A new era in Pacific NW track & field begins Saturday with grand opening of The Podium...
A new era in track and field in the Pacific Northwest opens Saturday morning at 9 am, as the doors to The Podium open to the public for the first ever indoor track and field meet in the new facility.
The Podium plays host to the Spokane Invitational as eight of the nine Washington NCAA Division I and II schools will send athletes to the facility located in downtown Spokane for the first of a series of indoor meets this winter that cumulates with the Toyota USATF Indoor Track & Field Championships at the end of February.
Saturday's Spokane Invitational will for the most part, be confined to teams from the Pacific Northwest, although there are a few schools from California who are making the trip to the Inland Empire.
Here's some events worth watching (based on accepted entries as of December 9th; as always, entries are subject to change):
--The meet starts off with a bang at 9 am with the women's weight throw featuring Eastern Washington's Vernice Keyes, the Big Sky runner up in the hammer, against the Huskies' Beatrice Asomaning;
--The women's pole vault at 10 am is potentially the best event of the meet. It features NCAA qualifier Morgan Fossen (above/EWU Athletics photo) of Eastern Washington and the Eagles' Big Sky champ Katrina Terry (competing unattached) against Pac-12 scorer Emily Coombs of Washington State and defending Pac-12 champ Makenna Barton of Washington;
--In the women's high jump at 2:30 pm, the Washington State trio of Aislinn Overby, NCAA qualifier Suzy Pace, and Kaylee Sowle could potentially push each other over six feet, which is just over Overby's personal best;
--The women's 5000 at 1:35 pm will be a two-woman battle between Oregon State teammates Grace Fetherstonhaugh, who qualified for NCAAs at this distance last year, and cross country All-American Kaylee Mitchell, who formerly attended Seattle Pacific;
--Could Indiana State alum David Timlin, who is training with the Seattle based Brooks Beasts, be known as the first runner to break 4 minutes in the mile at 2:10 pm? He enters the meet with the top seed at 4:00.46;
--While the men's and women's 800 at 3:05 and 3:15 pm doesn't have any real depth, Boise State's MaLeigha Menegatti, a Mountain West Conference scorer at that distance, and Washington's Cass Elliott, an Olympic Trials qualifier in the 400 hurdles, could make this race interesting;
--The men's 3000 at 4:55 pm features Western Washington 1500m All-American Calahan Warren against Gonzaga's Wil Smith, an NCAA cross country qualifier and All-West Region performer.
With this week the beginning of fall finals at the University of Washington, the Huskies will only send a skeleton crew to Spokane. All four of Washington's Division II schools: Central Washington, Saint Martin's, Seattle Pacific, and Western Washington, will send a good number of athletes to the Inland Empire. The majority of the eight Washington D1 & D2 schools in the meet will not have a large presence in the distance races, after completing the cross country season.
Seattle University is the only D1 school not participating in the meet.
The preliminary start list is available here, while the time schedule (subject to change) is available here.
Media partner RunnerSpace.com ($) is streaming the meet live starting at 9 am.
NOTE: RunnerSpace, The Podium and the sports information offices of Eastern Washington, Seattle Pacific, Gonzaga, University of Washington, Washington State, Central Washington, Western Washington and Saint Martin's University contributed to this report.
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