Preps set to take over the Dempsey at Brooks PR Invitational...


SEATTLE--In just a few hours, some of America's top high school talents will report to the Dempsey Indoor for the third annual Brooks PR meet.

Several Washington preps are entered in the field, including University of Washington commits Amy-Eloise Neale from Glacier Peak, who was twice the runner-up in this meet in the mile; Katie Knight from North Central in Spokane, who will run the two-mile; and Andrew Brown from Tumwater, who's entered in the 400.

During Saturday's pre-meet media gathering, Neale revealed that she will fly to England to run in the British world championship cross country trials on March 9th in Birmingham, which will select the squad to compete in the world championships in Bydgoszcz.

Three members of Team USA's junior squad are participating Sunday--Michigan's Erin Finn; Knight, and Spokane's Andrew Gardner.  All are running the two-mile.

After the high school media session, US world cross country team members Neely Spence Gracey (left/photo by Paul Merca) and Ryan Vail spoke to the media about how their preparation is going on the road to Bydgoszcz.

Vail, who is making his fourth appearance on a USA cross country team, will run in the US 15 k road race in early March in Jacksonville before heading to the Czech Republic to visit his wife's family and get in some quality training in Europe before the rest of the team arrives in Poland.

Spence is using the meet as a build-up to what she hopes will be a successful season on the track.

In Bozeman, Montana, the Eastern Washington University track and field team brought its all-conference performance total to four Saturday at the Big Sky Indoor Championships. In team standings, the men finished seventh with 46 points and the women took ninth with 26 points.

Highlighting the day for the Eagles was Jordan Arakawa, who had a huge personal-best toss of 65-4 in the weight throw to place second.

Brad Michael finished second in the 400 meters, running a time of 47.84. He was the runner-up behind the winning time of 47.57 from Weber State’s Matt White.  Michael also was fifth in the 200 at 21.84.


NOTE:  Special thanks to Katy Klein at Brooks Sports media relations for their cooperation.  The sports information office at Eastern Washington University contributed to this report.

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