CORVALLIS — Alyssa Johnson and Mason Weisgerber claimed first-place finishes and Carter Stedman ran an NAIA-leading time on Friday and Saturday at the Pacific Northwest Invite hosted by Oregon State.
Johnson, who was named last week’s Cascade Conference athlete of the week, won the women’s 5,000-meter race with a time of 17 minutes 7.95 seconds to run the NAIA ‘B’ standard. It’s the second fastest time in the NAIA this year and just nine seconds off the auto-qualifying mark. The junior has only run faster once in her life — which was No. 3 on SOU’s all-time list —, taking eighth in 17:02.83 at last year’s Oregon State High Performance meet.
Johnson was in second place headed into the bell lap, before splitting 1:14.43 over the final 400 meters to overtake Seattle University’s Azalea Groleau. She finished nearly five seconds ahead of runner-up Morgan Erler of Northwest Nazarene…