Washington State hosts Cougar Classic Friday, while Central Washington preps for its invitational Saturday...

Six of Washington’s nine NCAA Division I and II schools are in action this weekend as those teams start their focus on the road to the national cross country championships in November.

In Colfax on Friday, Washington State hosts the Cougar Classic at the Colfax Golf Club, with the men’s 8k race slated for 5:15 pm, and the women’s 6k starting at 6 pm.

In addition to the host Cougars, Gonzaga and Eastern Washington will enter teams in the meet, along with Division I schools Idaho, Pepperdine, Portland State, plus several other local schools.

The Cougar men’s squad enters the meet ranked #13 in the latest USTFCCCA national coaches’ poll released earlier this week.

Washington State is holding back several of its key runners for Friday’s race, most notably their 2017 All-American Vallery Korir, along with top runners Chandler Teigen, Justin Janke, and Nathan Wadhwani (left/photo by Paul Merca), the winner of the WSU Alumni meet two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, both Gonzaga and Eastern Washington will emphasize pack running in Friday’s meet.

Bulldog head coach Pat Tyson said, "This should be a really fun 8K tempo for us. It is still early in the season. To put it in perspective, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, and Washington are all at preseason camps, as their schools' academic calendar doesn't start for two more weeks. Thus, we are training through and building that nice base. Still, we have so much respect for the WSU Cougars. When you are ranked deep in the top 25 nationally, that is a pretty cool thing. Obviously that is the direction we want to be heading.”

Eastern Washington cross country coach Sam Read said, "In the last meet we did great running together in packs," said Read. "This week we are focusing on having our packs move during the second part of the race."

Here’s Washington State head coach Wayne Phipps discussing Friday’s meet:



Meanwhile, Central Washington hosts the Central Washington Invitational Saturday at Rotary Park in Ellensburg.

The racing is set to start with the men's 7K at 4:30 pm and follow with the women's 5K at 5:15 pm.

In addition to the host Wildcats, both Western Washington and Seattle Pacific will enter teams.

For all three schools, this marks the season opener, as all three schools originally planned to run the Sundodger Invitational in Seattle before the University of Washington changed the format and limited the meet to Division I schools after the coaching change.

Both Viking squads are projected to finish third in the conference according to the pre-season GNAC coaches poll, while the Falcon women’s team is projected to finish fourth in the conference.

Among the runners to watch in this three-team meet are Western Washington’s Isaac Derline, who redshirted the 2017 cross county season after qualifying for cross nationals in 2016, and Central Washington’s Alexa Shindruk, who qualified for the NCAA championships in the 10000 last spring. Seattle Pacific’s Kate Lilly is projected to be the Falcons’ top runner, after qualifying for last spring’s NCAA championships in the 1500.

Host Central Washington’s preview is available here, while Western Washington and Seattle Pacific’s preview is available by clicking on the school’s name.

NOTE:  The sports information offices of Washington State, Gonzaga, Eastern Washington, Central Washington, Western Washington, and Seattle Pacific contributed to this report.