This Saturday, Jan. 14, marks the first indoor track meet of the season for Western’s track and field team, and the Vikings are on their way to what looks like another promising season.
The University of Washington’s annual Indoor Preview is the first meet of the indoor season, and in the past has allowed the Vikings to compete against schools from various conferences, many of which are Division I schools like University of Oregon, Stanford and University of Washington.
Kelven “Pee Wee” Halsell, head coach of the Western track and field team, said the indoor preview will serve as a way to assess the current standing of the team.
“The main thing is to get back into the competition and to primarily see where they are,” Halsell said. “We gotta get marks.”
Athletes on the team are also looking forward to getting back into competition. Western junior and high-jumper Amanda Overdick said she loves track meets because of the variety of events.
“You can be watching people running over here and people jumping and people throwing all over, so it’s just crazy,” she said.
Even with the excitement, the team as a whole may have to find its footing this year as many star athletes graduated last year.
The women’s team lost a few key athletes, such as Sarah Porter, who placed first in the 10,000-meter at last year’s NCAA Division II National Championships and was named Western’s Female Athlete of the Year for the third year in a row. The team also lost Monika Gruszecki, who won the javelin competition at the championship, and captain Lauren Breihof.
The Viking men also suffered losses of NCAA pole-vault champion Ryan Brown and distance runners Jordan Welling and Bennett Grimes.
Despite the losses, Western senior and captain Michael Hoffman is hopeful of this year’s team, saying that he believes people will step up and take the place of the graduated stars.
“We’ve got some new kids that are coming in that are going to help as well as a lot of returners,” Halsell said. “I’m pretty excited about the team.”
Halsell said the team is always working on its weak links, trying to cover all events as best as they can. He said, because of this, the team is strong across the board.
Western post-grad and decathlete Alex Harrison, who is returning to the team this year after redshirting last year for medical reasons, said he is excited to see the newcomers compete.
“We’ve got people coming in that are going to surprise some people,” Harrison said.
Team chemistry, an incredibly important trait for a team to have, is also looking good, Harrison said.
“[This year] it has probably been better than it’s been the last couple of years,” he said. “It seems like everyone is assimilating well.”
Altogether, Harrison said he thinks both the men’s and women’s teams stand a good chance to place in either first or second at both the outdoor and indoor conferences.
Both the men’s and women’s teams placed second in the GNAC outdoor conference last year, and the men’s team took second in the indoor conference.
In the past, Seattle Pacific University has been the biggest competition for the women’s team and Western Oregon University for the men.
Being the first meet of the season, the UW Indoor Preview is the first chance the Vikings have to show off all the hard work they have put in over the past months.
“We train all off-season, and it’s hard to train for no event,” Hoffman said. “It’s kind of exciting to finally go out and compete, get a mark and have some fun.”
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