SPOKANE, Wash. — Gonzaga Men's and Women's Track & Field unveiled their 2023 outdoor schedule on Monday, featuring four meets in Spokane as well as seven meets in California and Oregon.

Seven Bulldog athletes — four men and three women — qualified for NCAA Regional Preliminaries at the conclusion of the outdoor season in 2022. Five of them — Kristen Garcia (10,000m), Alicia Anderson (1,500m, 5,000m), Evan Bates (5,000m), James Mwaura (5,000m, 10,000m) and Cooper Laird (3,000m Steeplechase) — will return to compete for GU in 2023. Mwaura became the first back-to-back All-American in GU program history after finishing 15th in the 10,000m Finals at NCAA Championships in Eugene last spring.

The Zag women will begin their slate a week early with a Spring Break trip to San Francisco, Calif. for the West Coast Quad, hosted by San Francisco State, on March 11 before GU's first two full-team meets of the outdoor season at Whitworth University, with the Sam Adams Classic set for March 18 and the Buc Scoring Invite on March 23-24. GU then travels to Palo Alto again for the weekend of March 31-April 1 for the Stanford Invitational. Last season at the Stanford Invite, Garcia ran the fastest 10,000m race in program history (33:27.49), a time that qualified her for NCAA West Region Prelims for the second straight season.

Two more Spokane meets await the Bulldogs when they return, including the Whitworth Peace Meet (April 7) and the Whitworth Twilight Meet (April 13). The Zags head back to California on back-to-back weekends in April, competing in the Bryan Clay Invitational (April 13-15) and the Payton Jordan Invitational (April 21-22). 

The Zags will spend the next three weekends in the state of Oregon, with the GU women heading to Corvallis for the Oregon State High Performance Meet (April 28-29) and the GU men returning to Hayward Field for the Oregon Twilight Meet (May 5) before both teams compete in the Portland Distance Carnival the following weekend (May 13). Bates, Laird and Mwaura all put down their NCAA Preliminary qualifying times against elite competition at Hayward Field last spring, with Mwaura, Bates and Wil Smith all breaking the program record in the 5,000m at the Oregon Relays there last April. At the OSU High Performance meet in Corvallis in 2021, Garcia shattered the 5K program record with a 16:04.49 finish.

NCAA West Preliminaries, hosted by Sacramento State at Hornet Stadium, will take place May 24-27, with advancing runners competing at NCAA Championships at University of Texas' Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas June 7-10.

GU men's and women's track indoor season continues this weekend at the WSU Open at The Podium in Spokane. Check GoZags.com and follow @ZagRunning on IG and Twitter for live results, meet coverage and more.
 

Gonzaga Men's/Women's Outdoor Track & Field 2023 Schedule