Running out of the cold winter into the warmer spring.
Seattle Pacific University’s track and field team began its outdoor season on Saturday, March 1, at the Ed Boitano Invitational in Tacoma, Washington.
Taking advantage of the unusually warm winter day in the high 50s, two Falcons and one SPU relay team won first place.
Track events:
Junior Maya Ewing won the women’s 1,500-meter run at 4:41.26, beating her previous best of 4:45.56 from the 2023 Bryan Clay Invitational.
Junior Matise Mulch won the women’s 5000-meter run at 18:44.18.
Freshman Sophie Hanay, senior Johanna Brown and freshmen Jada Sarrys and Evey Rowland assembled the winning team of the women’s 4-by-400-meter relay race.
Junior Isaac Venable finished eleventh in the men’s 10,000 at 32:4.76 (previous best was 32:27.17 from the 2024 Beach Invitational).
In the men’s 4-by-4 relay, Andrew Bell, Robert Joshua, Ethan Erickson and Nathan Korth took fourth at 3:34.06, six seconds faster than last year’s best SPU time of 3:40.13.
Redshirt-freshman Ethan Erickson ran a personal best of 2:00.73 in the men’s 800 meters (previous best was 2:03.08 from the 2024 Ralph Vernacchia Invitational).
Field events:
Hanay finished fifth in the women’s triple jump at 9.97 meters. She is the first Falcon to compete in the triple jump since Kelly May in 2021.
Sophomore Mikel Saxon placed third in the men’s pole vault, clearing 4.12 meters.
Junior Maliyah Hicks, Hanay and sophomore Sophie Mock took the fourth, fifth and sixth-place spots in the women’s long jump. Hicks jumped 4.97 meters, Hanay jumped 4.96 meters and Mock jumped 4.93 meters.
Upcoming:
Seattle Pacific will compete in the PLU Open in Tacoma, Washington, on Saturday, March 8. Events both on the track and in the field begin at 10:00 a.m.
Fifth-year Annika Esvelt is the only Falcon who is sure to compete in the NCAA Indoor Championships from March 13 to March 15. Esvelt is slated to run the women’s 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter events. She is No. 9 and No. 4, respectively, on the provisional qualifying lists for each event.
The official list of entries from SPU is yet to be released.
