Suver responds to a boost in maturity

With no expectation of where running might take him, Curtis Suver didn’t immediately grasp that he wouldn’t get much of anywhere without it.

This is no particular disparagement of the state of North Dakota, though the “nowhere” part of Suver’s story begins there – at Jamestown College, specifically, his stop before transferring to Eastern Washington University two years ago.

What he’s found at Eastern is motivation, direction – and success, not the least of which is putting his name alongside that of the school’s most decorated distance runner.

Suver hopes to open his outdoor season when EWU hosts the annual Pelluer Invitational at Woodward Field on Friday – health willing. He’s still recovering from a hard indoor season during which he ran the fastest 5,000 meters in school history.

His time of 14 minutes, 3.64 seconds at the Husky Classic in Seattle in February not only supplanted his friend John Timeus in the EWU indoor record book, but it was also superior to the 14:09 outdoor standard that Eastern great Bob Maplestone ran 36 years ago.

“It was both disappointing and exciting,” said Suver, who also owns EWU’s 3,000-meter record indoors. “If I’d run 4 seconds faster, I would have (qualified for) the national meet. I guess the most meaningful part for me was John is one of my best friends – we’d trained together over Christmas and he was there watching the race.”

And it was at least a signal that he was fulfilling some of the promise that was dormant during his first try at college running.

Suver said he enrolled at Jamestown out of Tahoma High School in Maple Valley, Wash., “for no particular reason – I really had no idea.

“I had a scholarship offer, but I didn’t know much about college running. I didn’t think I was good enough to run at a bigger school, so I really didn’t care. I was excited to get away and I didn’t have many goals.”

He did make it to the NAIA indoor nationals as part of the Jimmies’ 4x800 relay team and earned All-America honors. But his times didn’t improve from high school – and he knew why.

“I had a great year – but not running-wise,” he said. “It was fun – we’d go drinking and partying on weekends – but my priorities weren’t right. My grades were bad and I just wasn’t running well.”

A new outlook, a new voice – former Eastern distance coach Dan Hilton – and a redshirt year helped turn things around. In 2007, Suver was a Big Sky Conference placer both indoors and out for the Eagles, whose distance program has made some gradual gains against the league powers behind runners such as Timeus, Branden Fuller, Paul Limpf and Suver.

And with two more years of collegiate eligibility and sub-14 in his sights, Suver’s running horizons have broadened.

“If I can get faster, I could run for a club team after college,” he said. “I won’t be an Alan Webb, but it’s something to shoot for.”

Cougars stand out

Washington State coach Rick Sloan knew how good of a weekend his Cougars had by how tired his mouse hand was on Sunday filling out POP – that’s proof of performance – sheets to satisfy NCAA accounting.

“With my computer skills,” he said, “it took about four hours.”

Splitting their squad between the Texas Relays and the Stanford Invitational, the Cougars came up with no fewer than 15 regional qualifying marks – most of them lifetime bests – as well as a school record of 196 feet, 3 inches by McKenzie Garberg in the women’s hammer.

But no one had a more impressive weekend than Rickey Moody. The senior from Puyallup posted WSU’s best decathlon score in two decades – 7,787 points – in moving to No. 2 on the school’s all-time list. Included were best first- and second-day totals, plus PRs in seven of the 10 individual events, starting with a 10.81 clocking in the 100.

Sloan, in his 36th year as a coach at WSU, called Moody’s effort “probably the best job of competing here I’ve seen.”

War between the states

Community Colleges of Spokane coach Larry Beatty is always looking to get his team into more scoring meets, even if it means concocting them himself. Thus was born the first Oregon vs. Washington dual on Saturday at Spokane Falls – the Sasquatch pairing with Clark College of Vancouver against the combined teams of Mt. Hood and Lane.

Beatty looks to have two of his best and deepest teams – and that’s saying something, considering the Sasquatch have won both ends of the NWAACC meet 12 times. Once again, assistant coach Ryan Weidman’s throwers will play a big part – especially on the women’s side which Beatty called “ridiculous.

“We’ve never had these types of (female) throwers,” he said. “Both the Hutchinson girls (Corissa and Ashley) are state champs and Division I types in the discus. (Alabama transfer) Rachel Garcia is a 47-9 high school shot putter. Sarah Brown from Rosalia will throw 43 for us. Ashlee Michelson was a state champ for North Central in the shot and discus and might be fourth or fifth on the team.”

Bell lap

Idaho’s Russ Winger achieved a long-sought goal at the Stanford Invitational when he finally picked off Joachim Olsen’s school record in the discus, by 2 full feet, with a throw of 199-6. Next target: Olsen’s shot put mark of 70-51/2. Winger has thrown 69-101/4 indoors.