Weekend roundup: March 7th...

Normandy Park's Ryan Prentice, a freshman at Oklahoma State University, finished second in the junior men's race at the NACAC Cross Country Championships in Titusville, Florida, covering the 6k course in 18:01, six seconds behind winner Ryan Hill, a freshman at North Carolina State University.

The University of Washington's Joey Bywater from Lake Stevens finished twelfth in 18:42.

Saturday, Washington State men's 4x400m relay team consisting of Barry Leavitt, Reny Follett, Justin Woods and Jeshua Anderson, ran a school indoor record and NCAA Provisional Qualifying time Saturday at the Iowa State Qualifier meet in Ames, Iowa.

The Cougar men's 1600m relay team finished second to national leader Florida State with WSU's time of 3-minutes, 6.74 seconds the fifth-best collegiate time nationally this season, and the fourth-best in WSU all-time records. FSU's men ran an NCAA Automatic Qualifying time of 3:05.48.

WSU sprints coach Ellannee Richardson reported that Leavitt (senior, Benton City, Wash.) opened the race with a split time of 47.6 seconds and handed off to Reny Follett (junior, Lewiston, Idaho) who ran a split time of 46.4. Woods (senior, Buena Vista, Calif.) ran the third leg in a time of 47.2 and Anderson (sophomore, Woodland Hills, Calif.) ran the anchor leg in a time of 45.5. Last weekend at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Indoor Championships in Seattle, the Cougs ran the previous school indoor record time of 3:08.80.

"Every leg was solid today and they all competed very well," Richardson said. "Now we hope to get in the fast heat at the NCAA Indoor Championships next weekend."

In other races in Iowa Saturday, Cougars ran well but did not improve on already established NCAA marks. Anderson ran the 400m dash in an NCAA PQ time of 46.95 for sixth place and Robert Williams (senior, Riverside, Calif.) ran a time of 7.88 for fourth place in the 60m hurdles.

In South Bend, Ind., Lorraine King ran a PR time in the 400m dash of 54.89 Saturday for ninth place in the Notre Dame University Alex Wilson Indoor Invite, but did not reach an NCAA qualifying time. Friday night she ran on the women's DMR that set a WSU school record.

Finally, here's a link to an interview from Runner's World with Oklahoma State coach Dave Smith, who attended high school in Tumwater, and was a volunteer assistant coach at the University of Washington before starting his coaching career at Texas Tech University.

Smith currently coaches Prentice, and frosh sensation German Fernandez, who will skip the NCAA Indoor Championships this weekend in favor of the World Cross Country Championships later this month.

You can read the article here...