THE SCHEDULE
Saturday, March 8                 Seattle Pacific at PLU Open
                                                Pacific Lutheran Track / Tacoma, Wash.
                                                Track events and field events, 10:00 a.m.
                                                No live Webcast       Live results
 
SEATTLE – Another Saturday, another track trip to Tacoma for the Seattle Pacific Falcons.
 
Coming off a respectable season-opening performance in the Ed Boitano Invitational at Puget Sound, SPU heads to a different part of town this week for the PLU Open.
 
Competition at Pacific Lutheran Track begins at 10:00 a.m. on the oval and in the field. The last event is scheduled for 2:40 p.m.
 
Although this is just the second weekend of the season, it will be the last nearby meet on the schedule for the Falcons. After this, their closest competition will be on April 25-26 in Bellingham.
 
Between now and then, they'll compete in Oregon, British Columbia, Northern California, Southern California, and twice in Eastern Washington (Spokane on April 4 and Ellensburg on April 19).
 
KEEPING TRACK OF THE ACTION
Live results will be available throughout the day. The appropriate link is at the top of this story. The meet will not have a live Webcast.
 
A LOT CLOUDY, A LITTLE WET
In terms of early spring track, last week was somewhat of an anomaly with dry skies, mostly pleasant temperatures, and very little wind.
 
This Saturday might seem like a normal March day except for the fact that the thermometer could touch 60 degrees by the afternoon. Otherwise, the forecast calls for cloudy conditions and a chance of showers in the morning. It is expected to be dry by the afternoon.
 
SCOUTING THE PLU OPEN
 

Coming off her GNAC indoor championship in he 60-meter hurdles, junior Hannah Chang will make her outdoor debut and is entered in both the 100s (she's the defending conference titlist in that event). She's also entered in the 400 hurdles, an event she has not previously done. Sophomore Sophie Mock and freshman Linnea Naone also are slated both.
 
 

Maya Ewing will do a different kind of hurdling, as she's going in her first 3000 steeplechase of the season. She started steepling as a freshman in 2023, and set her personal-best time of 11:19.21 at the GNAC meet, taking sixth place. Her best time last year was 11:23.39
 
SPU is stacking the 1500. Among the seven entrants are Matise Mulch (who already has a win in the 5000), Madelyn Buckley (she went 4:47.03 in the 1500 last week) and Anna Prussian, who was sixth in the 10K at the Ed Boitano and won her heat of the 3000 at GNAC indoors last month.
 
Johanna Brown gets her first try of the season in the 400, having run the 800 last week. Her outdoor PB is 57.31 (twice); she ran an indoor best of 58.04 on Feb. 1 at the UW Invitational.
 
 

Andrew Bell, the freshman who broke SPU's indoor 60-meter hurdles record six times – the sixth of which earned him the GNAC title – makes his outdoor college hurdling debut in both the 110s and the 400s. His best while competing for Spanaway Lake High School was 14.30 at last year's district meet to win the championship. The SPU record of 14.5 was set in 1975 – that's 50 years ago – by Mark Stream. Bell made a smooth adjustment from 39-inch to the college 42s during indoors. This will be his first outdoor race with the 42s.
 
Silas Demmert will be looking to break the 10-minute mark in the 3000 steeplechase. He went 10:04.65 last April at the Ralph Vernacchia Invitational in Bellingham.
 
 

Freshman sprinters Robert Joshua and Tarelle Hunter are slated for both the 100 and 200. During the winter, Joshua became the first SPU man ever to break 7 seconds in the 60-meter dash with times of 6.94 in the GNAC prelims and 6.95 in the finals. He made his college outdoor debut last week, clocking 52.22 in the 400. At Auburn Mountainview High School, he set PBs of 10.99 in the 100 and 22.35 in the 200, both last April.
 
Isaac Venable got his spring off to a solid start, breaking his personal best in the 10,000 by 22.41 seconds at the Ed Boitano. He'll see how close he can come to another PB this week when he races the 15t00. His best is 4:10.17 from last April.
 
A TRIPLE IN THE WIN COLUMN
The Falcons didn't take long to put their first event win of he season into the book. Matter of fact, they put their first three event wins of the season into the book at last Saturday's Ed Boitano Invite.
 
Junior distance runner Maya Ewing, who won the GNAC indoor 5000 meters just 12 days earlier, was first across the finish line in the 1500, stopping the watch in 4 minutes, 41.26 seconds. Fellow junior Matise Mulch was victorious in the 5000, clocking 18:44.18.
 
Speaking of threes, the women's 4-by-400 relay that capped the day had three freshmen: Sophie Hanay on leadoff, Jada Sarrys on the third leg, and Evey Rowland on anchor, with senior Johanna Brown taking the second leg. They finished in 3:58.38.
 
Capping the day was the women's 4-by-400 relay, The quartet of sophomore Sophie Mock, freshmen Lucia Templeton and Ellia Milanovich and senior Madelyn Buckley got the baton around.
 
A TRIPLE ON THE RUNWAY
Sophie Hanay did more than just run on that relay. She also was in the triple jump and went 32 feet, 8 ½ inches to take fifth place.
 
That made her the first triple jumper for the Falcons since the 2021 GNAC Championships when Kellie May took third place with a leap of 37-4.

A DOUBLE AT NCAA INDOORS
Annika Esvelt received the official word on Tuesday that she has been selected tor the women's 3000 and 5000 meters at next week's NCAA Championships in Indianapolis.
 
The 5000 is set for Thursday, March 13 at 3:15 p.m. Pacific time inside Fall Creek Pavilion. Esvelt will be on the starting line as the No. 4 seed with her entry time of 16:09.93. The top-seeded time is 15:40.08 by Jenna Ramsey-Rutledge from Colorado School of Mines. Tristian Spence of Adams State (Colorado) is No. 2 at 15:53.52, and Hannah Hartwell of Fort Lewis (Colorado) is No. 3 at 16:08.22.
 
Esvelt is the No. 9 seed in the 3000, which is set for Saturday the 15th at 1:40 p.m. Pacific. She comes in at 9:24.80. Spence is the one to beat at 9:07.95.
 
AROUND THE GNAC
The Pacific Lutheran meet will have plentiful GNAC representation on Saturday, as Saint Martin's, Alaska Anchorage, and Western Washington also will be in Tacoma. Western is splitting its team, sending some to PLU and some Central Washington for the Wildcat Opener.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons are off from competition next week. They'll return to action on Friday and Saturday, March 21-22, at the Oregon Preview in Eugene. Friday's schedule on the track is distance events, with the sprints, hurdles and relays on Saturday. The field events are split equally between both days, with four women's events and four men's events each day.