Running the final lap

This Friday and Saturday, the Portland State track and field teams head to Pocatello, Idaho to wrap up the indoor season at the Big Sky Indoor Championship.

A total of 18 student-athletes—10 men and eight women—will represent Portland State at the championship, and of those, several will compete in multiple events. Led by sophomore Geronne Black, last year’s champion in the 55-meter sprint, the Vikings return three medalists from the 2010 conference championship.

“I think we are definitely moving forward in a really good direction as a program,” said assistant coach Cassie Stilley. “We have more people qualified in higher positions than we have in the past, so that’s really good.”

For the women sprinters, the last race they ran in—the Don Kirby Invitational in New Mexico—was a good one to go out on, according to Stilley.

“That was just a really good way to finish up before the conference meet, to have so many people do so much better than what they have been [doing],” Stilley said. “Then, to have Tony [Crisofulli] and Andrew [Salg] set new school records for the distance guys, it really gives you a good feeling heading into the conference meet like that.”

Besides the fact that there are 18 Vikings going to the championship meet, Stilley is happy about the fact that the athletes going are not only from one specific area.

“We’re starting to get more people across a wide range of events,” she said. “To have all those different events…is a really, really good thing for us.”

Competition in this meet will be tough for the Vikings, especially against Sacramento State for the women and Northern Arizona University for the men. There will also be the challenge of rising to the event, said assistant coach Kevin Jeffers. But for him, the team has grown since last year.

“Its much more fluent in our day-to-day operation,” Jeffers said. “There’s a lot more structure in comparison. There‘s an environment for success, compared to previous years, [and] there’s more of a structural environment.” ?