PORTLAND, Ore. – Another week, another major award for
Vanessa Aniteye.
The Seattle Pacific senior was named on Tuesday as the Great Northwest Athletic Conference's Female Athlete of the Year for indoor track and field.
Vanessa Aniteye
That comes on the heels of Aniteye winning the West Region Female Track Athlete of the Year honor for NCAA Division II as announced last week by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
Aniteye capped her career on March 11 by winning the 800-meter national championship at the NCAAs in Virginia Beach, Va. She prevailed in a back-and-forth race with Helen Braybrook of Colorado State Pueblo, taking the lead heading into the final 200-meter lap and hanging on down the homestretch to win in 2 minutes, 6.84 seconds. Braybrook was just two-tenths of a second behind at 2:07.04.
The time for Aniteye was an SPU indoor record, beating the old standard of 2:07.52 set by Lynelle Decker at the 2016 NCAAs.
Throughout the winter season, Aniteye ran the 800 on eight occasions – and she won every race, including the GNAC title on Feb. 21 in Spokane. She started with a 2:13.04 at the season-opening Spokane Invitational on Dec 10, and steadily dropped time every week.
Along with the 800 at GNAC, Aniteye anchored Seattle Pacific's third-place 4-by-400 team, joining
Aniya Green,
Marissa Crane and
Johanna Brown.
Aniteye was atop the D2 national list for all but one week, when Taryn Chapko of Michigan's Grand Valley State took over the No. 1 spot with a 2:07.89. But Aniteye took the lead right back the following week with a 2:07.53 at the Husky Classic on Feb. 11.
Prior to this, Aniteye had been a star in the 400-meter dash winning four GNAC outdoor titles (three during her time at Alaska Anchorage from 2017-19 and the fourth in 2022 for Seattle Pacific). Last spring, in her first season with the Falcons and her final year of outdoor eligibility, she broke the school record three times.
The last one of those record-breaking runs came at the NCAA Championships in Allendale, Michigan, where she finished sixth in 53.64 seconds. That made her the first woman in SPU history to go faster than 54.
