THE SCHEDULE
Friday, April 25                                     Seattle Pacific at Pee Wee Halsell Invitational
                                                                Civic Stadium / Bellingham, Wash.
                                                                Track events, 11:00 a.m.     Field events, 12:30 p.m.
                                                                No live Webcast        Live results
 
Saturday, April 26                                Seattle Pacific at Ralph Vernacchia Invitational
                                                                Civic Stadium / Bellingham, Wash.
                                                                Track events, 9:20 a.m.        Field events, 9:00 a.m.
                                                                No live Webcast        Live results
 

SEATTLE – One weekend … one venue … two meets.
 
That's what the end of the track and field regular season looks like for the Seattle Pacific Falcons as they head north to Bellingham for back-to-back days of competition.
 
Up first is the Pee Wee Halsell Invitational on Friday. Field events start at 10:00 a.m., followed by track events at 12:30 p.m.
 
Saturday is the 43rd annual Ralph Vernacchia Invitational. Field events start at 9:00 a.m. and the first race is at 9:05.
 
Both meets will give the Falcons a chance to compete on the same oval that will host the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships on May 9-10.
 
KEEPING TRACK OF THE ACTION
Neither meet will have a live Webcast. Free live results will be available both days. The appropriate link is at the top of this story.
 
HITTING THE ROAD FOR BELLINGHAM
For those wishing to see the action in person, head north on Interstate 5 to Exit 253 Lakeway Drive. Go one block beyond the stop sign to Moore Street and turn left. The lights for both the stadium and the Joe Martin Field baseball facility will be visible.
 
Civic Stadium has a large parking lot. Be advised that because both days also include high school competition, that lot is likely to fill up more quickly than usual.
 
There is no charge for parking. However, there is an admission charge of $10 for adults and $7 for youth / students. Tickets are available at the gate.
 
A NEW TWIST TO A TRADITIONAL WEEKEND
The Ralph Venacchia Invite has been a long-time staple on Seattle Pacific's track calendar. Typically, it has been a one-day gathering, usually on Saturday, and that is the case again this year. The Halsell is a brand-new one. The two meets are named in honor of former WWU coaches.
 
Both days will have high school as well as college competition with the WWU Viking High School Invitational. That one also is brand-new
 
 The Halsell will be somewhat distance-oriented, including the 800, 5000, 10,000, 3000 steeplechase. It also will feature the short (100 / 110) hurdles, the 200 dash, and 4x100 relay.
 
The Vernacchia on Saturday will have everything from 100 to 5000 meters, both short and long hurdles (no steeplechase), and both relays.
 
Most field events will be offered both days except for the javelin (men on Friday, women on Saturday) and the triple jump (both genders on Saturday only).
 
The last college events are at 4:50p.m. on Friday (women's 100 hurdles) and 5:35 p.m. on Saturday (women's 4-by-400 relay).
 
IT'S ACTUALLY GOING TO BE PLEASANT
Earlier this week, the outlook had been for cloudy and wet both days. Not anymore. The forecast is calling for mostly cloudy skies on Friday, but temperatures possibly hitting 70 degrees. Saturday is looking like more of the same, albeit a bit cooler, with highs into the mid-60s. No rain is expected on either day. Sustained winds will be less than 10 miles per hour both days with possible gusts to 15 – not nearly as breezy as it was in Ellensburg last Saturday.
 




SCOUTING THE HALSELL / VERNACCHIA INVITATIONALS
Most of the Falcons are entered for just one of the two days. But a few are entered both Friday and Saturday, and two of those – hurdlers Andrew Bell and Hannah Chang – potentially could be involved in some of the best regular-season races of the spring.
 
 

Bell comes in tied for the school record at 14.50 in the men's 110s. He clocked that time last Saturday in Ellensburg when he ran side-by-side with fellow freshman David Brown of Central Washington. Brown came out ahead in 14.15 in their first outdoor race against each other. They now have raced in four meets, and each has finished ahead of the other twice. Central is coming to Bellingham, and Brown is entered in the 110s for both meets.
 
In the women's100 hurdles, Chang ran her fastest time of the season last week at Central at 14.03 – the second-fastest of her career, and she was clean over all 10 hurdles. That tentatively moved her ahead of Alaska Anchorage's Liv Heite for the GNAC lead – until Heite ran 13.90 later on Saturday at the Beach Invitational in Long Beach, Calif.
 
Other Falcons slated for both days are pole vaulters Mason Hrcek and Mikel Saxon, hurdler Sophie Mock (100s in both meets) and distance runners Madelyn Buckley and Ella Milanovich (800 on Friday, 1500 on Saturday for both).
 
 

Katelyn Flolo gets another shot at the 3000 steeplechase on Friday. The last time the junior ran it on April 4 at the Mike Fanelli Track Classic in San Francisco, she came through with a monster personal best of 11 minutes, 31.39 seconds. That was almost 15 seconds faster than she'd ever run before and was her first sub-12 since her 2023 freshman season.
 
 

On Saturday, freshman Robert Joshua is back in the 100 and 200 dashes. He clocked 10.59 in the 100 last Saturday at Central Washington, which would have been a school record except that the tailwind was +7.3 meters per second – more than 3½ times the legal limit of 2.0. Fellow freshman Justin Brooks is back in the 400, two weeks after breaking the school record with a 47.86 at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational.
 
 

After essentially securing her NCAA ticket in the steeplechase last week at Bryan Clay, Maya Ewing will race in the 5000 meters on Saturday, looking to break 17 minutes for the first time (17:02.09). Alexa Gossett, Matise Mulch, and Anna Prussian will join her in that with Gossett (18:01.77) and Prussian (18:15.65) aiming to break 18. Annika Esvelt has firmed up her NCAA spots in the 5000 and 10,000,so will run the 1500 this week.
 
Johanna Brown, Sophie Hanay, Evey Rowland and Jada Sarrys are all doubling up in the 200 and 400 dashes.

THEY KNOW EACH OTHER WELL
Falcons junior Hannah Chang and Anchorage sophomore Live Heite have become quite familiar with each other.

 

Since the 2024 winter indoor season when Heite first came onto the scene, she and Chang have been in the same hurdles event (though not necessarily the same heat) 13 times: eight in the indoor 60s and five in the outdoor 100s. Of those, Chang has had the faster mark nine times.

Within those 13 races, they have gone head-to-head in the same heat eight times. Chang has a 6-2 advantage with three overall wins. Heite has two overall wins.
 
Adding up the finish times in all 13 of their races, Chang and Heite are separated by a scant two-tenths of a second: a total of 2 minutes, 23.39 seconds for Heite, 2 minutes, 23.59 for Chang.

Chang and Heite are entered for the 100s in both meets this week.
 
EWING'S RECORD DIDN'T LAST LONG
On April 4 at the prestigious Stanford Invitational, Maya Ewing broke the SPU women's 3000-meter steeplechase record by finishing her 7½ laps in 10 minutes, 35.63 seconds.
 
Last Wednesday – just 12 days later – Ewing broke it again, and in a big way. Racing at the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, California, Ewing went the distance in 10:27.61, an improvement of 8.02 seconds.
 
Ewing's time puts her No. 10 on the NCAA Division II provisional qualifying list heading into this week – and in all likelihood should put her into the national meet. The top 22 declarations are guaranteed tickets to Pueblo, Colorado, for Memorial Day weekend. The current No. 22 time is 10:41.28, meaning that Ewing is well above the cutoff red line.
 
Last year, Ewing's time would have ranked No. 15 on the list, -- also well above the line.
 
ANOTHER DOUBLE-DIP FOR ESVELT
Annika Esvelt already has an NCAA invitation locked up in the 5000 meters, thanks to the 15:56.94 that she ran at Stanford on April 4.
 
Now, she's assured of a spot in the 10,000 as well. Esvelt ran a personal-best 33:34.30 at Bryan Clay last Wednesday. That was seven seconds faster than she'd ever run before.
 
 

Esvelt ranks No. 3 nationally in the 10K and No. 4 in the 5K. On the night she broke that 16-minute mark in the 5000 for the first time, it was the only sub-16 in Division II. As expected, others have done likewise since then. There are now six sub-16s, including Esvelt, and the other five all came last week at the Clay.
 
The leader is now Klaudia O'Malley of Grand Valley State at 15:42.43. Others ahead of Esvelt are Jenna Ramsey-Rutledge of Colorado Mines (15:48.74) and Brianna Robles of Adams State (15:54.76). Of the top 22 times on the provisional list, 16 came at the Clay (including 10 of the top 11).
 
On the 10K list, Robles (32:50.18) and Anna Fauske of UC Colorado Springs (33:22.66) are the only two ahead of Esvelt.
 
The current No. 22 cutoff times – both of which are way slower than Esvelt – are 16:29.55 in the 5000 and 35:03.93 in the 10,000.

Click on this link for a complete look at national qualifiers. Click on this link for a look at GNAC leaders.
 
NOBODY HURDLES FASTER THAN BELL
Having already broken the converted school record and the Fully Automatic Timing school record in the 110-meter hurdles, freshman Andrew Bell tied the overall school record at last Saturday's CWU Wildcat Invitational in Ellensburg.
 
Bell hit the wire in 14.50 seconds, matching the hand-held time posted by Mark Stream in 1974. That 14.50 converts to 14.74 for FAT, which Bell already has beaten three times.
 
Stream's race was during the era when distances were measured in yards and some races have conversion times for yards-to-meters. But because 110 meters is a mere 10.6 inches shorter than 120 yards (essentially less than a shoe length), the distances are considered equal for record purposes and there is no time added or subtracted when converting yards to meters.
 
HITTING THE BIG 3-0 – AND MORE
The Falcons logged five individual victories last Saturday in Ellensburg – four of them overall winners, one of them a heat winner – pushing their season total to 31.
 
 

Matise Mulch took the women's 5000, her second win of the year, both of them in that event. Johanna Brown won the 200-meter dash in the collegiate session, and Hannah Chang won the Premier session 100 hurdles. Isaac Venable won the men's 5000, but that one was a foregone conclusion: There were just two entries and the other one scratched out of it.
 
Justin Brooks won his heat of the men's 800 in the collegiate session.
 
Overall, SPU athletes now have eight overall victories and 23 heat victories.
 
AROUND THE GNAC
Joshua Caleb of Alaska Anchorage continued his speedy season by setting GNAC outdoor records in the 100-meter dash (10.11) and 200 (20.50) at two different Southern California meets – the Beach Invite for the 100 and the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate for the 200.
 
Of the GNAC's nine programs, seven of them will be coming to Bellingham this week, essentially creating a pre-conference opportunity to see how things stack up. The only two schools not making the trip are Northwest Nazarene and Montana State Billings. Both will be in Boise at the Ed Jacoby Twilight on Friday,
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons will have next week off from competition as they turn their full focus to preparing for the GNAC Championships. That meet is set for Friday and Saturday, May 9 and 10, at Civic Stadium in Bellingham.
 
The event-by-event schedule has not yet been finalized, but tentative starting times have been penciled in: 12:30 p.m. for field events and 3:00 for track events on Friday; 11:00 a.m. for field and 1:30 p.m. for track on Saturday.


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