THE SCHEDULE
Friday-Saturday, May 9-10                Seattle Pacific at GNAC Championships
                                                   Civic Stadium / Bellingham, Wash.
                                                   FRIDAY: Field, 12:30 p.m.     Track, 2:30 p.m.
                                                   SATURDAY:  Field 11:00 a.m.     Track, 1:25 p.m.
                                                   No live Webcast        Live results

 
SEATTLE – No guarantees – there never are. But the Seattle Pacific Falcons are very much in the mix for some trips to the top of the podium this weekend at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Track & Field Championships.
 
The meet is set for Friday and Saturday at Bellingham's Civic Stadium – the first time since 2007 and just the third time in conference history that it has been at that venue.
 
On Friday, field events start at 12:30 p.m., followed by track events at 2:30 p.m. The last race of the day is the women's 10,000 meters at 7:00. The 10K to end the day and the 3000 steeplechase to start the day are the only two finals on the track schedule. All other races are preliminaries. The field events are all finals.
 
Saturday's schedule begins at 11:00 a.m. in the field and 1:25 p.m. on the track. The last race is the women's 4x400 at 5:00, followed by awards at 5:15.
 
SPU comes to the meet with defending champions Annika Esvelt in the 5000 meters and Hannah Chang in the 100-meter hurdles. Others with a chance to be in title contention are Esvelt in the 1500, Maya Ewing in the women's steeple, Justin Brooks in the men's 400, Andrew Bell in the men's 110 hurdles, and Mason Hrcek in the men's pole vault.
 
KEEPING TRACK OF THE ACTION
The meet will not have a live Webcast. Free live results will be available both days. The appropriate link is at the top of this story.
 
NOT TOO HOT, NOT TOO COLD
Weather conditions should be pretty close to ideal for competition through the weekend. The forecast calls for sun breaks on Friday with temperatures pushing into the low-60s, with no chance of rain. A bit of a different story on Saturday, as it is expected to be cloudy all day with highs barely possibly reaching 60. There is a slight chance of rain (25 percent). Winds do not figure to be much of a factor either day.

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, so finding a space should not be a problem. There is no charge for parking.
 
Tickets will be available at the gate..

CHASING AFTER THE VIKINGS
Western Washington is the favorite to sweep the team titles.  The men, having set a GNAC record with their fifth in a row last spring, are seeded for 284½ points, based on awarding the appropriate team points (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1) to the top eight entry marks and splitting the points for any ties.
 
Of the 20 events to be contested this weekend, WWU is in the points in all 20 and has the top mark in 10. The closest contending team is Western Oregon, seeded for 119 points. Seattle Pacific is seeded for 24½.
 
The women are going for their third straight, which would tie SPU (2010-11-12 and 2018-19-21; no meet in 2020 due to the pandemic) and Western Oregon (2003-04-05) for the longest such streak. WWU is seeded for 234 points, with seven No. 1 entry marks.
 
Central Washington is next with 165. SPU is seeded for 67.
 




SCOUTING THE GNAC WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIPS
 

Realistically, the Falcons could contend for as many as four individual championship. Without question, though, the closest thing to a sure thing is Annika Esvelt in the 5000 meters. The defending champion, she comes in at 15:56.94, which is No. 4 on the national list and one of just half a dozen sub-16s in NCAA Division II. The Falcons have a chance to go 1-2 in this event, as Maya Ewing is the No. 2 seed at 17:02.09, slightly ahead of No. 3 Kyla Potratz of Western Oregon (17:04.29).
 
A couple hours before that on Saturday, Esvelt will race the 1500 as the No. 3 seed with her personal-best time of 4:33.92 run on this same Civic Stadium oval two weeks ago. Esvelt was third in this race last year after convincing the SPU coaches to let her run it. The top three seeds are close: Just ahead of Esvelt is No. 1 Ila Davis of Western Washington (4:30.42) and No. 2 Rachael Watkins of Simon Fraser (4:32.34).
 
 

Ewing is setting her sights on the 3000 steeplechase title, but will have to catch WWU's Davis to claim it. The defending champion ran 10:20.91 at the Stanford Invitational on April 4, which currently ranks No. 10 nationally. Ewing, who already had run 10:48 and 10:35 earlier the season, countered with a 10:27.61 on April 16 at the Bryan Clay Invite, and that sits No. 12 on the D2 list.

 

Hannah Chang will go for a second straight 100-meter hurdles title. Last year, she came from the No. 4-seeded position in the finals, leading from the gun to win in 13.88 ahead of Alaska Anchorage's Liv Heite in 14.28. They're both back, Heite as the top seed at 13.90 and Chang right there at 13.93.
 
 

Freshman pole vaulter Kaitlyn Askay has a chance to make the awards podium, as she is the No. 3 seed in the pole vault at 10 feet, 11 ¾ inches. (The top three in the final standings earn a spot.) Central Washington's Lauryn McGough is the one to beat at 13-3½ and will be extra motivated after coming in last year as the top seed, but then having one of those days when she wasn't able to get over her first bar.

 

Freshman Jada Sarrys (57.54) and senior Johanna Brown (57.77) are the Nos. 5 and 6 seeds in the 400 dash. Western Washington's Bec Bennett is the big favorite at 53.78, although teammate Kennedy Cook is close at 54.09. Sarrys also is the No. 12 seed in the 200 as she seeks to break the 25-second mark, coming in at 25.14.
 
Sophomore Anna Prussian is seeded in the points for the 10,000, ranking No. 6 at 38:01.57. Junior Matise Mulch also is in the 10K at No. 9, having gotten into the points last year with a fifth-place finish. Both of them will do the 10K-5K double, and freshman Alexa Gossett will join them in the 5.
 
 



SCOUTING THE GNAC MEN'S CHAMPIONSHIPS
 

Andrew Bell already has one GNAC hurdles title. Now, he'll try to add another one. The SPU freshman ran to the GNAC indoor crown in the 60s back in February, beating Central Washington freshman David Brown to the finish line by 11 hundredths of a second. It'll likely come down to those two again.
 
Brown is the top seed with the 14.15 he posted in Ellensburg on April 19. Bell is No. 2 with school-best 14.45 in Bellingham on April 26 – with Brown getting to the wire just ahead of him in 14.44.
 
 

The other Falcon with a legitimate title shot on the track is freshman Justin Brooks in the men's 400 dash. He is the No. 5 seed with bis school-record 47.86 that he posted on April 12 at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational. That makes him one of six 47s in the field – and four of those are freshmen. The other times range from No. 1 Isaac Ford of Western Washington (also a freshman) at 47.60 to No. 6 Jack Burgett of Western Oregon (a freshman) at 47.86.
 
 

Speaking of freshmen, Robert Joshua is seeded in the points at No. 7 for the 200 dash at 21.62, and is the No. 12 seed in the 100 at 10.70. His 200 mark is the fastest fully-automatic time in SPU history, and his 100 time breaks the converted school record of 10.74 – both of which he accomplished in Bellingham on April 26.
 
Sophomore pole vaulters Mason Hrcek and Mikel Saxon are seeded Nos. 3 and 6, respectively. Hrcek was third last year by clearing a personal-best 15 feet, 6¼ inches. Saxon surprised with a point-scoring eighth-place finish at 13-6½ --his first outdoor 4-meter mark (4.13). Saxon went even higher two weeks ago at Civic Stadium, getting over at 13-11¼. Hrcek has bounced back from a slow start to the outdoor campaign and has been in the 14s in four of his past five meets, including 14-5¼ on back-to-back days in Bellingham two weeks ago.
 
Junior Isaac Venable has had two personal-bests in the 10,000 this season. He opened with a 32:04.76 on Feb. 28 – an improvement of 22-plus seconds from his previous best – then ran his first sub-32 with a 31:56.24 at the Mike Fanelli Track Classic on April 3 in San Francisco. That has him as the No. 12 seed, The last time currently seeded in the points is 31:21.50.
 
SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- Last year, the Falcons were fifth on the women's side with 71 points. The men were ninth with 15 points.
-- SPU went home with a trio of individual titles, all on the women's side: Lizzy Daugherty in the pole vault, Hannah Chang in the 100 hurdles, and Annika Esvelt in the 5000.
-- Of the 10 Falcons who accounted for those 71 team points, five are returning: Esvelt (1st in 5000, 3rd in 1500), Chang (1st in 100 hurdles, 2nd in heptathlon; did not do the hep this year), Johanna Brown (6th in 400, 4th in 4x400), Maya Ewing (6th in 3000 steeplechase), and Matise Mulch (5th in 10,000).
-- On the men's side, two of the four Falcons who scored are returning – both in the pole vault. Mason Hrcek was third and Mikel Saxon was eighth.
-- If all goes according to form, the women's 100 hurdles final will come down to SPU junior Chang vs. Alaska Anchorage sophomore Liv Heite. They went against each other on back-to-back days two weeks ago in Bellingham, and Chang had close wins both times: 13.93 to 14.10 in the Pee Wee Halsell Invite, and 14.03 to 14.05 in the Ralph Vernacchia Invite.
-- Hannah Chang and Alaska Anchorage's Liv Heite now have been in the 100 hurdles at the same meet 15 times, (indoors and outdoors combined), with 10 head-to-head races. Chang has an 8-2 advantage in the head-to-heads. But in the 15 overall races, their total finishing times are separated by a scant one one-hundredth of a second: 2 minutes,51.54 seconds for Heite, 2 minutes, 51.55 seconds for Chang.
-- A similar budding rivalry is developing in the men's 110 hurdles between Andrew Bell of the Falcons and fellow freshman David Brown of Central Washington. They have been in that event at the same meet nine times (Brown, 6-3), with eight head-to-head races (Brown, 6-2). Bell's two head-to-head wins came in the GNAC indoor prelims and finals.
-- Their total finish times in those nine meet adds up to 1 minute, 45.042 seconds for Brown and 1 minute, 45.505 seconds for Bell – a difference of .463 seconds. The extra thousandths came from the Oregon Preview on March 22 when Brown hit the wire in 14.802 and Bell in 14.805. Per track rules, both were rounded up to 14.81; Brown was awarded the higher place.
 
ALREADY SOME SPEEDY TIMES AT CIVIC
The Falcons were on Civic Stadium's oval two weeks ago at the Pee Wee Halsell Invite and the Ralph Vernacchia Invite – and some of them were fast.
 
At the Vernacchia on April 26, freshman Andrew Bell ran the fastest 110-meter hurdles time in school history with a mark of 14.45. Another freshman, Robert Joshua, beat the converted school record in the 100-meter dash with a 10.70. Later that day, he recorded the fastest fully automatic time for the 200 meters in program history at 21.62.
 
 

Also at the Vernacchia, senior Johanna Brown clocked a career-best 25.40 in the women's 200 dash and a season-best 57.77 in the 400. Annika Esvelt went a career-best 4:33.92 in the 1500. The previous day in the Pee Wee Halsell Invite, Hannah Chang ran the second sub-14 of her career in the 100 hurdles, hitting the wire in 13.93. Fellow junior Katelyn Flolo had a fastest-ever 11:28.51 in the 3000 steeplechase.
 
Along with Bell's and Joshua's performances on the men's side, junior Isaac Venable ran 15:22.06 in the 5000 for his best-ever time.

ABOVE THE RED LINE
Heading into the final weekend of competition prior to the NCAAs, the Falcons have two who are safely in and one who has to make up some ground.
 
While the qualifying list runs into the 40s and 50 in some events (even more than that in others), the top 22 declarations as of next Monday's deadline are guaranteed a spot. That is a change from previous years when the "desired minimum" was 20 for individual events, but as many as 24 could be selected. That uncertainty is now gone – the top 22 make it, no more, no less.
 
Annika Esvelt and Maya Ewing are well positioned in their events. Esvelt is No. 3 in the 10,000 meters with her time of 33 minutes, 34.30 seconds from the Bryan Clay Invitational on April 16. She is No. 4 in the 5000 a 15:56.94 from the Stanford Invite on April 4.
 
Ewing is No. 12 in the 3000 steeplechase at 10:27.61 from the Bryan Clay. She started the season with a 10:48, went down to 10:35, but the thought was that 10:35 would be a bubble time, while a sub-10:30 would clinch a spot. That turned out to be the case. Ewing's 10:35.63 would have been right on the bubble at No. 22 heading into this week.
 
Hannah Chang is currently No. 35 in the 100 hurdles at 13.93. The current No. 22 time is 13.72.

Click on this link for the current NCAA qualifying list.
 
RACKING UP THE W's
Through the 10 regular-season meets, SPU athletes racked up 34 victories. 11 were overall first-place finishes, and 23 were heat victories.
 
 

Of those 11 overall firsts, three came two weeks ago in Bellingham during the back-to-back Pee Wee Halsell and Ralph Vernacchia invitationals. Hannah Chang won the 100 hurdles in both meets, and Justin Brooks took the 400 in the Vernacchia. Chang has three overall wins, while Matise Mulch (both of hers in the 5000) and Maya Ewing (one in the 1500, one in the steeplechase) have two each. Freshman sprinter Jada Sarrys has six heat victories.
 
RACKING UP THE A's AND B'S
Led by four-time honorees Lizzy Daugherty and Annika Esvelt, Seattle Pacific placed 12 women and five men onto the GNAC All-Academic team.
 
 

Daugherty and Esvelt are among numerous athletes around the conference who were able to take advantage of an extra season of eligibility granted by the NCAA because of the coronavirus shutdowns and restrictions in 2020 and 2021. Daugherty is a grad student in data analytics, and Esvelt, having completed her applied human biology major, is working on her exercise science minor.
 
Among the other Falcons, Johanna Brown and Ben Sheirbon each made it for the third time. Nicki Yorges, Hannah Chang, Maya Ewing, Katelyn Flolo, Maliyah Hicks and Matise Mulch are on for the second time, as is Isaac Venable on the men's side.
 
Earning their first All-Academic awards were Emily Thomason, Sophie Mock, Anna Prussian, Ethan Erickson, Mason Hrcek and Mikel Saxon.
 
All-Academic recipients must have a grade-point average of 3.20 or higher, be a sophomore or older, and must be in at least their second year on the team.
 
PRUSSIAN IS FINDING HER STRIDE
All Anna Prussian needed to show what she could do on the track is to be fully healthy and injury-free. That certainly has been the case this season for the sophomore distance runner – and it's showing up on the stopwatch.
 
 

Having come through with a strong finish to her cross country season last fall, Prussian cracked the top 10 in the 5000 and won her heat of the 3000 (11th place overall) at the GNAC indoor meet in February.
 
This spring, Prussian's very first college outdoor race was the 10,000 meters at the season-opening Ed Boitano Invitational on Feb. 28, and she finished in 38 minutes, 15.88 seconds. Just five weeks later, she ran it again at the Mike Fanelli Track Classic and dropped to 38:01.57.
 
In the 5K, she started off with a respectable 18:15.65 at the Oregon Preview on March 21. Then at the Ralph Vernacchia on April 26, she not only broke 18 minutes, she did it with room to spare, coming home in 17:49.22.
 
Prussian now has a chance to score in the 10K at GNAC, as she is the No. 6 seed. She is the No. 13 seed in the 5K.
 
A SEASON OF BESTS FOR VENABLE
April was a speedy month for Isaac Venable. Then again, it has been a speedy year for the junior distance runner.
 
 

Venable logged personal-best times in both the 10,000 and the 5000. He broke 32 minutes in the 10K for the first time, going 31:56.24 at the Mike Fanelli meet in San Francisco on April 3. Then at the Ralph Vernacchia on April 26, he went a PB 15:22.06 in the 5K. That was just four weeks after he went 15:22.34 at the UBC Open, a drop of more than 12 seconds from his previous best.
 
His other personal-bests during the current school year were for 8 kilometers in cross country (last October at the GNAC Championships), and for the indoor mile and 5000.

Venable is running the 10K on Friday, seeded No. 12.
 
AROUND THE WEST
The GNAC is one of the last conference meets in Division II, including the West Region. The California Collegiate Athletic Association decided its titles last weekend, with Chico State battling past Cal Poly Pomona on the men's side, 234.5 to 233. It came down to the 4x400 relay, with Chico coming from behind on the anchor leg to win and pick up 10 points, while Pomona got eight points for second place.
 
The women's side saw the reverse order, as Pomona won with 184,5, and Chico was second with 149.5.
 
Azusa Pacific won the Pacific West Conference women's title for the ninth straight time. The Cougars piled up 209 points, well ahead of second-place Fresno Pacific's 143. But APU's streak of eight consecutive men's titles came to an end, as Fresno took that one with 231. Azusa was second with 144.
 
UP NEXT
The NCAA Championships are set for Thursday through Saturday, May 22-24, at the Eddie & Neta DeRose ThunderBowl at Colorado State Pueblo. Competition starts at  10:05 a.m.  field / 3:40 p.m. track on Thursday; 1:00 p.m. field / 4:30 p.m. track on Friday, and 10:00 a.m. field / 4:00 p.m. track on Saturday.
 
SPU events would be the women's 3000 steeplechase (prelims 5:40 p.m. on Thursday / finals 6:15 p.m. on Friday), the women's 10,000 (7:10 p.m. on Thursday), the women's 100 hurdles (prelims 5:35 p.m. on Friday / finals 5:00 p.m. on Saturday), and women's 5000 meters (7:05 p.m. on Saturday).
 
All times are Pacific.
 
 
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