Toby Stevenson & Olivia Gruver garner USTFCCCA regional honors; WWU, SPU & SMU open outdoor season...
The USTFCCCA named Stevenson the West Region women's assistant coach of the year, according to a vote of member coaches.
Each of the nine regions – Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Mountain, Northeast, South, South Central, Southeast and West – honored both genders’ top track athletes and field athletes as well as the top men’s and women’s head coaches and assistant coaches.
In the West Region, Stevenson, in his second year at Washington, coached NCAA qualifiers Olivia Gruver and Hannah Rusnak. He guided Gruver to the NCAA lead in the pole vault and the second-best mark all-time in collegiate history, while Rusnak is ranked No. 6 in the NCAA in the pentathlon. The Huskies’ pole vault squad is ranked No. 3 in the #EventSquad Rankings.
Gruver, who will be competing in her final meet as a Husky at next weekend's NCAA indoor championships in Albuquerque, is ranked first nationally- and second in collegiate history – in the pole vault at 4.70m (15-5). She also had two other 15-foot clearances this season, including one of 4.66m (15-3.5) to open the season.
Gruver is also on the women's Pre-NCAA Indoor Bowerman Watch list.
Of the ten women on the current Bowerman Watch list, Gruver is the active female leader for appearances on the Watch List, as this marks her 11th.
The USTFCCCA release is available here.
WESTERN, SEATTLE PACIFIC AND SAINT MARTIN'S OPENS OUTDOOR SEASON SATURDAY AT ED BOITANO INVITATIONAL...
Western Washington, Seattle Pacific, and Saint Martin's will be the first three Washington Division I or II schools to open the 2020 outdoor track and field season, as they travel to Tacoma for the Ed Boitano Invitational, hosted by the University of Puget Sound, beginning at 10 am at Baker Stadium on the UPS campus.
All three teams will have representative squads competing, though the athletes from those schools who are advancing to next weekend's NCAA Division II indoor championships in Birmingham, Alabama are not expected to participate.
The Vikings enter the outdoor season as the defending men's champions, while the Falcons enter 2020 as the defending women's champions in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
The opening of the outdoor season also marks the first chances the Vikings nationally-prominent javelin program will get to make its season debut. WWU has had a women's javelin thrower compete at nationals in each of the last nine seasons, including Monika Gruszecki (2011) and Bethany Drake (2014 & 2017) winning national titles during this time period. A WWU men's javelin thrower has competed at nationals in five of the last six seasons, gathering four first-team All-America awards.
The meet schedule for the Ed Boitano Invitational is available here.
NOTE: The USTFCCCA and the sports information offices of the University of Washington, Western Washington University, Seattle Pacific, and Saint Martin's University contributed to this report.
Comments