Huskies set to host Washington Invitational Saturday at Jefferson Park GC...

Participant's coffee mug--Washington Invitational

Seattle is the site of one of the country's top cross country invitational meets, as the University of Washington hosts the first Washington Invitational Saturday at Jefferson Park Golf Course on Beacon Hill.

The meet features nationally ranked men's teams from Indiana (#7), Northern Arizona (#2), Oklahoma (#26), Portland (#5), Stanford (#6), UCLA (#20), Villanova (#9), and Virginia (#13) on the men's side, and #3 Oregon, #4 Stanford, and #13 Villanova on the women's side.

The Huskies are ranked #28 in the current USTFCCCA men's poll and #15 in the women's poll.

Action gets underway at 11 am with the women's 6k, followed 45 minutes later by the men's 6k.

UW head coach Greg Metcalf said, “I think we’ve created a fantastic regular season cross country meet. It will be cool to look across the starting line Saturday morning and see the 10 men’s teams and 11 women’s teams and go, ‘I don’t think anyone has ever seen Villanova run a cross country meet out here.’”

Metcalf believes that the men's race could potentially be one of the best cross country invitational races of the season, given the depth of the field.

The Dawgs enter the meet led by Sundodger champs Maddie Meyers, and All-American Aaron Nelson.  USA junior 5000m champ Colby Gilbert will make his UW debut after being redshirted during the 2013-14 season.

Besides the Huskies, there will be several notable athletes with ties to the state of Washington competing, including Spokane's Nathan Weitz (Northern Arizona), Tansey Lystad (Portland), and UW grad Megan Morgan, who is competing for Portland.

The link to live results is available here.

The women's entries for Saturday's Washington Invitational are available here, with the men here.

Elsewhere, Gonzaga University's men's squad finished 14th at the Notre Dame Invitational in a field of 24 teams Friday at the Notre Dame Golf Course in South Bend, Indiana.

The Zags scored 378 points, as the University of Michigan won with a low score of 97 points.

Nick Roche was Gonzaga's first runner across the line in 37th, running the 5 mile course in 23:58. He was followed by Troy Fraley (59th, 24:18), Kyle Branch (74th, 24:25), Colin O'Neil (105th, 24:35), and Robert Walgren (112th, 24:39) to complete the scorers.

Michigan's Mason Ferlic won the individual title in a time of 23:16.

Results from the Notre Dame Invitational are available here.

Gonzaga is sending its' women's squad, along with most of the men's team that didn't' travel to Notre Dame to the Montana Open, hosted by the University of Montana.  Eastern Washington is also sending teams to Montana.

Seattle University heads to Portland to compete in the Viking XC Classic Saturday at Portland's Blue Lake Park.

Central Washington is the only Division II school in action Saturday, as they head to Salem, Oregon to run in the Willamette Invitational.  The Wildcats are also slated to send athletes to Saturday's Pacific Lutheran Invitational in Parkland at PLU's South Park.

NOTE:  The University of Washington and Gonzaga University sports information offices contributed to this report.