SPOKANE, Wash. – Before she even finished the first lap of her first indoor 800-meter race, Vanessa Aniteye suddenly had to deal with an unexpected circumstance when one of the other runners tumbled to the track.
 
Aniteye kept her racing wits about her and kept going …
 
…all the way to first place.

The Seattle Pacific star made a move during the final lap on Saturday inside The Podium and went on to post not only a victory, but also an NCAA provisional qualifying time at the Spokane Invitational.
 
"It wasn't as much of an 800 race as it could have been because I had someone fall in front of my feet, which is something I've never experienced," she said. "It was very interesting, very early on in the race. I just kept running."
 
She crossed the finish line in 2 minutes, 13.04 seconds to get the new season started.
 
Aniteye has run the 800 three times previously, all outdoors: first as a junior at Alaska Anchorage in 2019 (2:13.52), and then twice in two weeks last spring with the Falcons (2:12.31 and 2:11.16).
 
"I would say that's a starting point, given how the race played out," Aniteye said of her time. "Just figuring out indoors, figuring out how to run it. Then the first thing, someone falls, and the next thing I was boxed in several times, so it was, 'How do I get out of here?'. It was a good start, but I'm hoping for more, that's for sure."
 
After her highly successful outdoor season last spring which saw her break the SPU school record in the 400-meter dash three times, the last of which was a 53.64 to place an All-American sixth at the NCAA Division II Championships, Aniteye still had one more season of indoor eligibility remaining.
 
She and the SPU coaching staff decided to make the 800 her focus for this winter. With that in mind, Aniteye ran cross country this past fall, and by the end of the season was the No. 2 scorer for the Falcons at both the Great Northwest Athletic Conference meet and at the NCAA West Regional meet.
 
 

"I feel like running on the track is so much different," Aniteye said. "I definitely would say I ran it a little bit of figuring out a pace and how to really run a race and really focusing on my breathing, which is something you do in cross country also. But I wasn't so tired early on, so hopefully (the cross country season) did help me."
 
On Saturday, Aniteye hung with the leaders through the first two of the four laps around the 200-meter banked oval, sitting in third place at 200 and at 400, running right with Western Washington's Marian Ledesma and Boise State's Abby Stamper.

At the bell lap for the final 200 meters, Aniteye had edged in front, two-tenths of a second ahead of Ledesma and four-tenths ahead of Stamper, with Jillian Brown of Oregon State also in the mix. At the finish, she was 39 hundredths in front of second-place Stamper (2:13.43) and 64 hundredths ahead of Brown (2:13.68) Ledesma was fourth in 2:14.48.
 
"I'm excited to run it again, and now, I feel like I really know what to expect and what improvements I can make," Aniteye said. "I think there are a lot of places in the race where I can make some changes to get me where I want to be. But it's good to have a time on paper and knock out the first race."
 
AND THAT'S NOT ALL
-- Aniteye now has run the 800 in each of her SPU debuts: outdoors last March at the PLU Open and indoors on Saturday in Spokane. She won both races.
 

-- David Njeri started his season with a fifth-place finish in the men's triple jump. The Falcon senior went 47 feet, 3½ inches on his very first attempt, and that wound up standing as his top mark of the day.
-- Julius Shepherd had a solid day in the sprints. He won both of his heat races, and clocked an indoor personal best of 22.75 seconds in the 200. He also had a 51.97 in the 400.
-- Jeff Gordon got off to a speedy start, as well. He set a PR of 7.09 seconds in the 60-meter dash, placing 11th overall. His previous PR was 7.11, which he clocked twice, most recently in the preliminaries of last year's GNAC Championships on the same Podium straightaway. Later in the day, he won his heat of the 200, hitting the wire in 22.40.
 

-- Aniya Green also picked up a heat victory, hers coming in the 200 with a time of 25.91. She set a PR of 8.16 in the 60-meter dash, bettering the 8.25 she ran in last year's inaugural Spokane Invite.
-- Freshman Marissa Crane went 58.77 in her heat of the 400-meter dash. That was just six-hundredths of a second shy of last year's top SPU time in that event, a 58.71 by Peace Igbonagwam.
-- Jon Owen led a large contingent of Falcons in the men's 3000 meters, placing ninth with a personal-best time of 9:08.75. That beat his previous mark of 9:09.47 from February 2020. Of the 22 runners in that race, 10 were from Gonzaga and nine were from SPU.
-- Former Falcon star Renick Meyer made her debut with Washington State. She was fourth in the long jump at 18 feet, 11¾ inches and qualified for the finals of the 60-meter hurdles with an 8.85 (but ultimately did not run the finals), Meyer, who finished her Falcons career in 2021, is using her final year of eligibility with the Cougars while she is a student in WSU's veterinary school.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons will be off for the holidays, then return to action on Saturday, Jan. 14 in the UW Indoor Preview at Dempsey Indoor on the University of Washington campus. Running events begin at 8:45 a.m., and field events start at 9:00 a.m.
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S INDOOR TRACK & FIELD
Spokane Invitational
Saturday, Dec. 9, 2022
The Podium / Spokane, Wash.
 
Team scores – Not kept.
 
SPU EVENTS ONLY
60-meter dash – 1, Cheetah Burrell (G3 Performance) 7.45.  SPU (qualifying heats) – 31, Aniya Green 8.16.
200 – 1, Alyssa Mae Antolin (Hawaii) 24.38.  SPU – 18, Aniya Green 25.91; 35, Hannah Chang 27.11.
400 – 1, Emily Costello (Nevada) 54.06.  SPU – 12, Marissa Crane 58.77; 29, McKenzie Fletcher 1:03.44; 35, Maliyah Hicks 1:07.53.
600 – 1, Halyn Senegal (Nevada) 1:32.14.  SPU – 11, Charisma Smith 1:42.32.
800 – 1, Vanessa Aniteye (SPU) 2:13.04#.  No other SPU.
3000 – 1, Caramia Mestler (Gonzaga) 9:34.98.  SPU – 9, Matise Mulch 10:51.77; 13, Katelyn Flolo 11:16.53; 14, Maya Ewing 11:20.07.
60 hurdles – 1, Maribel Caicido (WSU) 8.29.  SPU  (qualifying heats) – 4, Hannah Chang 9.13; 29, McKenzie Fletcher 10.04.  SPU (preliminary heats) – 17, Hannah Chang 9.22.
Pole vault Open – 1, Allison Otto-Fitzsimmons (Unattached) 11-3¾ / 3.45m.  SPU – 5, Charlie Hill 10-10 / 3.30m.
Pole vault Invitational – 1, Sarah Ferguson (UW) 13-9¼ / 4.20m.  SPU – Lizzy Daugherty  no height; Kayla Tassara no height.
Long jump – 1, Alyssa Jones (Stanford) 20-6¼ / 6.25m.  SPU – 24, Hannah Chang 16-8½ / 5.09m; 42, Marissa Crane 15-9½ / 4.81m; 49, Maliyah Hicks 14-9¼ / 4.50m.
 
# NCAA provisional qualifying
 
 
NCAA MEN'S INDOOR TRACK & FIELD
Spokane Invitational
Saturday, Dec. 9, 2022
The Podium / Spokane, Wash.
 
Team scores – Not kept.
 
SPU EVENTS ONLY
60-meter dash – 1, Donte Sol (Multnomah) 6.77.  SPU (qualifying heats) – 11, Jeff Gordon 7.09; 29, Nate Thomas 7.32; 32, Brady Boun 7.40.
200 – 1, Anthony Smith (UW) 21.28.  SPU – 10, Jeff Gordon 22.40; 19, Julius Shepherd 22.75; 28, David Garcia 23.35; 35, Evan Carpenter 23.75.
400 – 1, Duncan Agyemang (Acad. Art) 48.46.  SPU – 16, Julius Shepherd 51.97; 17, David Garcia 52.12; 20, Evan Carpenter 53.40; 22, Solomon Wittrell 54.46; 25, Gabe Woodard 56.18.
800 – 1, Cass Elliott (UW) 1:50.82.  SPU – 7, Isaiah Archer 1:56.77; 12, Kade Franco 2:07.00.
3000 – 1, Cooper Laird (Gonzaga) 8:22.14.  SPU – 9, Jon Owen 9:08.75; 10, Colin Boutin 9:13.09; 12, Lucas Reyes 9:14.14; 13, Brennan LeBlanc 9:17.22; 14, Rory McClelland 9:17.54; 17, Tom Thake 9:35.48; 19, Isaac Venable 9:42.68; 20, Nathaniel Gale 9:50.22; 21, Gabe Endresen 9:51.07.
5000 – 1, Wil Smith (E. Wash.) 14:01.31.  SPU – 15, Brennan LeBlanc 16:29.64
4x400 relay – 1, Washington 3:11.76 (Podium record, breaks old record of 3:12.35).  SPU – 7, Seattle Pacific (Isaiah Archer, Jeff Gordon, Evan Carpenter, Julius Shepherd) 3:34.35.
Pole vault Open – 1, Christian Meter (E. Wash.) 14-1¼ / 4.30m.  SPU – Darius Holmes no height.
Pole vault Invitational – 1, Garrett Brown (Stanford) 17-8½ / 5.40m.  SPU – Brad Bowman no height; Kainoa Lee no height.
Long jump – 1, Prestin Artis (UW) 24-2 ½ / 7.38m.  SPU – 20, Darius Holmes 20-5 / 6.22m; 26, Nate Thomas 19-10¼ / 6.05m; 30, Brady Boun 19-6¾ / 5.96m.
Triple jump – 1, Mathieu Tshani (Acad. Art) 49-6¼ / 15.09m.  SPU – 5, David Njeri 47-3½ / 14.41m; 9, Nate Thomas 38-9½ / 11.82m.