Excitement fills the air as Seattle Pacific University gears up for the three-day NCAA Division II Outdoor Championships at the Neta & Eddie DeRose ThunderBowl in Pueblo, Colorado.
Seattle Pacific will be sending two racers to the championship: graduating senior Annika Esvelt and junior Maya Ewing.
Esvelt will be running in the women’s 10,000-meter event on Thursday, May 22, and the women’s 5,000-meter event on Saturday, May 24. Ewing will be running the preliminaries for the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase on Thursday with a shot at the finals on Friday, May 23. Both races are scheduled to begin at 7:05 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
“I’m pretty excited,” Esvelt said. “I’ve never been to Colorado, so we’re pretty excited just to go have a good time. Racing is super fun, but exploring the area is a huge part of it as well, so definitely excited for that. I feel very blessed by God that I’ve gotten to do all of this and have so many opportunities like this.”
This is Esvelt’s seventh national meet over the course of her career with the Falcons, and will most likely be her last as she is graduating from SPU at the end of the 2025-2026 academic year. Conversely, this upcoming meet is Ewing’s first ever. She is eagerly anticipating this new opportunity.
“I’m definitely nervous, but I’m really excited,” Ewing said. “Annika is pretty much a veteran in the NCAA meets, so I’m kinda just learning from her and going into it with an open mind.”
Both athletes have worked hard to get to where they are. Head coach Karl Lerum and assistant coach Eric Hansen could not be more proud of their progress.
“This is a big accomplishment at the end of a season to be able to continue to the nationals,” Lerum said. “Obviously, these two women have been working for literally years, so it’s certainly not a zero-sum game for people who make the national meet, but it’s a big honor.”
When asked about preparation for Nationals, Hansen talked about a shift of focus for both runners.
“[Annika’s] definitely faster than she’s ever been,” Hansen said. “She’s PRed in the mile run, so she’s in a really good place going into nationals this year. Maya has just been unbelievable this whole year; she’s almost not even recognizable as a runner compared to what she was a year ago. She’s struggled doubling back in the past, but we’ve started working on that with the hope that she’s able to go out to Pueblo and take a shot at making the final.”
