Close to home. While team titles appear out of reach, the Seattle Pacific University cross country teams definitely have their fair share of goals for Saturday's (Oct. 26) Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships at West Seattle's Lincoln Park. The Falcons will be joined by the nine other GNAC teams for the women's 6-kilometer and men's 8k races along the wooded trails above Puget Sound.

Improvement is objective. For Seattle Pacific, the name of the game is improvement as both individually and collectively the runners aim to do better than in 2001. No male has ever finished higher than fifth at the conference level, yet Nathanael Castle (Sr., Gooding, Id.) figures to achieve that and contend for the top prize. Castle ran a particularly strong race at Lincoln Park during the Sept. 21 Sundodger, finishing 15th in a largely Division I field. The winner of that race, Western Washington's Paul Kezes, rates as the GNAC favorite and is coming off a 28-second margin of victory over Castle Oct. 12 in Bellingham. Castle, who finished 62 seconds behind Kezes at the Sundodger, is the top returnee from last year's GNAC race.

The team prospective. From a team standpoint, the Falcons are out to better their finish of fourth in the women's standings and seventh in the men's from a year ago. The top contenders among the women, based on the latest regional ratings, are Western Washington, defending champion Humboldt State, Central Washington and SPU, in that order. Seattle Pacific finished ahead of Western in two of six common meets while Central prevailed in four of five encounters. For the men, Alaska Anchorage is the frontrunner, followed by Humboldt, defending champ Northwest Nazarene and Western Oregon.

Castle is king. Castle already rates as the top male harrier for SPU, having been the first to qualify for the NCAA Championships in 2001. He's trying to become the first conference champion, a prize the women have claimed five times. Castle's fifth-place finish a year ago matched those of Matt Cooper (1995-96) and Kesley Backen (2000). Castle was the GNAC champion at 800 and 1500 meters last spring. He has been his team's top scorer in 15 consecutive meets, dating back to 2000, and this season has run to a pair of second-place finishes and he's been among the top 15 each of his five outings. The heir-apparent to his role as team leader is Tim LeCount (Fr., Battle Ground, Wa.), a consistent No. 2 all season long.

Developing a pack mentality. While there's no doubt who's the leader of the pack for the men, the women's team has exhibited much greater balance over the course of the fall. With last year's top scorer, Jamie Witt (Jr., Folsom, Ca.) and top recruit Brandi McCoy (Fr., Richland, Wa.), both lost for the season, three women have taken turns going to the front. Ruth Hawkinson (Sr., Roy, Wa./Yelm), Nicole Seana (Jr., Carnation, Wa./Kamiakin) and Josie Lavin (So., Bremerton, Wa.) have each been the Falcons' top scorer on two occasions. Together with Sarah Kraybill (Sr., Seattle, Wa./Ballard) and Ruth Harbaugh (Fr., Gig Harbor, Wa./Gig Harbor) they have given Coach Doris Heritage a very competitive unit over the second half of the season. The Falcons have produced at least one all-conference (top 10) finisher each of the past nine years.

Western Washington Invitational results

Coaching staff. Coach Doris Heritage (25th year) has guided the SPU women to 10 top-10 national finishes and conference titles in six of the last nine years. In 1996 the Falcons won the West Region and her teams finished as high as second in the AIAW (1979, '80) and third in the NCAA (1983, '86) championships. Nineteen harriers have been All-America, including two national champions. The world's premier distance runner of the Sixties, she won five consecutive world cross country titles from 1967-71, and was a member of the 1968 and '72 U.S. Olympic teams. Heritage has coached the U.S. world cross country championship team, served as an assistant at many international meets, including the 1988 Olympics, and is a six-time women's conference coach of the year at SPU. In July of 2002 she was inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame. Heritage was already a member of the U.S. Track & Field and U.S. Track Coaches halls of fame. Assisting Heritage as coaches this season will be Erika (Botha) Daligcon and Lane Seeley. Daligcon ran for the Falcons from 1995-96 and wed former soccer All-America Nate Daligcon earlier this year. Seeley is a physics professor at Seattle Pacific and previously was an assistant to the Blanchet High School program.

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.