The Grand Valley State University men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams were not going to take it easy out of the gate on Friday.

GVSU qualified both runners and throwers for the NCAA championships in March in the first meet of the year.

Five GVSU male runners qualified for the NCAA championships in the 5k run, led by senior Anthony Witt with a time of 14 minutes, 8.72 seconds.

“Our distant kids are coming off of cross country, and our focus was to get our qualifier out of the way for them for the NCAA championships in March,” said GVSU head coach Jerry Baltes. “A handful of kids were able to do that.”

Senior runners Monica Kinney and Rachael Patterson automatically qualified with times of 16:13.81 and 16:15.83, respectively. Both runners surpassed the former GVSU record for the 5k.

“Kinney has prepared very well, and she’s taken off where she let off last year,” Baltes said. “She’s running about 10 seconds faster than what she started last year.”

For the first meet of the year, the focus and goals varied for each running group, Baltes said.

“On the track side, we were looking to get in the swing of things use it as a rust buster, and get back on the track and hear the gun go off,” he said. “It was a good start for us.”

GVSU also had a successful day competing in the throwing events. The men took the first three spots in the weight throw and were led by senior Donny Stiffler, who placed first in both the weight throw (17.56 meters) and shot put (15.97 meters).

Stiffler qualified for the championship meet in the weight throw even though he said he can improve in the shot put.

“The meet is a good place to start — it shows us where we are starting at and where we have to go,” he said. “It’s a learning experience, and it shows what kind of work you have to do to get better.”

For the women’s team, junior Sam Lockhart qualified for the championship meet in the weight throw (18.67) but missed the automatic qualifier for the shot put by a few centimeters at 14.81. She took first overall in both events. She was one of five GVSU women to land spots in the weight throw.

Lockhart said she is relieved to be able to get the pressure of qualifying out of the way.

“It’s a big relief because now we just have to worry about nationals,” she said. “We can worry about our goals in March instead of now and thinking of ways to make the NCAAs. It’s just a relief.”

Baltes said GVSU is looking to learn from this meet and use the experience as a learning tool moving forward.

“The most important thing we learned is no matter who you are, or where you started at, we’ve got to learn and get back to practice and focus on getting better over the next couple months,” Baltes said. “It’s a starting point, we got to realize whether it was a great starting point or an average starting point. We have to focus on getting better and work hard every day.”

The GVSU track teams resume action on Dec. 16 at 3 p.m. in the Kelly Family Sports Center for the Holiday Open.

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