PITTSBURG, Kansas – It was one of those unfortunate things that happens on the track sometimes.
 
Annika Esvelt found a way to make the most of it.
 
Racing with a tight cluster of runners on the penultimate lap of the women's 5000 meters at the NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, the Seattle Pacific senior tripped coming around the far turn and tumbled to the oval with about 400 meters to go. She got back up, got back in stride, came across the finish line in 10th place – and still posted an indoor personal-best time on Friday afternoon inside the Robert W. Plaster Center at Pittsburg State University.
 
Esvelt stopped the watch in 16 minutes, 29.98 seconds. That was more than a full second better than her previous best of 16:31.12, which she ran on this same surface two years ago.
 
Her top-10 finish made her a second-team All-American.
 
"It felt really good, it felt strong. I felt I was doing really well," said Esvelt, who was in good spirits in spite of everything – and after a nice cool-down run. "I'm not like angry or anything because I think I raced really well and I covered all the moves that the other girls were going for.
 
"I just know that I had more in me and could have gone with that momentum. So I'm excited to race again."

 

Added SPU assistant coach / distance coach Eric Hansen, "She was looking great and feeling great – I think that's the best I've ever seen her look in a race. I told her that's the best race I've seen her run. The fall was definitely unfortunate because it looked like she had another gear to go."
 
Esvelt was in ninth through the first 2600 meters, with half a dozen runners still bunched tightly together. By the 2900 mark, she had moved up to ninth, and then was seventh coming across at 3500, looking smooth and steady, having just posted her best split of the race at 57.48 on the 300-meter flat track.
 
She was eighth across the line at 4100, but was one of six runners in the 13:23 range. At 4400, Esvelt was 10^th, but still within reach of a top-8 podium finished and poised to kick it up a notch.

"Basically, I was feeling like, 'OK, I'm speeding up; I'm ready to go; I'm making my move,'" Esvelt said. "I don't know if I was too excited or like. … I don't know, my feet were just too floppy. I hit the rail and suddenly, I was on the other side of the rail and I was like, 'Wait – what happened? What do I do?'
 
"After a couple seconds, I said, 'Oh, I guess I just get up and go.' I tried to finish as fast as I could. My legs really hurt after that."

 

Competitive as she is, Esvelt wasn't about to stop.
 
"It did run through my head for about a second because I've never experienced that before so I didn't know what to do," she said. "But I didn't think about it long enough to actually stop."
 
Hansen knew Esvelt had left it all out there.
 
"She was in a good spot, and the momentum was in her favor," Hansen added. "But once that fall happened, it's really hard to come back on a field like that."
 
That Esvelt still came through with a top-10 finish and a personal-best time further firmed up in Hansen's mind what kind of a runner he's coaching.
 
"The one thing we talked about is if she falls like that and is still able to get up and run 16:29, she's in pretty good shape," Hansen said. "If that doesn't happen, I think she's 16:19, 16:20."
 
For her part, Esvelt is even more motivated than she already was to make something special happen during her upcoming final outdoor season for the Falcons.
 
"Oh yeah –I'm so revved up for outdoors; I'm so excited," she said. "Not that I wasn't excited before. But now (after today), I'm running with a little more emotion now, and I'm real excited for Stanford (Invitational) in a couple weeks."
 
BY THE NUMBERS
--This was Esvelt's third NCAA meet. She raced both indoors and outdoors in 2022. Along with her All-American eighth-place finish in the indoor 5K, she was fourth in the 10K for first-team All-American and 10th in the 5K for second-team All-American at outdoor nationals.
-- Florence Uwajeneza of West Texas A&M won in 16:05.17. Brianna Robles of Adams State (Colorado) was second in 16:06.20. Robles had the lead from the start through 4100 meters. Uwajeneza edged in front by 4400, was 1.58 seconds ahead at the bell. (Robles was third at that point.) Robles, who won in 2022 and was second last year, came in as the No. 1 seed by a long way with an entry time of 15:53.49; Uwajeneza was the No. 2 seed at 16:07.37.


NCAA WOMEN'S INDOOR TRACK & FIELD
NCAA Division II Championships
Friday, March 8, 2024
Robert W. Plaster Center / Pittsburg, Kansas
 
SPU EVENTS
5000 – 1, Florence Uwajeneza (W. Texas A&M) 16:05.17.  SPU – 10, Annika Esvelt 16:29.98.



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