Cougar senior Anna Layman breaks school record in 800m...
Layman, a senior from Spokane Valley, ran a school indoor record time in the 800m of 2-minutes, 5.93 seconds which was fourth place. Layman, a two-time All-American in the outdoor 800m, bettered Jennifer Carpenter's 1992 school record indoor time of 2:06.62, run at Notre Dame.
"I felt pretty good in the race," Layman said from Ames. "We had a rabbit come through in about 59 seconds (for the first 400 meters). I did a good job of staying with the leaders through the third 200 meters which is something that I've really been working on. In the final 200 meters the top two runners pulled away and I did my best to stick with them. I'm really proud to get the school record. I've had my eyes on it for four years. Now I'm nervous and excited to see if I make it to the NCAAs."
The Cougar men's 4x400m relay team of Greg Hornsby, Brandon Dawson, Jacob Sealby and Jeshua Anderson ran a season-best time of 3:07.61, winning the third heat and fourth place overall, setting the second-best indoor time in WSU men's history.
"Greg Hornsby got out to a good start and opened up in 47.8 seconds, which is what we wanted because that first leg is always key," WSU assistant coach Mark Macdonald said. "I wasn't sure how the race was going during Brandon Dawson's leg because around the final turn he got pushed around and boxed in and stumbled a little bit. But he fought through it and handed off in 46.8 seconds. Once I saw that I knew we had a really good shot. Jacob Sealby ran a huge leg in 46.6 seconds. We were still second by just a little but he handed off and Jeshua looked awesome. When I saw how easy he was running and how fast he was running, I thought it was going to be a qualifying time. He went by the South Carolina guy with 200 meters to go and looked really strong at the end. Everybody did exactly what they were supposed to do. Now we'll wait and see."
The current national rankings are available on the tfrrs.org site, which is available here.
In Tacoma, Western Washington University had three provisional national qualifying performances and three meet record efforts in winning both the men's and women's divisions Saturday at the University of Puget Sound Quadrangular Track and Field meet held at Baker Stadium.
Seattle Pacific junior Brittany Aanstad, a fourth-place finisher in the javelin at last spring's NCAA Division II championships, opened her new season with a toss of 142 feet, 0 inches (43.29 meters) to win by more than two feet. That put Aanstad onto the GNAC automatic qualifying list – the only Falcon to earn an automatic mark on Saturday.
The Viking men took nine events and finished with 89 points, 51 ahead of runner-up Seattle Pacific. The Western women won eight events, finishing with 66 points to 50 for the second-place Falcons.
Seattle Pacific's mens and womens recaps of the meet are available here; Western Washington's recap is available here.
The complete results are available here.
Both teams will compete at next week's Pacific Lutheran Invitational in Tacoma, with select athletes traveling to Albuquerque for the NCAA Division II indoor championships.
NOTE: The sports information offices of Washington State, Western Washington, Seattle Pacific, and the University of Puget Sound contributed to this report.
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