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It's championship and last chance weekend for the state's Division I & II schools...

Washington's Marlena Preigh & Carley Thomas
are headed back to Boston (Paul Merca photo)

It's championship and last chance weekend for the state's four of five Division I schools, with only Gonzaga not competing, as their season concluded with the Husky Classic two weeks ago.

Here's the rundown:

KEN SHANNON LAST CHANCE MEET

When the Pac-12 schools broke away from the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, the intent was to hopefully get the conference to sponsor indoor track and field as a championship sport.

To date, there hasn't been a move by the conference to add indoor track as a championship sport, so the meet that was named the Pac-12 Invitational last year has rebranded itself, and is now the Ken Shannon Last Chance Invitational, named after the Husky Hall of Fame coach who graced Husky Stadium and Hec Edmundson Pavilion from 1968-1997.

The final Dempsey meet will bring in the largest concentration of Pac-12 teams with an eye on qualifying for the NCAA indoor meet which is just over two weeks away on March 10-11 in Albuquerque. 

Friday, the meet starts at 12 non with one flight of women's pole vault and men's weight throw and the men's heptathlon and women's pentathlon get underway at 12 and 12:30. The first running event aside from the multis on Friday will be the 60m hurdle prelims at 4:15 p.m. Friday night will also feature 200-meter dashes, 5,000-meter runs, and the distance medley relays.
 
Saturday starts at 10 a.m. in the field with women's high jump and shot put, and the first track event is the heptathlon hurdles at 10:30 a.m. Events should finish around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.
 
Pac-12 schools bringing full travel squads include Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, and Washington State. Arizona State has a smaller group making the trip. In addition, BYU is bringing 42 athletes to the Dempsey. Many other teams from up and down the West Coast will have a handful of athletes.

A few athletes from Division II Western Washington, Central Washington and Seattle Pacific are entered in the meet, as they look to move up in the Division II rankings after competing in the GNAC championships on Monday & Tuesday.

In addition to Friday and Saturday's home finale, the Huskies are sending their middle distance crew to Boston for the Last Chance National Qualifier meet at the Boston University Track & Tennis center on Sunday.

Making the trip to Boston this week are men's athletes Aaron Ahl, Cass Elliott, Brian Fay, Nathan Green, Luke Houser, Kieran Lumb, Aidan Ryan, and Joe Waskom. The women are sending 800-meter standouts Marlena Preigh and Carley Thomas (Paul Merca photo).

Going into the weekend, Houser (mile/3000), Fay (3000), Green and Elliott (800), Preigh (800) and Sophie O'Sullivan (mile) are on the bubble of going/not going to nationals in their individual events, depending on what happens at the various championship meets happening around the country this weekend. O'Sullivan is the only one who is staying in Seattle to race.

The qualifying period for all of the NCAA championship meets in Divisions I and II is the second Sunday before the start of the national championships, which in this case, is Sunday the 24th (the NCAA championships are March 10-11).



BIG SKY PREVIEW

Eastern Washington makes the short bus trip from Cheney to Moscow, Idaho for the Big Sky Championships, which started Thursday with the multi events.

The Eagles had no entries in the pentathlon, but Elijah Conley, Chris Homen & Cody Teevens find themselves in positions 3-4-5 at the break in the heptathlon.

Conley had a score of 2746 points, while Homen ended day one with 2690 points, and Teevens 2614.

Caleb Whitney of Weber State leads at the break with 2940 points on the strength of a second place finish in the long jump, and winning the shot put and high jump.

Headlining the Eagles' efforts headed into the championships are triple jumper Bobby Say, along with pole vaulters Savannah Schultz and Hally Ruff.

Say enters the week atop the Big Sky Season list in the men's triple jump with a mark of 52-4.5 (15.96m), achieved at the Don Kirby Elite Invitational on Feb. 10. He also ranked fourth in the long jump at 23-10 (7.26m).

Schultz and Ruff are tied for first at 13-3.75 (4.06m) in the women's pole vault, also achieved at the Don Kirby on Feb. 10.


WESTERN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE PREVIEW

The Seattle University men's and women's teams head east to The Podium in Spokane for the Western Athletic Conference championship meet Friday and Saturday starting at 9 am, where they hope to improve upon last year's performance, where the men scored 4 points for a ninth place finish (next to last) and the women 2 points (last place) for eleventh in the team standings.

Going into the meet, both Redhawk distance medley relay teams lead the conference. The men's team of of Alex Franklin, Isaiah Payne, Hezekiah Goodwin, and Gus Harquail ran 10:00.19, and the women's squad of Grace Much, Taylor Marks, Maya McCabe, and Azalea Groleau ran 11:55.21. Both set their marks at the UW Invitational on January 27th and were SeattleU school records.

Maya McCabe is the only Redhawk individual ranked in the top five in the conference, as she is ranked number two in the 800, having run 2:10.65 at the UW Invitational.


NOTE: The sports information office of the University of Washington, Washington State University, Eastern Washington University, and Seattle University contributed to this report.

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