The road to Terre Haute goes directly through the Palouse for Friday's NCAA West Regionals...

Washington's Mel Smart (l) and Katie Rainsberger finished
4th & 5th at the Pac-12 championships two weeks ago
(Paul Merca photo)

If any of Washington's five NCAA Division I schools want to compete on November 23rd at the NCAA cross country championships in Terre Haute, Indiana, the road to the nationals goes straight through the Palouse in Eastern Washington, and more specifically, Colfax, which hosts the NCAA West Regionals this Friday at the Colfax Golf Club.

Both University of Washington squads and the Gonzaga men's team have the best shots of moving on to Terre Haute, though in the case of the Zags, they will somehow need to overtake six nationally ranked teams in perhaps the deepest of the nine regional championships happening around the country.

Those teams include number 4 Stanford, number 6 Oregon, number 10 UCLA, number 11 Portland, number 14 Washington, and number 27 Boise State.

Washington's women's team heads into Regionals ranked fourth nationally, and second in the West behind No. 2-ranked Stanford. Stanford and Washington went 1-2 at Pac-12s two weeks ago and are the favorites again in Colfax. Also ranked in the West on the women's side is No. 13 Boise State, No. 19 Oregon, and No. 30 Cal Baptist.

The top two teams from each of the nine regionals earn the auto qualifiers to the national championships, with the NCAA cross country committee deciding which 13 schools will round out the field and receive at-large berths based on a combination of regional finish and regular season results.

Last year, five men's teams from the West region advanced to nationals, while six women's teams advanced to the big dance.

The women's 6k will be up first at 11:30 a.m. and the men's 10k follows at 12:30 p.m. Regionals is the first time that the men move up from 8k to the 10k distance.

Media partner Flotrack ($) will provide live streaming coverage of the NCAA West Regionals.

Host school Washington State's meet information home page is available here.

TWO TIME OLYMPIAN JARRED ROME'S DEATH CAUSED BY FENTANYL...

In a post from the Seattle Times, two time US Olympian Jarred Rome died of an overdose of fentanyl, according to the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's office.

The cause of death of the Marysville native was acute fentanyl intoxication, according to the medical examiner’s office. The report also cited a heart ailment as a “significant condition contributing to” Rome’s death on September 21st.

You can read the full article here.

NOTE: The NCAA, USTFCCCA, and the sports information office of Washington State University contributed to this report.