After Indoor Nationals, Track and Field Looks Forward to Outdoor Season

By: Elijah Dapkus                  

During the second weekend of March, three George Fox University (GFU) Track and Field athletes competed at the NCAA Division III Indoor National Championships.

Senior sprinter and hurdler Bethany Schmidt competed first in the 400 meter dash. Schmidt finished with a time of 57.46, just 0.07 seconds behind her season best. A fast heat kept her on the outside of the finals, but she sprung from a nineteenth seed to a tenth place finish, the highest upward trend of any of her competitors in preliminaries.

Junior jumper Andrew Quach went next in the long jump. His 6.81 meter jump earned him a twelfth place mark, though it was his fourth-best jump of the season. His school-record mark of 7.15 meters set at the first 2022 GFU indoor meet would have finaled and put him in position to reach the podium.

Last but not least, Junior Alison Young competed in the women’s pole vault. Young cleared a 3.70 meter bar, just shy of her 3.77 meter school record flight set at the 2022 Seattle Pacific Indoor Qualifier. The flight landed her in eleventh place, ahead of her fourteenth place seed.

While no Bruins finaled or set personal bests, they still have much to look forward to. With the entire outdoor season in front of them, coaches and athletes remain optimistic and have their eyes on outdoor nationals in late May. Quach admitted he never even had a goal to qualify for indoor nationals. “I didn’t realize that was an option until pretty late,” he said. “Most of the time we’re using indoor as a way for us to train … and get some experience before we start our outdoor season.” He thought of indoor nationals simply as another chance to see what he’s capable of.

Head Track and Field Coach John Smith, who was just named the West Region Coach of the Year by USTFCCCA, is proud of the accomplishments of the competitors and is ready to help coach them to podium finishes this summer. As for the upcoming outdoor season, Smith said “We are going for our fifth consecutive conference title on both sides… we have a strong shot at that.”

Coach Smith also looks forward to how much fun this season will be, remembering how thrower Scott McBride anchored a Bruin 4x400 Meter Relay at the end of the Erik Anderson Memorial. Not a typical 400 Meter runner, McBride had a sense of humor about the ordeal. “It was one lap of pure joy and pain,” he said. The moment brought the community together, as all teams cheered him through the finish. “I felt [community] here, [as] opponents from Pacific, Linfield, and Whitman all cheered me on,” said McBride.

To catch all the action from GFU’s track and field athletes, visit the team website for all their recaps and stats, and swing by the Rich Allen Classic on April 9th, 2022 at Stoffer Stadium.