It's conference championship weekend for UW, WSU, Gonzaga, Eastern & SeattleU...
It's conference championship week for the five Washington NCAA Division I schools Friday and Saturday, as WASHINGTON & WASHINGTON STATE head to Salt Lake City for the Pac-12 championships, while GONZAGA heads to Concord, California for the West Coast Conference championships, EASTERN WASHINGTON to Hillsboro, Oregon for the Big Sky Conference championship on Friday, and SEATTLE UNIVERSITY to Riverside, California for the Western Athletic Conference title race.
PAC-12S
The men's 8k starts off the morning at 9:10 am, with the number 26 Washington Huskies facing off against three nationally ranked teams in #3 Colorado, #4 & defending team champs Stanford, and number 12 Oregon.
The 2020 championships, hosted by the UW in March at Chambers Creek Park in University Place, saw the Dawgs place two runners in the top ten, led by Isaac Green in seventh, and Luke Houser in tenth. The Huskies finished third that day.
Washington State's top runner that day was Zach Stallings, who was 18th. The Cougars finished sixth.
The women's 6k goes off at 10:10 am, with the number 18 Huskies facing off against number 4 Colorado, number 8 Utah, and #23 defending champs Stanford, plus two teams receiving votes in the national USTFCCCA rankings in Oregon State and Oregon.
Washington State finished fifth in the 2020 champs, led by Erin Mullins, who was 13th.
The Huskies, who also finished third in March, will be led by defending individual champion Haley Herberg (Paul Merca photo), who surprised the entire field by going out front early and never relinquishing the lead.
While the Huskies held their pre-season training camp partly at altitude, they will race for the first time at altitude Friday in Salt Lake City.
The link to live results of the Pac-12 championships is available here.
ZAGS AT WCCs
After the Gonzaga Bulldogs came through with a seventh place finish at the Nuttycombe Invitational two weeks ago, the Zags are now one of the hunted teams in Friday's West Coast Conference championship meet in Concord.
On both the men's and women's team races, Gonzaga will have to deal with nationally ranked squads Portland and BYU, with the latter the defending women's NCAA champs.
The women's 6k race starts at 10 am, with the men's 8k going an hour later at Newhall Community Park.
Gonzaga will be led into the battle by Kristen Garcia, who finished 12th last season, and by James Mwaura, who was the runner-up to eventual national champion Conner Mantz of BYU.
WCCSports.com will have a live stream of the race available.
The link to live results of the WCC championships is available here.
BIG SKY HEADS TO HILLSBORO
The Eagles of Eastern Washington head off to Hillsboro's Meriweather National Golf Course for Friday's Big Sky Conference championship race.
The races will begin at 11 a.m. Pacific time with the women's 5K championship race, followed by the men's 8K championship race at 12 p.m.
Northern Arizona, the defending mens national champions in cross country, are the biggest obstacle facing the Eagles. Northern Arizona also took the women's team title.
Eastern's top returning runners from last year's conference meet are Carter Ledwith, who finished 38th, and Kaylin Sheley, who was 47th.
The link to live results of the Big Sky championships is available here.
REDHAWKS AT WAC IN RIVERSIDE
Seattle University heads to the UC Riverside Agricultural Operations course for Saturday's Western Athletic Conference championship meet, with the men's 8k starting at 9 am, and the women's 6k an hour later.
Cal Baptist comes to the meet as defending team champions on both the men's and women's sides from February's championship meet, which SeattleU hosted at Jefferson Park Golf Course.
SeattleU's top returning finisher on the women's side is Emily Harris, who was 13th, while Jay Grant, who finished 39th, is the Redhawks' top returning finisher.
The link to live results of the Big Sky championships is available here.
NOTE: The Pac-12, West Coast Conference, Big Sky Conference and the Western Athletic Conference contributed to this report.
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