McMinnville, Ore. - The Boxers opened the outdoor track season this weekend at the Linfield Erik Anderson Icebreaker meet. The Boxers had 21 athletes qualify for the NWC Championships across 12 different events at the meet. The Northwest Conference Championship is a standard qualifier championship. The athletes spend the season attempting to achieve conference as well as national marks across their respective events. To make the NCAA Championships, they take the top 20 men and 22 women from the national descending order list in each event.

The outdoor season kicked off on Friday night with the 10,000m races. All eight athletes who raced - four men and four women - qualified for the event, and achieved lifetime PRs in the event. Kara Putman won the women's race in 37:31.43, just about 10 seconds shy of a school record, and a 45 second PR for her. On the men's team, Riley Stewart took 5th place in 30:33.95, also just about 10 seconds shy of the school record. That is more than a two-minute PR for Stewart, and is a time to keep an eye on for NCAA National Qualifiers. Impressively from this group, five athletes doubled back to race the 5k the next day. Stewart, Maack, Putman, Klein, and Henry all qualified in the event, and Stewart, Maack and Henry had significant PRs in the event. 

On Saturday, the rest of the Boxers took to the track and to the field to compete. Angelica Gatica Gomez had her collegiate outdoor debut with a victory in the women's 400m dash, clocking a time of 1:00.29, good for a conference qualifier. Will Neal opened up his season with a victory in the men's 3,000m steeplechase, winning in a time of 10:09.96, a PR for Neal. Naomi Johnson had a massive PR in the women's discus today, as she took 2nd place with her toss of 37.19m. Emily Rutkowski opened her season with a nice PR and third place finish in the women's 400m hurdles, clocking in at 1:07.42. The women's 4x400m team took second place with a time of 4:17.70, a good start to the season for that relay team. 

NWC Qualifiers from this meet:
100m Hurdles - Lexi Lowery
400m Dash - Angelica Gatica Gomez
400m Hurdles - Emily Rutkowski
800m - Oliver Joss
1500m - Garrett Stewart
3,000m Steeplechase - Will Neal
5,000m - Kara Putman, Maddy Hubbs, Abby Klein, Annie Berry, Morgan Henry
10,000m - Riley Stewart, Erik Maack, Carlos Masuko, Reese Yamamoto, Kara Putman, Abby Klein, Morgan Henry, Cris Brethower
Discus Throw - Naomi Johnson
Hammer Throw - Tricion Jeffery-Artis, Andrew Reid
Javelin Throw - Dominic Funk, Kristian Bumanlag
Shot Put - Andrew Reid

"This was a good outdoor season opener for us," said head coach Ryan Hunter-Simms. "Many of our athletes had solid days and took advantage of the great conditions and great competition. It was a very good first meet for us."

The Boxers will be back in action on March 18 and March 19 at Lewis & Clark.