Fresh air time. The track & field equivalent of cabin fever will be remedied Saturday (Mar. 6) when Seattle Pacific University sends it men and women to the season’s first outdoor meet, a three-way scored affair with host Puget Sound and Lewis & Clark. It starts the clock on an 11-week effort to qualify individuals for the NCAA Division II Championships in May. Meanwhile, three Falcons are making final preparations for the NCAA indoor meet Mar. 12-13 in Boston.

Start with momentum. Never mind the fresh air feeling good, people wearing SPU singlets were already wearing smiles because of the bang-up job they have done indoors. The women won the inaugural Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship Feb. 21, with seven individuals–five women and two men–claiming event titles. And the indoor season is still going. Getting the green light from the NCAA to proceed to Boston are Paul Mach (Sr., Seattle, Wa./King’s), Jennifer Marsh (Fr., Kirkland, Wa./Juanita) and Ally Studer (Sr., Redmond, Wa./Redmond). Mach is among the No. 5 qualifier in the 800m, Marsh is No. 9 in the women’s 800m and Studer, a No. 6 seed, will make her second trip to nationals in the pole vault. Last year she took fourth indoors.

Baby, it’s cold outside. Technically, it’s still winter, and so the expectations for calm winds, balmy temperatures and a dry track are but whimsy. Still, Coach Jack Hoyt believes his troops could manage a few provisional qualifying marks for nationals before spring break and a trip to California. Among those most likely to emerge with NCAA provisional marks in this first few weeks of the season are his Boston-bound indoor qualifiers, plus pole vaulter Allie Hedges (So., Richland, Wa./Richland), high-jumper Sharon Bjella (Fr., Everett, Wa./Everett) and javelin thrower Sara Johnson (Jr., Kennewick, Wa./Kennewick-Spokane Falls CC).

Danielle shelved. Seattle Pacific will go through the ‘04 season without the last season’s GNAC athlete of the year, Danielle Ayers-Stamper (So., LaCrosse, Wa.). A back injury kept Ayers-Stamper sidelined much of the past two months, and both she and Hoyt agreed she should claim a redshirt status. As a freshman, Ayers-Stamper was the NCAA runner-up in the heptathlon, second at the USA Junior Championships and fifth at the Junior Pan Am Games. She earlier had won three conference events.

Back in the winner’s circle. Hopefully the Falcons’ performances at the GNAC indoor meet was a harbinger of things to come later this spring. Sprinter Kenyatta Leonhardt (Fr., Petaluma, Ca./St. Vincent) won two events as the freshman class made a huge difference in the women getting first over the 2003 outdoor winner, Western Oregon. Seattle Pacific, piling up the majority of its points in the sprints, relays and middle distances, won six events altogether to finish with a comfortable margin over the Wolves, 160-136 1/2. Seattle Pacific freshmen totaled 85 points and four of the team’s five individual victories. Leonhardt broke her own school record in the 60m dash (7.95 seconds) and came back to take the 200 (25.40) to earn freshman of the meet. Hoyt was named coach of the year. Other victories came from Marsh in the 800 (2:14.80), Jamie Witt (Jr., Folsom, Ca.) in the mile (5:09.21) and Bjella in the high jump (5-3 1/4). Marsh and Witt also ran on the medley relay, which coasted to an easy win. For the men, Mach improved his own school record in the 800, winning in 1:51.49 and Chris Randolph (So., Lone Tree, Co./Denver Christian) took the long jump (21-10). Randolph, entered in four events and scoring in three, accounted for 22 of the team’s 56 points. He was runner-up in the high jump (6-6 1/4). Western Oregon was the men’s team champion, with the Falcons fifth.