Track Opens Outdoor Slate at Whitworth
3/19/2015 12:00:00 AM | Track and Field
SPOKANE, Wash. - The Gonzaga women's and men's track programs start their outdoor season schedules at the Buc Scoring Invite Thursday and Friday.
It's been a little over a month since the Zags ran in a meet. They wrapped the indoor season at the Husky Classic in Seattle on Feb. 14.
"The month break from traveling and competing indoors was perfect," Director of Gonzaga track Pat Tyson said. "I know the athletes are hungry to get after it. The weather has been unreal and certainly gives one a positive energy to feed off of during the outdoor racing season."
After a solid indoor season, Gonzaga women's Head Coach Patty Ley is also ready to get back to action.
"It has been a long stretch since our last indoor meet," Ley said. "It feels good to get going again and we are much closer to full strength now than a month ago. We still have two or three athletes not quite ready to go, but we should have almost everyone running by our third weekend in and that is great. It looks like we are going to have some great early season weather on Thursday and Friday and that should help with some early season marks. We are running a lot of the ladies out of their normal events and ‘doubling' many of them as early season prep for the year."
Gonzaga, Eastern Washington, Central Washington and Spokane Community College will each have competitors at the Buc Scoring Invite. The first half of the multi-events, some throwing events and 5K races will take place Thursday. The meet concludes Friday with the remainder of the events.
"The Whitworth Pine Bowl is a very good facility," Tyson said. "It's a nice stadium with some wind protection because you are tucked in by Five Mile Prairie to the Southwest . Our athletes like the atmosphere with Ponderosas decorating the outer stadium.
"We will spread our athletes out a bit with many running Thursday in the twilight 5000 and the rest Saturday in the 10,000, 1500, 3000 Steeplechase, and 4x400 relay. We want to get some rust off our legs and use Whitworth and next week at Idaho to chase NCAA qualifying marks at Stanford and San Francisco State."
The Bulldogs will be taking 48 student-athletes to the meet, their largest contingent so far in 2015.
Gonzaga has plenty of expectations heading into the outdoor season, but trips to the NCAA West Preliminary top the list.
"At the high end, we are looking to get several women qualified for at least the first round of the NCAA Championship in Austin at the end of May," Ley said. "Our top ladies are certainly capable of competing for this level."
"Our goals outdoors are break all school records, and to get five or more qualified for NCAA first round in Austin, Texas," Tyson said. "We would like to have all our athletes get huge personal bests, and certainly compete to win. We want to be competitive down the stretch through the finish line."
Gonzaga ScheduleThursday
5:00 p.m. Women's 5000: A. Evans, O. Evans, A. Fraher, Henling, Mills, Thurston, Tyson, Winters
5:30 Men's 5000: Crichlow, Goldizen, Lunder, McCandless, Milam, Hensley, Roche, Quintana, Stout, Thompson, Walgren
Friday
3:10 p.m. Combined 10K: Pearce, Kaderabek
4:15 1500: Albrecht, Anderson, Chucka, Coic, Culver, O. Evans, C. Fraher, Johnson, Jones, Mildes, Murray, Slavosk, Urcadez, Williams, Amann, Beard, Fischer, Phillips, Pollard, Sicalo, Smith, Wendle, Milam
4:55 400: Riley, Saunders, Stralen
5:25 800: Anderson, Culver, C. Fraher, Mildes, Stroosma, Milam
6:10 200: Saunders
6:20 Women's 3000 Steeplechase: Murray
6:40 Men's 3000 Steeplechase: Fraley, Manley, Branch, Roche
6:55 1600 Relay: Riley, Anderson, Stroosman, Saunders, Jones, C. Fraher, Murray, Urcadez, O. Evans, Albrecht, Culver, A. Fraher, Stralen, Slavoski, Wendle, Smith, Pollard, Phillips, Amann, Beard, Sicalo, Fischer
