Dawgs & Cougs open indoor season Friday at UW Indoor Preview; UW XC heads to Vegas...
Both Washington and Washington State's indoor track teams will open the 2021 season at the Dempsey Indoor Friday for the first of two days of competition at the UW Indoor Preview.
With no fans allowed, and to comply with state and county requirements, Friday's competition consists solely of field events that begin at 2:00pm, except for the men's 800 and the women's distance medley relay, which will cap off the competition at 7:05pm.
The Saturday portion of the meet goes from 11am to 12:15 pm, followed by a break to clear the facility of non-competing athletes, with action resuming at 2pm and ending at 3:15 pm.
Both days of the meet will be streamed by media partner RunnerSpace.com ($).
The Dawgs and Cougs will be joined by a select group of athletes from Brigham Young University, as well as a few pro athletes, led by Washington volunteer coach Sam Prakel (photo by Paul Merca), the 2020 USATF road mile champion, along with recent Husky grad Olivia Gruver, who headlines Friday's women's pole vault competition.
In that women's distance medley relay, the Huskies will face off against a pro squad from Oiselle, and Brigham Young, as both the Huskies and the Cougars look to punch their tickets to the NCAA indoor championship meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Entering this weekend, Vanderbilt has the nation's fastest time in the distance medley relay at 11:52.11.
Before COVID-19 wiped out the 2020 NCAA indoor championships in Albuquerque one day before the start of the meet, the Cougars and Huskies entered the meet ranked numbers one & three at 10:53.95, and 10:56.23, respectively.
Both schools have the majority of their squads from 2020 returning, but will not reveal their lineups until just before race time.
In their press release, UW program director gave a clue on who is running on the distance medley relay, as Allie Schadler, who was on that DMR team that went to nationals, will be left home to race this weekend.
"We're essentially splitting our distance squad on a lot of these weekends. For example, Allie Schadler's going to run track this weekend, so someone else is going to have to step up in her absence at the cross country race, and I can think of about five people who can do it, so that will be fun watching kids step into new roles."
In Friday's competition, Husky multi-event specialists Lyndsey Lopes, an NCAA qualifier while at USC, and Ida Eiking from Norway, who was 8th at the 2018 World Athletics under-20 championships in the heptathlon, will make their UW debut, and join defending MPSF and Pac-12 multis champ Hannah Rusnak in several events.
Jonah Wilson, the Pac-12 scorer in both the shot and discus who was redshirted last indoor season and threw a PR of 65-10.5 in the shot as an unattached athlete, makes his season debut, as he'll throw the shot.
While outdoor collegiate record holder Olivia Gruver is the headliner in the pole vault, there will be a good battle between a trio of MPSF and Pac-12 scorers in Emily Coombs of the Cougars, and the Husky duo of Ashleigh Helms and Makenna Barton.
Jacob Englar of the Cougs will battle All-American Chase Smith and his teammates Zach Shugart and Parker Kennedy in the pole vault.
The distances will provide the fireworks on Saturday, with the women's 800 and mile, and the men's mile and 3000 the featured events.
BYU's Lauren and Alena Ellsworth, who were both All-Americans, goes against San Francisco alum Sadi Henderson of Oiselle, Canada's Mariah Kelly, and UW volunteer coach Alli Cash of Oiselle, an All-American at Oregon.
Kelly is in the mile against 2019 USA 800m finalist from Oiselle Rebecca Mehra, the UW trio of Allie Schadler, Katie Rainsberger & Kelly Makin, and BYU's Courtney Wayment, who was fifth at the 2019 NCAA cross country championships.
Oregon alum and UW volunteer coach Sam Prakel is the headliner in the mile, as he goes against sub-4 minute milers Dustin Nading and Mick Stanovsek of the Huskies (who are both competing unattached), and WSU's Paul Ryan (also competing unattached). They'll be joined in the field by youngsters Daniel Maton and Cruz Culpepper of the Huskies, and Pascal Kleyer of WSU, the 2019 German U23 champ at 800 meters.
The men's 3000 features Colton Johnsen, Justin Janke & Matthew Watkins of the Cougars against Pac-12 steeple scorer Julius Diehr of the UW (competing unattached), and 2019 NCAA West regional cross country champ Andrew Jordan of the Huskies.
The men's 60 hurdles features UW grad transfer Julian Body, a relay All-American at Stanford, going against defending MPSF champ Sam Brixey & NCAA qualifier Nick Johnson of the Cougs.
CROSS COUNTRY HEADS TO VEGAS...
Monday, the Huskies will open up the cross country season Monday February 1st at the Silver State Collegiate Challenge in North Las Vegas at Craig Ranch Regional Park. The field is scheduled to include BYU, New Mexico, Notre Dame, Portland, San Francisco, Stanford, Utah, and Weber State.
With the distance runners, the husband/wife duo of Andy & Maurica Powell will have to find the right balance between what races the individuals run in this unprecedented winter indoor track/cross country season.
"What's the best experience for the athlete?" is the ultimate question, says Andy Powell. "Our whole staff that's how we approach it. And when we figure that out for the distance runners then it's how do we plug them into the team to have a good cross country team and a good indoor track team."
The men may have less crossover between indoor track and cross country compared to the women, as the 10k distance at XC nationals makes it tough for a runner who may train for the mile or 3,000m indoors. The women, running a 6k at XC nationals, could potentially see more athletes racing both championships within mere days of each other.
NOTE: The sports information offices of the University of Washington and Washington State University contributed to this report.
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