Cross country goes full swing with Cougar Classic & Central Washington Invitational...
Action gets underway Friday at the Cougar Classic cross country meet hosted by Washington State University at the Colfax Golf Course, as teams look to acclimate themselves to the NCAA regional cross country championship course that the Cougars will host on November 15th.
In addition to the host Cougars, Eastern Washington, Gonzaga, Idaho, Loyola Marymount, Portland State, and Seattle University will race teams in Colfax, as well as Spokane CC, Walla Walla University, and Whitworth.
The University of Washington, the nation’s number 3 ranked team on both the men’s and women’s sides, are still at their training camps in Colorado Springs (women) and Leavenworth (men), and will compete next week in Terre Haute, Indiana, and Boston.
Gonzaga will run most of their top athletes, including their outstanding sophomore James Mwaura (left/photo by Paul Merca), who is the defending men's champion. The Bulldog men’s team, who are ranked #7 in the USTFCCCA West regional rankings, and were picked in a poll of West Coast Conference coaches to finish third, will see fellow WCC member Loyola Marymount at the Cougar Classic.
For Eastern Washington, they’ll have the opportunity to see conference rivals Idaho and Portland State before the Big Sky championship meet in Greeley, Colorado.
Even though SeattleU is traveling their whole team to Colfax, they will only race 13 women, and 8 men, led by Olivia Stein, and Nathan Pixler, who were the first Redhawks across the line two weeks ago against the University of Washington. They are not racing Minnesota transfer Hamza Ali, who was part of the USA junior national team at the world cross country championships two years ago in Kampala, Uganda.
Host Washington State is undergoing a transitional period, particularly on the men’s side, after a disappointing finish to the 2018 season which saw the Cougs, who were nationally ranked for most of the season, fail to qualify for the NCAA championships.
The meet gets underway in Colfax at 5:15 pm with the women’s 6k (3 laps of the Colfax GC course), while the men’s 8k (4 laps) begins at 5:45 pm.
Host Washington State’s release is available here.
Saturday, the scene shifts to Yakima, as Central Washington hosts the CWU Invitational at the Apple Ridge Run Cross Country Course, with nationally ranked Western Washington along with Saint Martin’s competing.
According to Wildcat coach Kevin Adkisson, "We have had a couple good weeks of training as we started off our season. We're pretty pleased with what we're seeing. We're coming together all right so we're very excited to see you know what we've got. We know we got a lot of work ahead towards the rest of our season. We have a good number of teams coming to the meet. It's going to be a little bigger than last year and that should make for better competition.”
The races get underway at 11 am with the women’s 4k, followed by the men’s 6k at 11:40 am.
Seattle Pacific will open the season the following week at the Pacific Lutheran Invitational in Tacoma.
Host Central Washington’s release is available here.
NOTE: The sports information offices of Washington State, Gonzaga, Eastern Washington, Seattle University, and Central Washington University contributed to this report.
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