Dawgs, Cougs & Zags take to Zimmer Championship Course under sunny skies...

Pac-12 champ Haley Herberg (R) & All-American
Allie Schadler  (5th from left) lead the Huskies
while doing strides on the course
(Paul Merca photo)

MADISON, Wisconsin--In preparation for Friday's Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational, the teams from Gonzaga, Washington, and Washington State took to the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Verona to preview the course.

With the Madison area experiencing light rain over the last few days, the course was in excellent conditions for Friday's four races: the women's B race 6k at 11 am local time (9:00 am Pacific time), the men's B 8k race at 11:40 local time (9:40 am Pacific time), the women's championship 6k race at 12:20 pm (10:20 am Pacific), and the men's championship 8k at 1:00 pm (11:00 am Pacific).

Friday's forecast is for cloudy skies, with temperatures approaching 60 degrees in time for the two championship races.

This year's Nuttycombe will be an other exciting event to watch as 19 of the 38 schools competing in the women's field are ranked, including the top-three teams in the nation -- No. 1 NC State, No. 2 BYU, and No. 3 New Mexico. The event also feature No. 6 Minnesota, No. 7 Washington and No. 9 Stanford.

On the men's side, twenty-nine men's teams hit the starting line this week. Of these schools, 18 of are ranked, including five in the top 10 -- No. 3 Stanford, No. 4 Oklahoma State, No. 6 Iowa State, No. 9 Oregon and No. 10 Furman. Washington goes into the meet ranked number 13, while Gonzaga enters the Nuttycombe ranked number 19.

For all three Washington schools entered, this meet will be a chance for those on the bubble to prove themselves before the conference championship meets in two weeks, as well as to measure themselves against other teams in the Pac-12 and West Coast Conferences. All teams in the Pac-12 North are attending the meet, except for Cal, while the three major contenders in the West Coast Conference--BYU, Portland, and Gonzaga are here in Wisconsin.

Media partner RunnerSpace.com ($) will have live streaming coverage of the meet, while live results of the meet are available here.

Washington's preview is available here, while Washington State's is available here. The USTFCCCA preview is available here.

NOTE: The University of Wisconsin, along with the sports information offices of Washington, Washington State, and Gonzaga contributed to this report.

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