National championship berths on the line for all five Washington D1 teams Friday in Sacramento...
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| Can freshman James Mwaura lead Gonzaga to its first-ever NCAA championship berth? Paul Merca photo |
The first two teams from each of the nine regional races around the country get automatic entries into the national championships on November 17, while 13 other teams must wait at least a day to find out from the NCAA whether or not they get to race in Madison.
Racing gets underway at 11 am with the women’s 6k, followed by the men’s 10k race at noon, which for the majority of the schools in the race, will be the first race of the season at that distance (most men’s teams have raced up to 8k instead of 10k). Flotrack will have live coverage of the West Regionals ($).
On the men’s side, the Washington Huskies, Washington State Cougars, and Gonzaga Bulldogs all must have strong races if it wants to advance to Madison. The Huskies are currently ranked #7 in the latest USTFCCCA Division I coaches’ poll, while Washington State finds itself #22, and Gonzaga checks in at #28.
The Husky men's team has finished second at every race this season, so another second-place on Friday would mean an auto bid to NCAAs.
All three schools will find itself in a dogfight for both the automatic and at-large berths to nationals, with #4 Portland, #5 Stanford, #9 Boise State, #11 Oregon, and #24 UCLA, making it eight nationally ranked squads in the USTFCCCA top 30. Should Gonzaga qualify for the national championships, it would mark the first time in school history that the Zags have made it to the big dance.
In 2017, the NCAA chose seven men's teams out of the West region, so there’s a possibility that one of the nationally ranked teams could find themselves out of the running at next week’s championship.
On the women’s side, nationally ranked teams in the West besides the #17 Huskies include #2 Oregon, #3 Boise State, #6 Stanford, and #19 Portland.
In last year’s regional women's championship race at Seattle’s Jefferson Park GC, Oregon, Stanford, California, Washington, Boise State and San Francisco all advanced to nationals.
Here are the releases for each of the schools:
Eastern Washington
Gonzaga
Seattle University
University of Washington
Washington State
The link to live results is available here.
paulmerca.blogspot.com will be on site in Sacramento to cover the NCAA West Regionals.
NOTE: The sports information offices at Eastern Washington, Gonzaga, Seattle University, University of Washington, Washington State and Sacramento State University contributed to this report.
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