The best student-athletes of Saint Martin’s University (SMU) stood their ground as they performed in the 2024 Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) Outdoor Track & Field Championships last weekend, May 10 and 11, at the Recreation Sports Complex on the campus of Central Washington.
It was arguably not the best showing for the Saints, with the men’s team finishing 8th and the women’s team finishing 9th in the two-day championship meet in sweltering hot Ellensburg. Despite this, there are still a lot of positives in the SMU Track and Field program moving forward.
The Saints had a good start on the first day of the finals as Alisha Saucedo casually broke the school record in the women’s 800 meters (m), with a personal record (PR) time of 2:13.36 in the preliminary heat.
Saucedo is joined by Madison Vu in the women's 200m and 400m, and Zachary Franco in the men's 400m as the ones who had the shot for the final heat the following day after their performances in the preliminaries. Vu placed 8th in the 200m prelims and 5th in the 400m, while Franco placed 7th in the preliminaries for the men’s 400 meters, as both also hit personal bests in the process.
Ethan Guidry, who was once the GNAC Player of the Week, and Andrew Boyd, who also represented SMU in decathlon three weeks ago, got the first points for the Saints as they placed fourth and seventh in javelin respectively, with Guidry just missing out a podium finish by less than a meter.
Andrew Schulz also contributed to the points tally with a 7th-place finish in the men’s long jump after a personal best of 6.92m.
Despite not having top 10 places, other Saints student-athletes recorded personal bests in this competition, including Taylor Dillon’s 10.52m in women’s shotput, Gabriela Cintron’s 15.25 seconds (s) in women’s 110m hurdles, and Timmy Higgins’s 1:55.90 in the men’s 800 meters, to cap the first day of the conference championships.
Day 2 of the final meet began with Saucedo following up her record yesterday with a fourth-place finish in the women’s 800-meter final heat at a time of 2:15.51, just missing out on a podium medal by a quarter of a second.
Distance runner Cassidy Walchak Sloan ran her heart out on her two events, atoning her sub-par performance, by her own standards, in the women’s 5000 meters, to finish fourth in the women’s 1500 meters, only missing out the podium by less than a fifth of a second.
Madison Vu got the points for the Saints in both her final heats as she placed 8th in the women’s 200-meter final and 7th in the women’s 400-meter final, while Zachary Franco had a decent 7th place finish in the men’s 400-meter final.
Ryan Doidge contributed the final points for the Saints as he finished fourth in the men’s pole vault, clearing a height of 4.58m to close the outdoor season for the Saints.
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