PORTLAND, Ore. — The first two meets of the outdoor season for the Portland State track & field program saw the Vikings compete in primarily two events. It was the 5,000 meters at the OSU PNW Team Clash on March 13, and the 1,500 meters at the Lewis & Clark Spring Break Classic on March 20.
 
Not this weekend. This weekend's a showcase – a showcase of what depends on where you look.
 
Depth will be one thing the Vikings will showcase this weekend. In contrast to their first two meets, the team will compete at every distance from the 800 to the 10,000 meters between the Hayward Premiere (Friday) and the NW Distance Jamboree (Saturday) and a few events outside of the distances.
 
"People are kind of getting into their wheelhouse a little bit more," Portland State head coach David Hepburn said of the upcoming meets. "We'll do one more speed day, probably one more wheelhouse race, and see how it shakes out for conference. Those results will factor into our decisions for conference as far as who's going to go and things like that. They're building their resumes."
 
The Vikings also get a chance to be part of the showcase for the newly-remodeled Hayward Field. Nine Vikings will compete at the Hayward Premiere Friday, the first day of the first event at the stadium in nearly three years.
 
Friday won't just be a chance to showcase the legendary stadium, though. The Vikings also hope to showcase their quality at the meet, especially redshirt seniors Kaila Gibson and Cayla Seligman. Gibson and Seligman will both run in the 10,000 meters Friday when they'll shoot for NCAA West Prelim qualifying marks in the event.
 
"That's the goal for the Kailas, is to qualify and be done with the 10k until regionals. We want to put that race to bed. If they're in the top 25 in the region by the end of the day, then they'll be fine," Hepburn said of Gibson and Seligman.
 
The NCAA cut the field size at the NCAA West Prelims down to 32 from 48 this season due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. That will make qualifying harder for Gibson and Seligman, but both have been there before. Gibson qualified in the 10,000 meters at the 2019 NCAA West Prelims, while Seligman qualified in the 5,000 meters while at Colorado in 2016.
 
Luke Ramirez also has a chance to prove the quality he showed at last week's Texas Relays, where he shaved five seconds off his personal best in the 1,500 meters, is only the beginning for him. Ramirez – whose time of 3:51.04 marked the fastest 1,500-meter time by a Viking since 2004 – came off the track at the Texas Relays, saying he could have gone even faster.
 
"It was a little conservative upfront. Closed great, did everything right. Luke just had more in the tank. He was just a little too conservative because the heat winner went out a little on the hot side, and Luke was trying to be smart. But it was just a touch too slow on that first lap," Hepburn said of Ramirez's race at the Texas Relays.
 
"It had been a minute for him, especially for a big race. So, it was pretty cool to watch him go out and be calm, cool, and collected. Stay within himself, stay composed. He may very well PR again this week. He's in another fast heat, and he's earned his way there. He'll just keep running faster, I think."
 
Hunter Storm and Keynan Abdi also get a second chance at the 5,000 meters, which they both ran at the OSU PNW Team Clash.
 
The rest of the Vikings competing at the Hayward Premiere will make their season debuts between Josh Snyder and Tom Richardson in the men's steeplechase, and Braden Masanga and Jean Rwandika in the men's pole vault and men's javelin, respectively.
 
Snyder and Richardson only have two steeplechase races combined under their belts going into Friday. Both belong to Snyder, who last competed in the race at the 2019 Big Sky Outdoor Championships when he was a freshman.
 
Richardson, meanwhile, has waited more than a year for his Viking track debut after transferring to the school from Boise State before last season. Richardson ran three cross country races for the Vikings in 2019, and finished as the team's top runner at the Big Sky Championships and NCAA West Regional. The steeple will be a new beast for Richardson, however.
 
"It's the steeple. It's the wild west. You don't know what you're going to get. So, we'll see how they do," Hepburn said of Richardson and Snyder. "I think they're ready. It's good that we waited. We didn't try to open them up earlier. We've been doing some hurdle work and some barrier work, and so they're a little more prepared, I think."
 
Masanga and Rwandika also haven't had a chance to compete yet this season but will do so Friday.
 
Masanga will see his first action since the 2020 indoor season when he twice broke the school record in the indoor pole vault. Masanga topped out at 16-07.25 (5.06m) indoors in 2020, and would have likely done something similar outdoors if not for the pandemic canceling the 2020 outdoor season. Masanga's outdoor best stands a foot below his indoor best as a result. Additionally, the outdoor school record of 15-09.00 (4.80m) – set by Ben Cogdill in 2007 – also stands more than 10 inches below Masanga's indoor record.
 
Whether Masanga can break the outdoor record during his first time out this season might be a tough ask. It's certainly within his ability, though.
 
"We're going to go down and probably start a little on the lower side and just clear some bars," Hepburn said of the strategy for Masanga this weekend.
 
Rwandika hasn't competed for the Vikings since 2019 due to being a javelin specialist. Hepburn said the Hayward Premiere's competitive field could push Rwandika past his current PSU best, which he set at 184-08 (56.29m) at the 2019 OSU High Performance Meet.
 
"This is a spot where maybe it does jazz him up and gets him ready to get it done. He hasn't been to many big meets," Hepburn said of Rwandika.
 
Friday's competitors won't be the only ones who get to showcase their quality. Saturday's NW Distance Jamboree, which the Vikings will host at Lane Community College's Titan Stadium in Eugene, also affords the Vikings the chance to showcase how the program can host a meet as well as the improvements the Vikings have made up and down the roster.
 
The meet features races at every distance from the 800 to the 10,000 meters, with at least one Viking competing at every distance except the women's 800 and 1,500 meters. Otherwise, the Vikings will have a runner in every race, including the men's and women's steeplechase, where three more Vikings will get their season debuts in the event. Phoebe Brown will run her first steeplechase since the 2019 OSU High Performance Meet when she was a freshman, while sophomores Evan Peters and Zac Witman make their steeple debuts at Portland State on the men's side.
 
Whichever of the two meets produces the higher percentage of personal bests is debatable. As Hepburn keeps saying, every athlete came back from the COVID-19 interruption in better shape than they left the program. The Vikings have seen those improvements pay off already in several races, which has produced plenty of good feelings on the Park Blocks as the Vikings have returned to competition.
 
"That's why we're here. We're here to get better every day, and we should see quite a bit of that this weekend," Hepburn said. "And that's fun to be a part of. It's fun to see that, just everybody getting better. Going up and down the distances from the 800 to the 10k."
 
Ramirez opens the Hayward Premiere Friday at 5:50 p.m. James Bottrill, meanwhile, will open the NW Distance Jamboree in the first section of the 800 meters at 4:10 p.m. Saturday.
 
MEET INFO
April 2 – Hayward Premiere – Eugene, Ore. (Hayward Field)
April 3 – NW Distance Jamboree – Eugene, Ore. (Titan Stadium)
 
HAYWARD PREMIERE SCHEDULE
Friday, April 2
Field Events
Time (PT)                    Event (PSU Entries
6:20 p.m.                     Men's Pole Vault (Masanga)
6:35 p.m.                     Men's Javelin (Rwandika)
 
Running Events
Time (PT)                    Event (PSU Entries)
5:50 p.m.                     Men's 1,500m – Section 2 (Ramirez)
6:20 p.m.                     Men's 3,000m Steeple – Invitational (Richardson, Snyder)
6:35 p.m.                     Women's 5,000m – Section 1 (Storm)
7 p.m.                          Men's 5,000m – Section 1 (Abdi)
8:40 p.m.                     Women's 10,000m – Invitational (Gibson, Seligman)
 
NW DISTANCE JAMBOREE
Saturday, April 3
Running Events
Time (PT)                    Event (PSU Entries)
4:10 p.m.                     Men's 800 Meters – Section 1 (Bottrill)
4:15 p.m.                     Men's 800 Meters – Section 2 (Fisher, Muse, Rubalcave)
6:35 p.m.                     Women's Steeplechase (Brown)
7 p.m.                          Men's Steeplechase (Peters, Witman)
7:20 p.m.                     Women's 5,000 Meters (Jones, Miller)
7:45 p.m.                     Men's 5,000 Meters (Bostwick, Hippe, Lingwall, McChesney, Shedd, Solano, E.)
8:05 p.m.                     Women's 10,000 Meters (Salazar)
8:50 p.m.                     Men's 10,000 Meters (Jones)