SEATTLE – This time, Libby Michael went the distance
 
All 3,000 meters of it.
 
One month after a mix-up on the lap counter left her 200 meters short of a full race, the Seattle Pacific senior distance runner powered through every stride of it on Saturday morning, coming across the finish line in 10 minutes, 7.54 seconds at the UW Indoor Preview.
 
Michael's mark on the 307-meter purple oval at Dempsey Indoor on the University of Washington campus was in the range of what she was aiming for on Dec. 10 at the season-opening Spokane Invitational.
 
That ultimately didn't happen – and by the time everyone realized what had occurred, it wasn't possible to do anything about it.
 
But Michael she knew she would get another chance. That came on Saturday, and she made the most of it.
 
"I knew I would have had a really fast time if I was able to finish, so I wanted to have an official time on my name, which I finally got today," Michael said. "I tried to stay as relaxed as I could for the first five or six minutes, then I was able to stay with the pack and keep going, because my heat was pretty quick."
 

.


Officially, then, this was the first 3K of Michael's career. With that in mind, Falcons associate head coach / distance coach Chris Reed not only liked the result, he liked the way Michael went about achieving it.

 

"She continued to make good decision after good decision," he said. "She did not get panicked at all during the race. She kept her composure no matter what was going on around her. Then when it came time to really race, she put her head down and started passing some girls. It was cool to see."
 
Michael has dealt with numerous obstacles during her career, specifically injuries and a pandemic shutdown. She just came off her first full cross country season, which included her first college victory. Now, she's in the midst of her first full indoor campaign (she ran three races in 2020), and certainly doesn't want to stop at 10:07 on the watch.
 
"I definitely want to break 10 (minutes). I think somewhere around 9:50 would be a great goal," Michael said. "We're gong to continue to add some more speed and endurance into our training because we had built a good base through cross country season."
 
Reed believes Michael has more in her.

"The thing we forget about Libby is she doesn't really have a lot of racing experience – certainly indoors she doesn't have a lot of racing experience – but what she does have is a lot of collegiate experience," he said "She has been here three-plus years, and through that experience, she has witnessed teammates, their ups and downs, and has watched a lot of races. Clearly, that time has helped her."
 
STILL NO. 1, BUT NOW EVEN FASTER
When Vanessa Aniteye ran a 2:13.04 in the 800 meters at the Spokane Invitational last month, it went onto the NCAA Division II list as the fastest time in the country. But not many meets had been run yet.

 

A few more are now in the books. That includes for Aniteye, who whacked a whopping two-plus seconds off the December mark, going 2:10.83 on Saturday.

That was first in her heat of the event and gave her ninth place overall. Among the eight runners ahead of her, one was from Stanford (overall winner Juliette Whittaker in a meet-record 2:02.48), three were from Washington, and one was from Oregon.
 
More meet results from around the country will be coming in throughout the weekend. But as of Saturday evening, the closest time to Aniteye on the D2 list is the 2:13.26 posted on Dec. 9 by Helen Braybrook of Colorado State Pueblo.
 
"Today, we were hoping she would take the bull by the horns and take the race from the gun and run away with it, and that's what she did," Reed said. (Aniteye won her heat by nearly four seconds.) "She went straight to the front and led wire to wire. We loved that aspect of it that she was able to run the race as scripted. It's hard to run really fast by yourself. While we're really pleased she was able to run three seconds faster (than Spokane), based on her training, we know she has several more seconds in her."
 
AND THAT'S NOT ALL
 

-- David Njeri leaped into the national top 10 in the triple jump, going 48 feet, 5½ inches. That gave him second place in the meet behind the 49-2¼ of Albert MacArthur, who was competing unattached. Njeri's jump was 14 inches farther than that 47-3½ he went in Spokane. His indoor personal best is 49-0¾.
-- Julius Shepherd won his heat of the men's 200-meter dash in a personal-best 22.64 seconds. He now has three heat wins, having taken sections of the 200 and 400 in Spokane.
-- The Falcons ended with a victory in their heat of the men's 4-by-400 relay. The group of Isaiah Archer, Shepherd, Darius Holmes, and David Garcia clocked 3 minutes, 26.15 seconds.
-- Brad Bowman added 7 ½ inches to his pole vault personal best, clearing 13-11¼.

UP NEXT
The Falcons return to action on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 27 and 28, at the UW Invitational. The first day of competition at Dempsey Indoor starts at 3:00 p.m., both on the track and in the field. The second day begins at 9:30 a.m. on the track and 10:00 a.m. in the field.


NCAA WOMEN'S INDOOR TRACK & FIELD
UW Indoor Preview
Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023
Dempsey Indoor / Seattle, Wash.
 
Team scores – Not kept.
 
SPU EVENTS ONLY
60-meter dash – 1, Marie-Eloise LeClair (Simon Fraser) 7.45.  SPU – 18, Aniya Green 8.18 (preliminaries).
200 – 1, Lizzie Hatton (Oregon State) 25.32.  SPU – 43, Maliyah Hicks 28.43.
400 – 1, Roisin Willis (Stanford) 53.65.  SPU – 14, Aniya Green 59.55; 25, Johanna Brown 1:01.65.
800 – 1, Juliette Whittaker (Stanford) 2:02.48 (meet record; breaks old record of 2:03.05).  SPU – 9, Vanessa Aniteye 2:10.83#; 30, Charisma Smith 2:24.13.
Mile – 1, Kaela Edwards (Adidas) 4:32.83.  SPU – 45, Matise Mulch 5:26.40.
3000 – 1, Laura Pellicoro (Portland) 9:05.91.  SPU – 45, Libby Michael 10:07.54; 68, Matise Mulch 10:50.93.
60 hurdles – 1, Catharina Klayts (Alberta) 8.28.  SPU – 12, Hannah Chang 9.38.
4x400 relay – 1, Stanford 3:41.09.  SPU – 9, Seattle Pacific (Vanessa Aniteye, Aniya Green, Hannah Chang, Johanna Brown) 4:01.87.
Pole vault – 1, Nastassja Campbell (UW)14-0½ / 4.28m.  SPU – 7, Kayla Tassara 11-9 / 3.58m; 12, Lizzy Daugherty 10-9 / 3.28m; Charlie Hill no height.
Long jump – 1, Kylee Davis (UC Davis) 19-2½ / 5.85m.  SPU – T11, Hannah Chang 16-7¾ / 5.07m; 23, Maliyah Hicks 15-5½ / 4.71m.

# NCAA provisional qualifying
 
 
NCAA MEN'S INDOOR TRACK & FIELD
UW Indoor Preview
Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023
Dempsey Indoor / Seattle, Wash.
 
Team scores – Not kept.
 
60-meter dash – 1, Emmanuel Wells Jr. (Unattached) 6.63.  SPU – 18, Jeff Gordon 7.12; 21, David Njeri 7.13; 33, Nate Thomas 7.43.
200 – 1, Miquel Rosario (Seattle U) 22.09.  SPU – 5, Julius Shepherd 22.65; 11, Jeff Gordon 23.01; 17, Evan Carpenter 23.59.
400 – 1, Justin Lowe (Cal State Fullerton) 47.72.  SPU – 11, Isaiah Archer 50.23; 17, Julius Shepherd 51.60; 21, David Garcia 52.08; 22, Evan Carpenter 52.96; 25, Gabe Woodard 56.08.
800 – 1, Derek Holdsworth (Team USA) 1:48.28.  SPU – 15, Jon Owen 2:04.14.
Mile – 1, Ky Robinson (Stanford) 3:55.87.  SPU – 48, Jon Owen 4:31.84.
3000 – 1, Kieran Lumb (UW) 7:43.27.  SPU – 72, Colin Boutin 9:06.32.
4x400 relay – 1, Cal State Fullerton 3:14.13.  SPU – 5, Seattle Pacific (Isaiah Archer, Julius Shepherd, Darius Holmes, David Garcia) 3:26.15.
Pole vault – 1, Jacob Engler (UW) 17-9¾ / 5.43m.  – 6, Kainoa Lee 13-11¼ / 4.25m; 7, Brad Bowman 13-11¼ / 4.25m; Darius Holmes no height. SPU
Long jump – 1, Prestin Artis (UW) 25-0 / 7.62m.  SPU – 13, Darius Holmes 20-7¾ / 6.29m; 17, Nate Thomas 19-4 / 5.89m; 19, Brady Boun 17-9 / 5.41m.
Triple jump – 1, Albert MacArthur (Unattached) 49-2¼ / 14.99m.  SPU – 2, David Njeri 48-5½ / 14.77m#.

# NCAA provisional qualifying