THE WEEKEND AHEAD: Light schedule this weekend as most teams have small groups competing...

With only a few weeks to go before the conference championship meets at the end of the month for the Division I schools, and eleven days before the GNAC championships for the Division II schools, this weekend's slate of meets is fairly light.

While most of the eight Washington DI and DII schools are sending partial squads to the various meets this weekend, only the University of Washington and Seattle Pacific are skipping the weekend entirely.

Eastern Washington, Gonzaga, Washington State, along with Saint Martin's and Central Washington will have athletes competing at the Riverfront Invitational and Multis, which began Thursday at The Podium in Spokane, and runs until Saturday.

Rainier Beach HS & WSU grad Emmanuel "Ray Ray" Wells (Ken Martinez/West Coast XC photo), who has a liking to The Podium, makes the trip from Seattle, as he looks to improve upon the 6.62 time he put up to win the UW Invitational last Friday and get the automatic qualifying standard of 6.55 for the USA Indoor Championships in Staten Island, New York at the end of the month.

In the women's pentathlon that was contested Thursday, Central Washington's Carley Huber finished third with a final score of 3316 points, just three points off of her personal best.

Eastern Washington's Ella Seelhoff was fifth with 3181 points, and Ella Baker of Central Washington finished in twelfth with 2567 points.

Abby Clark of Montana Tech was the overall winner, amassing 3576 points.

In the men's heptathlon, Hugh Ruttledge and Reid Crumley of Saint Martin's stand seventh and eighth with 2259 and 2091 points, respectively.

The link to live results for the Riverfront Invitational and Multis are available here.

Eastern is also sending a group of athletes to compete in Moscow at the Idaho Team Challenge Friday at the Kibbie Dome, hosted by the University of Idaho.

The link to live results for the Idaho Team Challenge are available here.

Western Washington, fresh off a big performance from their women's 4 x 400 relay, is sending their sprints group to Reno to compete in the Nevada Wolf Pack Classic on Friday and Saturday at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center.

The Western Washington women's squad goes into the weekend ranked number three in NCAA D2 after running a school record 3:44.63 at the UW Invitational last week. The Vikings are looking to improve their time and possible go under 3:40.

The Viking men's team is currently ranked tenth on the Division II descending order list after running 3:11.92 at the UW Preview almost a month ago.

Several others are looking to improve their standings on the national descending order list before the GNAC championships on February 16-17th in Spokane. 

The link to live results for the Nevada Wolf Pack Classic are available here.

SCOTT TONEY HEADS TO ATHENS FOR THE FIRST OF TWO EUROPEAN MEETS...

On the pro circuit, Washington alum Scott Toney (Paul Merca photo), who finished second behind the Huskies' Jimmy Rhoads in the invitational pole vault at the UW Invitational last Saturday, heads to Athens, Greece for the Fly Athens indoor pole vault meet Saturday.

The meet's headliners are current world leader Emmanouil Karalis of Greece, and American Chris Nilsen.

This is the first of two meets that Toney will compete in Europe, as he'll go on to Paris for the Perche aux Étoiles pole vault meet on February 14th.

The Fly Athens meet will be live streamed on the European Athletics website starting at 10:00 am Pacific/8:00 pm local time.

The start list for the Fly Athens meeting is available here.

NOTE: The Podium, Fly Athens, European Athletics, and the sports information offices of Eastern Washington, Central Washington, Gonzaga, and Western Washington contributed to this report.

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