Some clarity over the indoor track & cross country schedules for the state's five NCAA D1 schools...
Two tweets by the University of Washington track & field program on Tuesday gave some clarity on what the indoor track and cross country schedule will look like for them, as well as the state's other four NCAA Division I schools.
DAWGS AND COUGS WILL GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER AT THE DEMPSEY...
The Huskies will officially open the 2021 season this Friday with the two-day UW Indoor Preview featuring Washington State.
π¨π’π πΎπ¬ π¨πΉπ¬ π©π¨πͺπ²
— Washington Track & Field (@UWTrack) January 26, 2021
Track & Field + The Dempsey π
Three meets in 2021, the first of which comes this Friday!#GoHuskies (1/2) pic.twitter.com/669r2eJk8y
Two weeks later, the Huskies will host the two day UW Invitational on February 12-13th, and end the regular season on February 25-27 with the three-day Husky Classic, before ending the season March 11-13 with the NCAA Indoor championship meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Washington State posted its indoor schedule, and it mirrors the schedule posted by the Huskies, though they are planning to send athletes to the Arkansas Qualifier on February 5th in Fayetteville, and the Matador Qualifier on February 19th, hosted by Texas Tech in Lubbock.
With the COVID-19 protocols in place, this weekend's meet will be contested in three sessions, with Friday devoted to field events, and two separate sessions of track races Saturday.
In any case, capacity at Dempsey Indoor will be strictly limited, including no spectators. As of now, there is no word on whether or not meets at the Dempsey will be streamed.
Athletes competing in Saturday's early session will be asked to leave the Dempsey after their events, and a break will be inserted between sessions.
As of now, both Seattle University and Eastern Washington are not planning to compete in any indoor meets, considering the fact that both the Western Athletic Conference and the Big Sky have cancelled their indoor championship meets.
CROSS COUNTRY SCHEDULE SOMEWHAT CLEAR?
In the second tweet, the Huskies announced their cross country schedule, featuring two regular season meets in Las Vegas--the UNLV Invitational on February 1st and the UNLV Challenge meet on February 19th.
The post season consists of the Huskies hosting the Pac-12 cross country championships on March 5th at Chambers Bay Golf Club in University Place, south of Tacoma, and finishing with the NCAA championships on March 15th in Stillwater, Oklahoma, hosted by Oklahoma State.
Gonzaga will solely focus on cross country, as the West Coast Conference does not hold an indoor or outdoor track & field championship meet.
According to a rough draft schedule obtained by paulmerca.blogspot.com, Gonzaga and SeattleU are tentatively scheduled to compete on February 5th at the Oregon XC Open in Eugene at Lane Community College.
The next day, the rest of the Gonzaga squad along with Eastern Washington will run in a three-way meet hosted by the University of Idaho in Lewiston, Idaho.
On February 12th, Gonzaga will send a select group of athletes to Corvallis to run an outdoor track meet hosted by Oregon State. Eastern Washington will not send athletes to Corvallis, while SeattleU's status is unknown.
Lane Community College is hosting an invitational on February 19th in Eugene. Gonzaga will not be there, as it's too close to the West Coast Conference championship meet in Las Vegas on February 24th.
Seattle University hosts the Western Athletic Conference cross country championship meet on February 27th at the Jefferson Park Golf Course in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood, while Eastern Washington travels to Riverdale, Utah for the Big Sky championship meet, hosted by Weber State.
While Washington State will be at the Pac-12s in University Place, their early season cross country schedule is unknown, though the Cougars were reportedly looking at possibly the second UNLV meet.
As a disclaimer, only the University of Washington has posted both their indoor and cross country schedules on their site, while WSU has only posted their indoor track schedule. As always, schedules are subject to change, and to please check each individual school's web sites for updated information. We'll post any updates here or on our Twitter page as we get them.
NCAA MAKES CHANGES FOR CROSS COUNTRY AND OUTDOOR TRACK...
The original announcement date was supposed to be March 6th, one day after the last conference championship meets around the country.
The committee felt that delaying the announcement would give it extra time to deliberate the merits and credentials of teams, particularly those that may have had meets cancelled because of COVID-19 concerns, as in the case of a nationally ranked team like Michigan, which paused its entire sports program for two weeks because of an outbreak on campus involving several athletes in different sports.
The Wolverines, whose teams were ranked in the top 15 by the USTFCCCA will miss this weekend's Big 10 cross country championships, a key component in advancing to the national championship meet.
In the same video conference held last week, the committee also announced that for the 2021 outdoor season only, the first round of the NCAA championship meet (aka the West and East Regional) will consist of 32 individuals per event instead of 48. The number of relay teams remains at 24.
NOTE: The sports information offices of the University of Washington, Washington State University, University of Michigan, University of Oregon, the NCAA, the USTFCCCA, and the media relations offices of the Western Athletic, Big Sky, and West Coast Conferences contributed to this report.
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