BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Tawaf Aboudou keeps breaking school records. Isaac Venable keeps breaking personal ones.
 
Seattle Pacific freshman Aboudou eclipsed his own school standard in the 200-meter dash on Saturday, stopping the watch in 21.48 seconds at the Ralph Vernacchia Invitational inside Civic Stadium.
 
Aboudou's previous best in the 200 was 21.60 on March 28 at the Peyton-Shotwell Invitational at the University of Puget Sound's Baker Stadium in Tacoma. Saturday's time gave him second place, trailing the 21.21 by Rui Ramsey of Trinity Western.
 
Senior distance runner Venable rewrote his personal best in the 5000 meters. He clocked 15 minutes, 3.30 seconds. That was eight seconds better than the 15:11.93 he posted at the Whitworth Peace Meet in Spokane on April 3. Venable finished third on Saturday.
 
VENABLE CONTINUES PICKING UP THE PACE
When it comes to setting personal-best times – whether it's on the cross country trails, an indoor track, or an outdoor track – Isaac Venable is definitely not a one-and-done kind of guy.
 
Across those three seasons during the current school year, Venable has logged a whopping 11 PBs.
 
The latest of those was Saturday's 15:03.30 in the 5K.
 
The only thing that kept his time from being even faster was an unfortunate stumble near the finish line.

 

"I needed a 72 on that last lap and I felt I would be able to run a little quicker (than that)," said Venable, whose best 5K coming into the spring was 15:22.06. "Coming in to about 200 to go, there was one other guy and we were next to each other, and there was one guy in front of us. Coming into the last 100, I was way under pace.
 
"Then with about 40 meters to go, my legs started to give out. With 10 meters to go, I couldn't feel my legs. … I felt I would keep stumbling, but I couldn't even stay on my feet, I just rolled across the finish line."
 
As disappointed as Venable was at not breaking 15 minutes, he knew he quite literally had left everything on the track.
 
"I think that's the hardest I've ever run a race in my life," he said. "I pushed myself to a new limit, a new gear that I never knew I had. I just ran out (of gas) literally a second too early. A couple more steps and I would have done it. … I'm trying to be proud of (the effort). It just hurts so much to be so close and barely lose it."
 
SPU assistant coach / distance coach Eric Hansen said that in his mind, it was a sub-15, even though the official results won't show it.
 
 

"My watch had 14:57. The clock doesn't tell the whole story," Hansen said. "He beat so many guys who have been kicking his butt for four years. That's the best race he has ever run in his life. It was such a great race he put together. You could tell he put his whole soul into that. It's not just like he PR'd and looked pretty good doing it. He put every ounce of his being into it."
 
Venable definitely will be running the 10,000 when the GNAC meet takes place on May 4-5 in Ellensburg. He's not sure about the 5K yet.
 
"My focus is definitely the 10K," he said. "Even though I had a bad finish today, I still got third place and I beat a lot of the people who will be running the 10K next week. So we're really excited about my chances to score there."
 
Of his 11 personal bests during the current school year, three came in cross country last fall (6K, 8K, and 10K). During the winter indoor season, he did it twice in the 5000, settling at 15:19.21 at the GNAC Championships, and once in the 3000.
 
This spring, he has gone faster than ever in the three longest races. The first of those was 31:30.39 in the 10,000 at the outdoor-opening Ed Boitano Invitational in Tacoma on March 6. He set a 1500 PB of 4:07.52 at the Peyton-Shotwell Invite on March 28 on the same Baker Stadium track.
 
In the 5000, he has three personal-bests in a span of five weeks: 15:13.18 at the PNW Invitational on March 21 in Corvallis, 15:11.93 at the Whitworth Peace Meet on April 3 in Spokane, and now 15;03.30 on Saturday at the Vernacchia Invite.
 
ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER SPU RECORD
Aboudou has been in record-breaking mode all year for the Falcons.

 

-- His very first race in an SPU uniform was the 60-yard dash last Dec. 13 at the indoor season-opening Spokane Invitational. He clocked 6.86, beating the 6.94 posted by sophomore teammate Robert Joshua at the 2025 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships.
-- Later that same day, he went 23-6 in the long jump, taking down the standard of 23-2 ¼ set by Justin Felt in 2009.
-- By the time the indoor season was done, he had rewritten the 60 dash record three more times, capped by a 6.73 to win the GNAC title on Feb. 17.
-- Also on that final day of GNACs, he anchored the school-record 4-by-400 relay, factoring into a final time of 3:20.48, along with Joshua, Justin Brooks, and Alex Venable. That was just below the old record of 3:20.86 set in 2023.
-- Once the action shifted outdoors, Aboudou factored into another 4-by-400 record, anchoring a foursome that included Joshua, Ben Rojas, and Brooks. They went 3:14.46 at the Whitworth Peace Meet, eclipsing the 21-year-old standard of 3:18.05 set in 2005.
-- One week later, he was part of two records at the Central Washington Wildcat Invitational. Aboudou went 10.57 in the 100-meter dash, breaking Joshua's record of 10.70. A while later, he, Joshua, Brooks, and Rojas went 41.46 in the 4-by-100, taking down the record of 41.6 that had stood since 1968.
-- The 4-by-400 record from Whitworth on April 3 didn't even last a month. At the Bryan Clay Invitational last week in Azusa, California, the same foursome of Aboudou, Rojas, Joshua, and Brooke finished in 3:12.10, a time that put the Falcons onto the NCAA provisional qualifying list.

And, while it wasn't a record, Aboudou did win the long jump on Saturday afternoon, going 23 feet, 11 ¾ inches. That was just half an inch shy of his personal-best 24-0 ¼ set at the Clay last week. The program record is 24-4¾ set in 1970 by the late Steve Gough. Aboudou's mark on that day ranks No. 2 on SPU's all-time list and makes him just the third 24-footer in school history – and the first one since 1983.

 

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
In Friday's Pee Wee Halsell Invitational on the same Civic Stadium track, senior Nathaniel Gale recorded his first individual college victory, taking the 5000 in 15:45.38.
 
Prior to that, Gale's best finish had been fourth in the 10,000 at the 2023 Ralph Vernacchia Invite.
 
AND THAT'S NOT ALL
-- Senior Maya Ewing won the women's 5000 on Saturday in 17:28.98. It was her fourth victory of the season and her first in the 5K.
-- Senior Hannah Chang won the women's 100-meter hurdles for the second day in a row, finishing in 14.30. In Friday's Pee Wee Halsell meet, she clocked 14.03. Both days, she was racing against GNAC rival Liv Heite of Alaska Anchorage. Heite was second on Friday in 14.11 and third on Saturday in 14.63. Saturday's race was into a 1.8-mps headwind.
-- Sophomore Andrew Bell was second in the men's 110 hurdles in 15.07.
-- Juniors Mikel Saxon and Mason Hrcek finished 3-4 in the men's pole vault. Saxon cleared 14 feet, 5¼ inches; Hrcek got over at 13-11¼.
-- The women's 4-by-100 relay team of Sarah Bailey, Chang, Brooke Mosby and Jada Sarrys finished third in 47.43.
-- Bailey also was fifth in the 100 dash; Moseby was fifth in the 200 and seventh in the 400; Sarrys placed seventh in the 200 and ninth in the 400.

UP NEXT
Saturday's meet was the regular-season finale for the Falcons. They'll head to Ellensburg on Monday and Tuesday, May 4-5, for the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships at the Central Washington Recreation Sports Complex. Starting times have not yet been announced.