whom are not on the automatic list) that currently would get into the meet because they are among the top 20 in the GNAC. That list will fluctuate throughout the season, as some move up to automatic, and some will be bumped out of the top 20 (but will have the opportunity to climb back into it).
 
The top-20 qualifying list replaced provisional qualifying standards last year. The NCAA still has provisional qualifying.
 
Peyton Harris is the only men's automatic qualifier so far, making it in the long jump. SPU has 16 marks among the top 20, spread among 10 men.

Click on this link to see the current list of GNAC top performances.
 
BETTER THAN EVER
Just two meets into the season, a trio of Seattle Pacific veterans have established some personal bests.

 

Senior Cheryl Hong bettered her PR in the 400 meters with a time of 56.67 seconds last Saturday at the Hornet Invitational in Sacramento. That bettered her old mark of 56.92, set last April. Fellow senior Sammi Markham (Gig Harbor, Wash. / Gig Harbor HS) has set javelin PR's twice, her latest being 126 feet, 7 inches in Sacramento. Also in California, Markham had a mark of 41 feet, 4½ inches in the shot put, more than a foot farther than her previous best of 40-2 ¼.
 
On the men's side, junior Peyton Harris broke 23 seconds in the 200-meter dash for the first time, clocking 22.96 last Saturday in Sac, nearly a full second better than his 23.80 PR from 2015 when he was a freshman.

AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for the latest news, notes, and results from around the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons will be at two different venues again next weekend. A select group of distance runners will head to Northern California for the San Francisco State Distance Carnival. That meet is set for Friday, March 31.
 
Everyone else will take a trek to Tacoma for the JD Shotwell Invitational on Saturday, April 1 at the University of Puget Sound's Baker Stadium. Field events start at 10:00 a.m., and races on the track begin at 12 noon.