Biggest of the fall. It's the biggest race of the year in these parts and the Seattle Pacific University cross country teams will be right there, in the thick of it, when the Sundodger Invitational returns to West Seattle's Lincoln Park on Saturday morning (Sept. 21). The men will run 8000 meters and the women 5k along the wooded trails. The huge meet features four races and SPU will put runners on the start line in three of them. Next week, the Falcons downsize to the Saint Martin's Invitational in Lacey.

Your invitation, sir. Nathanael Castle (Sr., Gooding, Id.) of Seattle Pacific has received an invitation to compete alongside the best male harriers in the Sundodger and he will compete in the invitational section, which begins at 10:45. The rest of the men's team will race in the open division, which gets underway at 9:30. Seattle Pacific's women's team is also in the open section, which is the first event of the day, at 9 o'clock. The University of Washington, the host team, will be joined by the likes of Texas A&M, Boise State, Cal State Northridge, Eastern Washington, South Dakota State and the Michigan and Portland women in the invitational sections. SPU finds itself matching strides with fellow Great Northwest Athletic Conference members Central Washington, Western Washington, Seattle University, Northwest Nazarene, Western Oregon and Saint Martin's in the open division, along with many NAIA and Div. III programs from throughout the region. The GNAC teams will use this race as a course preview for the conference championships, which will be held at Lincoln Park Oct. 26.

No training day. Castle trained through last week's Fresno State Invitational, finishing a respectable 14th in what was billed as a preview of the NCAA Division II West Regional in November. He ran 5 miles in 26 minutes, 34 seconds but the course will be lengthened to 10,000 meters in the regional. Chico State's Chris Eggers was a runaway winner, finishing in 25:44, 15 seconds ahead of teammate Matt Faulkner. The Wildcats also took the team title. The top runner from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference was Sean Rivers of Alaska Anchorage. He was fifth in 26:08.Meanwhile, in Ellensburg. At the Central Washington Invitational in Ellensburg, behind the fifth-place effort of Josie Lavin (So., Bremerton, Wa./Bremerton), the SPU women took second place to Central. The Wildcats' Alicen Maier won the 5000-meter race in 19:38, followed by three CWU teammates. Lavin was next in 20:43, Ruth Hawkinson (Sr., Roy, Wa./Yelm) placed seventh (20:53) and Sarah Kraybill (Sr., Seattle, Wa./Ballard) ninth in 21:11. In her first race of the season, Nicole Seana (Jr., Carnation, Wa./Kamiakin) took 10th in 21:27. Central finished with 18 points, SPU 44 and Western Washington 74. For the men, Ryan Nash (Sr., Spokane, Wa./Mead) was the top scorer, taking eighth in 22:42 on the 4-mile course through Rhinehart Park. Seattle Pacific did not have a sufficient number of males to score as a team at either Fresno or Central.

Trail mix. Jamie Witt (Jr., Folsom, Ca.), last year's top women's scorer, is recovering from stress fractures in her leg and is unlikely to begin racing before mid-October...South Dakota State, the lone Div. II team in the invitational sections, is currently ranked No. 7 among men's teams. The premier team in the women's invitational section is Texas A&M, ranked No. 22 in Div. I.

Fresno State and Central Washington Invitationals results

Missing links. For the latest and best information on Seattle Pacific University athletics, stay where you're at -- on The Falcons Online. For updated standings and statistics, see the Great Northwest Athletic Conference web site.