MALIBU, Calif. — The 10th season of the Pepperdine women's indoor track and field program officially begins at the University of Washington Husky Invite, held in Seattle on Friday.
The meet begins with the 60-meter hurdle prelims at noon, then the meet will wrap up with the 4x400-meter relay at around 7 p.m. If available, all livestream and live result links can be found on the track team's schedule page at pepperdinewaves.com.
Head coach Lauren Floris' squad will send 18 athletes to the meet, which is expected to have a dozen Division I schools and a handful of non-Division I institutions. The combination of elite competition, low altitude and the fast track surface usually means fast times at the Dempsey Indoor Track facility. Sixty-nine of the nation's top-20 indoor times across all events occurred at Dempsey Indoor last year. This year will be no exception.
Of the 18 Pepperdine runners expected to compete this week, nine ran top-10 indoor marks last season. Five freshmen will make their Pepperdine track debuts, along with sophomore distance runners Lizzy Crawford and Jessica Guardino, both of whom are entered in the 3,000-meter run. Crawford, in particular, has a legitimate shot at breaking the school's indoor 3K record; the sophomore led Pepperdine in every cross-country race last fall.
The sprinters will be led by junior Isabella Reyes, who ranks third in the indoor 200-meter dash and seventh in the 60-meter dash at Pepperdine. She is entered in both events with teammate Ava Maly, who broke into the program's top 10 times in the 60- and 200-meter dashes as a true freshman last year.
For Pepperdine, the 800-meter dash and the 3,000-meter run will be the main events. Five Waves are entered in the 800, including junior Caroline Graham, who was less than two seconds off breaking the school record outdoors a year ago. Her indoor 800-meter dash time of 2:20.01 from last season is the second-fastest in program history. She'll be joined by fellow junior Ashley Eagan (5th all-time indoors), Hannah Bruner (7th all-time outdoors) and freshmen Riley Burgess and Kennedy Duralde — both of whom went sub-2:20 in high school.
Over in the 3K, Crawford, Guardino and senior Eden Mittelsdorf — Pepperdine's fastest returning 3K runner — will take advantage of a fast race on Dempsey's 307-meter-long laps in the longest event of the meet.
Just as it did last year, Pepperdine will chase the program's nine-year-old 4x400-meter relay record. Last year's group of Reyes, Avery Smith, Kayla Renner and Maddy Ortman ran the fourth-fastest time in program history with a 4:09.75. Some combination of Ortman, Reyes, Jenna Parsio, or freshmen Tatiana Potter, Brittany Rivas and Lexi Thomas will go for the record on Friday. Reyes, Parsio and Thomas have all gone sub-60 seconds in the 400 meters in their lifetimes.
WHAT'S NEXT
The Waves have nearly one month off before heading to Reno, Nev. for the Wolf Pack Classic on Feb. 7-8.
FULL ENTRIES
60-meter dash
Ava Maly
Tatiana Potter
Isabella Reyes
200-meter dash
Ava Maly
Isabella Reyes
400-meter dash
Hannah Miller
Brittany Rivas
Lexi Thomas
600-meter dash
Avery Smith
800-meter dash
Hannah Bruner
Riley Burgess
Kennedy Duralde
Ashey Eagan
Caroline Graham
3,000-meter run
Lizzy Crawford
Jessica Guardino
Eden Mittelsdorf
4x400-meter relay
Maddy Ortman
Jenna Parsio
Tatiana Potter
Isabella Reyes
Brittany Rivas
Lexi Thomas
60-meter hurdles
Maddy Ortman
Lauren Rocco
