Busy Friday of collegiate track and field up and down the West Coast...
With Tacoma native Jack Yearian of Oregon doing the work for the first 7000 meters of the race before dropping out, Mwaura took command shortly afterward and ran solo the rest of the way, stopping the clock at 28:29.01 in essentially a solo effort.
Gonzaga teammates Kyle Radosevich (29:27.06) and Riley Moore (29:36.75) were second and third overall.
Other highlights from day 1 included Washington State's Colton Johnsen winning the invitational 5000 meter run by almost six seconds, running 13:49.53.
Current Eastern Washington pole vaulter Savannah Schultz and Eagle alum Morgan Fossen tied for first, each clearing 12-7.5 (3.85m).
Jacob Englar of Washington State won the men's pole vault with a best of 16-10.75 (5.15m) over Eastern Washington's Zach Klobutcher, who cleared 15-11 (4.85m).
The women's hammer saw Washington State's Carolina Ulloa-Daza finish second with a best of 191-0 (58.22m), while Eastern Washington's Vernice Keyes was third at 184-8 (56.29m).
The Hayward Premiere continues Saturday beginning with field events at 11 am, and running events at 12:30 pm.
Day 1 results are available here.
In Clovis, Washington's Hannah Rusnak and Ida Eikeng each took a victory at the West Coast Relays hosted by Fresno State University at Veterans Memorial Stadium Friday.
Rusnak won the long jump with a best of 19-6.75 (5.96m), with Jelani Heath second at 18-11.75 (5.78m), and Eikeng third at 18-11.25 (5.77m).
Eikeng returned the favor in the 100 hurdles, winning in 13.85, while Rusnak was second in 14.02.
Washington volunteer coach Tim Duckworth won the men's long jump with a best of 24-10 (7.57m), with current Husky Jamie Schluter second at 22-10.5 (6.97m), and Seattle Pacific's David Njeri third with a wind-aided mark of 22-9 (6.93m).
The Huskies' Cass Elliott led a sweep of the top three places in the 400 hurdles. The NCAA and Olympic Trials qualifier ran 50.76 with teammates Jonathan Birchman (51.77) and Matthew Wilkinson (53.04) taking second and third.
Washington's Victoria Gersch was fourth in the 400, as she ran 54.53, just ahead of Seattle Pacific's Vanessa Aniteye, who ran 54.60.
Aniteye ran the second leg on the Falcons' 4 x 100 relay that finished second in 46.70, lowering their season best of 47.00 set last week in Tacoma.
Eikeng and Gersch finished third and fourth in the 200, running wind-aided times of 24.01 and 24.03.
Anthony Smith of the Dawgs was second in the 100 in 10.67, losing out by 8/1000ths of a second to Cristian Moore of UCLA (10.661 to 10.669). Smith was third in the 200 in 21.19, and teamed up with Elliott, Birchman, and Wilkinson to finish second in the 4 x 400 relay in 3:11.93 to UCLA's 3:09.29. Seattle Pacific was seventh in a GNAC-leading time of 3:22.08.
In one of the last events of the day, Seattle Pacific's Annika Esvelt finished second in the 5000 in a personal best 16:14.31, behind Colorado State's Sarah Carter's 16:08.91. Carter transferred to CSU from the University of Washington after the 2019 season.
Complete results of the West Coast Relays are available here.
At the Stanford Invitational, Gonzaga's Kristen Garcia broke the school record in the 10000 meters, running 33:27.49 late Friday night.
Garcia finished 11th in a stacked field, that was won by Arkansas' Lauren Gregory in a collegiate leading time of 32:34.21.
Day 1 results of the Stanford Invitational are available here.
In San Francisco, Mac Franks of Western Washington followed up his school record performance on Thursday with a third place finish in the 1500 at the Mike Fanelli Track Classic, hosted by San Francisco State University Friday.
Franks was the top collegiate finisher in the 90-runner field with a time of 3:47.25. He finished just behind a pair of professional runners in Theodorakis Medrano of Team Boulder (3:46.57) and Carlos San Martin of Equipo Porvenir (3:46.72). The Vikings' Drew Weber was sixth in 3:51.88.
In the 5000, WWU's Calahan Warren recorded a PR of 14:13.90 to finish 13th out of 164 competitors. His time remained the No. 2 mark in WWU history and No. 7 in GNAC history. Kevin McDermott ran the 5th-best time in program history in 14:30.22 and Jeret Gillingham won his heat in 14:31.57 for the No. 6 time in WWU history.
The results of the Mike Fanelli Track Classic are available here.
The rest of the Western Washington squad will compete Saturday at its own Western Washington Team Invitational against Central Washington, Trinity Western, and the University of British Columbia starting at 11:30 am at Civic Stadium in Bellingham.
Finally, a mark we missed from Thursday night was that of Washington alum Mick Stanovsek, who finished fourth in the 1500 in the Australian national championships in Sydney in a time of 3:43.93.
Current Husky Carley Thomas is in the finals of the 800 which will be contested Saturday night at 7:30 pm local time (1:30 am in Seattle).
The results page of the Australian national championships is available here.
NOTE: The sports information offices of Western Washington, San Francisco State, Stanford, Seattle Pacific, Fresno State, and Gonzaga, along with Athletics Australia contributed to this report.
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