THE SCHEDULE
Friday, April 1                       Seattle Pacific at West Coast Relays
                                       Veterans Memorial Stadium / Clovis, Calf.
                                       Field events, 10:00 a.m.     Track events, 1:00 p.m.
                                       Live Webcast        Live results
 
 
SEATTLE – They've been waiting all season for the perfect competitive conditions.
 
Now, Seattle Pacific's track and field athletes are about to get some.
 
The Falcons will leave behind the Northwest's typical March weather – cloudy, sometimes breezy, often wet – for the sun of California this week when they head to the West Coast Relays.
 
Competition at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Clovis is set for Friday. Field events start at 10:00 a.m. Track races begin at 1:00 p.m.
 
SPU is coming off a highly successful set of performances at the Peyton-Shotwell Invitational last Saturday in Tacoma. The Falcons racked up 12 events wins and 11 personal-best marks on a day that was mostly pleasant, save for a couple spots of rain sprinkles.
 
KEEPING TRACK OF THE ACTION
Friday's meet will have a live Webcast and live results. The Webcast is pay-per-view through FloTrack. The link is at the top of this story. Live results are free. That link also is as the top of this story.
 
IT'LL FEEL LIKE SUMMER
Friday is April Fool's Day, but this forecast is for real. It's expected to be sunny and warm in Clovis, with high temperatures possibly hitting 80. It'll be warm for the 1500 in the early afternoon and also for the 800 in mid-afternoon, but the sun will have been down for 40 minutes by the time the 5000-meter runners get into the track at 8:00 (women) and 8:40 (men).



A MEET WITH A PEDIGREE
The origin of the West Coast Relays goes all the way back to the first one in April 1927. It eventually became one of the top meets in the country. The original venue was Fresno's Ratcliffe Stadium. Over the years, three dozen world records and numerous collegiate and national records were set there.
 
The meet ended during the 1980s, but was eventually brought back under the name of the Bob Mathias Fresno Relays. The last version of that one was in 2005.
 
Then in 2021, the meet returned under the West Coast Relays moniker, with a new home at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Clovis.
 
This year's meet will be the 79^th edition.
 
SCOUTING THE WEST COAST RELAYS
The Falcons have done plenty of racing and pole vaulting through the first three meets of the season – and they'll do more of both on Friday. But this week, their two best jumpers get to see some action in those events.
 
 

David Njeri is entered in both long and the triple on the men's side. He hasn't triple jumped outdoors since winning the GNAC title last May with a leap of 48 feet, 7 ¼ inches. This winter, he added the conference indoor crown in that event, and in December recorded his best-ever distance – indoors or outdoors – of 49-0 ¾. His outdoor long jump PR is 22-4 ¼ from last April 24; he went 22-7 indoors in January.
 
 

Peace Igbonagwam is in the women's long jump. She won her third consecutive conference indoor title in February, going 18-1. But this will be her first outdoor long jump competition since her freshman year in 2019 at the GNAC Championships. The 2020 outdoor season was canceled by the pandemic, and a lingering injury kept her from long jumping in 2021.
 
Igbonagwam also will be busy elsewhere, running the 400-meter dash and carrying the baton on both the 4-by-100 and 4-by-400 relays.
 
Speaking of relays, the Falcons are stacking both of them on the women's side, with Igbonagwam, Vanessa Aniteye, Jenna Bouyer, and Aniya Green. That foursome went 47.00 in the 4-by-1 last Saturday, then Igbonagwam, Bouyer, Ellie Rising, and Aniteye broke the 3:50 mark in the 4-by-4, clocking 3:49.64.
 
Bouyer sped to a 24.68 in the 200 last Saturday, just seven-hundredths off her PR. She'll take another run at it this week, along with the 100.
 
Aniteye is in the 400 for the first time this season. Her lifetime best is 54.19 with which she won the GNAC title in 2019 while competing for Alaska Anchorage. The SPU school record is 54.68 by Jahzelle Ambus in 2016; the GNAC standard is 53.56 set in 2007 by Anchorage's Mary Pearce. Aniteye is No. 2 on the conference list.
 
Annika Esvelt had considerable success in the indoor 5000, racing to All-American status earlier in March. She'll take her first shot at an outdoor 5K on Friday. Libby Michael and Kelsey Washenberger are doubling up in the 800 and 1500, and defending GNAC champ Ellie Rising is in the 800.
 
 

Colin Boutin had a huge performance in the 5000 at the Doris Heritage Track Festival on March 19, dropping nine seconds off  his PR to finish in 15:05.23. He'll get another shot at going sub-15 on Friday evening.
 
A trio of SPU runners are coming into this week off of personal-best races last Saturday in Tacoma. That group includes Isaiah Archer in the 800 (1:55.61), Evan Carpenter in the 400 dash (50.82) and Jon Owen in the 1500 (4:07.22).
 
The Falcons came up with a solid effort in the men's 4-by-400 at the Peyton-Shotwell meet, and that same foursome – Archer, Jeff Gordon, Njeri, and Evan Carpenter – are entered in it again. Gordon also is in the 100 and 200, looking to meet or beat his PRs of 10.89 and 22.02. He has not done a 100 yet this spring, but did clock a 22.13 in the 200 last Saturday.
 
 

FRIENDLY REUNION
For some of the veteran Falcons and the coaching staff, Friday's meet will offer a chance to reconnect with former SPU assistant coach Audra Smith.
 
Now an assistant coach at Fresno State working with jumpers and multi-event athletes, Smith was at Seattle Pacific from 2013-19. She started out working with the program's distance runners and leading the cross country program, then moved over to working with the sprinters. Under her direction, those sprinters came up with some big performances on the track, both indoors and outdoors.
 
Smith also was the athletic department's head strength and conditioning coach. She joined Fresno State in September 2019.



AND THE AWARD GOES TO …
Although the indoor season is now in the past, the voting by coaches to determine GNAC award winners wrapped up last week – and a pair of Falcons finished atop the voting.

Annika Esvelt was named the women's Freshman of the Year, and Charlie Hill is the women's Newcomer of the Year.
 
Esvelt is a sophomore academically, but was in her first year of indoor competition because of the pandemic. She dominated the 3000 and 5000 meters, winning both races by nearly 15 seconds each. She went on to an All-American eight-place finish in the 5K at the NCAA nationals.
 
Hill won the GNAC pole vault title, clearing a 12-foot bar (12-0 ¾, to be exact) for the first time in her career. She joined the Falcons in January after attending and competing outdoors last spring at Clackamas Community College.
 
NO 'W' QUITE LIKE THE FIRST 'W'
Among the 12 event victories the Falcons recorded at the Peyton-Shotwell Invitational last Saturday, two of them were by athletes who won for the first time in a Seattle Pacific uniform.
 
 

Johanna Brown took the women's 400-meter dash in 1:01.80, and McKenzie Fletcher won the 400-meter hurdles in 1:07.79.
 
Brown is a freshman. Fletcher is a junior who competed the past two years at Spokane Community College before coming to SPU. Fletcher did win twice with the Sasquatch, both in the 400 hurdles last spring.
 
Evan Carpenter (400 dash), Madison Licari (pole vault) and Julius Shepherd (400 hurdles) all picked up their second collegiate wins. Carpenter's and Shepherd's both came in last year's dual meet against Seattle University: the 200 for Carpenter, and the 400 for Shepherd. Licari's previous 'W' was, of course, the pole vault, that coming at the Ed Boitano Invitational in 2020 – the only meet to get completed that year before the season shut down.
 
RELAYS ATOP THE LEADERBOARD
Both Seattle Pacific women's relays and the men's 4-by-400 come into this week with the fastest times in the GNAC.
 
The women's 4-by-4 of Peace Igbonagwam, Jenna Bouyer, Ellie Rising, and Vanessa Aniteye has the only sub-3:50 in the conference so far, going 3:49.62 last week. The closest one to them is Alaska Anchorage at 3:53.68.
 
SPU's 4-by-1 foursome of Igbonagwam, Aniteye, Aniya Green, and Bouyer clocked 47.00 in Tacoma. That has them slightly ahead of Central Washington's 47.46. No one else has broken 50 seconds so far.
 
Evan Carpenter, David Njeri, Jeff Gordon, and Isaiah Archer have the men's 4-by-4 atop the GNAC list with last week's 3:26.32. Closest to them is Western Washington at 3:29.07.
 
Also still atop the conference list this week is Aniteye in the 800 at 2:11.16. WWU's Sophie Wright is next at 2:13.78.
 
Kainoa Lee is the only male pole vaulter to have cleared 14 feet so far, leading the way at 14-2. Cooper Cummings of Western Washington is next at 13-9¼.
 
Click on this link for a look at the entire list of GNAC leaders.
  
AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for a look at the latest news, notes, and results from around the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons will make their final trip to Tacoma next Saturday, April 9, for the PLU Invitational. Competition at Pacific Lutheran Track begins at 10:00 a.m. An event-by-event schedule has not yet been announced.