NCAA D1 championships set for Saturday in Stillwater...

STILLWATER, Oklahoma--The road to the NCAA Division I championships ends at the Greiner Family OSU Cross Country course (photo courtesy OSU Athletics), as Oklahoma State University hosts the NCAA cross country championships Saturday.

Action gets underway at 7:20 am Pacific time with the women's 6k, and continues with the men's 10k at 8:10 am.

ESPNU (channel 420 on Seattle Comcast) and the ESPN app will have live coverage of the championships beginning at 7 am Pacific Saturday morning.

The Washington women are making its 16th straight appearance at the NCAA championships, while the Husky men are back for the sixth straight showing. Both teams finished third at the NCAA West Regionals in University Place last week.

Gonzaga's men's squad is back for their third straight appearance after clinching an automatic berth with a second place finish behind number 1 ranked Stanford at the West Regionals.

Both Washington and Gonzaga will have one All-American returning for this year's race. The Huskies return Brian Fay, the West Regional champion last week, who was 38th last year, while the Zags bring back James Mwaura, who finished two spots ahead of Fay.

Mwaura started his season late due to some minor physical issues, not racing until the West Coast Conference championship meet in Portland on October 28th. Fay has had three races under his belt this season, skipping only the Huskies' season opener in Stillwater on the NCAA championship meet course.

Gonzaga returns six of the seven runners who helped place 26th at nationals in Tallahassee, Florida last year, while the Huskies have six runners who ran at last year's nationals. Grad transfer Ed Trippas of the Dawgs ran last year for Princeton, finishing 66th, while Sam Affolder is the only Washington runner entered who doesn't have NCAA championship experience.

On the women's side, Washington is traveling nine runners, and will decide as close to the entry check in deadline (20 minutes to the gun) which seven to run. Their travel squad includes NCAA track All-American Haley Herberg, along with NCAA cross country championship vets Sophie O'Sullivan, Anna Gibson, Madison Heisterman, and Andrea Markezich. 

The Dawgs are also traveling frosh Ella Borsheim, Chloe Foerster, and Sophia Nordenholz, and one or more will certainly be on the starting line.

Last week, the Huskies held out Herberg due to an injury suffered earlier in the season. Herberg has only raced once this year, competing at the Pac-12s in Riverside, California on October 28th.

Individuals with Washington ties who are entered at nationals include former Seattle Pacific D2 All American Kaylee Mitchell from Oregon State; All Americans Olivia Markezich of Notre Dame from Woodinville and Taylor Roe of Oklahoma State from Lake Stevens. Their teams finished in the top two at their regionals Friday. 

Yakima native Jonas Price of Oklahoma State is entered in the men's race. Former Husky Shona McCullough, who is a graduate student at Syracuse, and Sarah Carter, who transferred from Washington to Colorado State is also in the field.

Washington & Gonzaga's release is available here. The link to the meet's home page is available here, including live results.

DIVISION II WEST REGIONALS SATURDAY IN BILLINGS...

All four of Washington's Division II teams are making the trip east to Billings, Montana for Saturday's NCAA Division II West Regionals at Amend Park, with the mens 10K starting at 9 am Pacific, and the women's 6k at 10:15 am.

The meet marks the fourth time that Montana State/Billings has hosted the meet.

The top three teams from Saturday's meet automatically advance to the national championships on Friday December 2nd at Chambers Creek Regional Park in University Place as part of the NCAA's Division II Fall Sports Festival, hosted in the greater Seattle metro area by Seattle Pacific.

Additionally, ten teams total from the eight regions will be selected by the NCAA D2 cross country subcommittee to run in the national championships as an at-large selection. Those at-large selections will be handed out.

Western Washington (number 17 USTFCCCA men; unranked women), which swept the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship races two weeks ago in Monmouth, Oregon, looks to secure its place in the national championships in University Place two weeks from today, either with a top three finish, or an at-large berth.

Of the teams from the GNAC, the Vikings have perhaps the strongest resume, having raced twice against national caliber competition in the regular season, with perhaps Saint Martin's women's squad, the surprise runner-ups at GNAC having the second best CV out of the four Washington D2 schools.

All four Washington schools saw some of the possible contenders for those three automatic berths to the NCAA championships last month at the NCAA Pre-Nationals at Chambers Creek, including number 5 Chico State, number 22 Cal Poly Pomona, and number 26 Biola on the men's side; and number 12 Biola, & number 13 Chico State appearing on the women's side.

The home page for the NCAA D2 West Regionals, which includes a link to live results is available here.

SARAH PAQUET & RYAN STRACKE OF PACIFIC LUTHERAN QUALIFY FOR NCAA D3 CHAMPS...

Pacific Lutheran's Sarah Paquet and Ryan Stracke qualified as individual at-large competitors for Saturday NCAA Division III championships this Saturday in East Lansing, Michigan at the Forest Akers East Golf Course.

Racing gets underway at 8am Pacific with the women's 6k, and the men's 8k starts an hour later.

Paquet was 11th at the NCAA West Regionals Saturday in Spokane Valley at the Plantes Ferry Sports Complex, where she ran the 6k course in 

Stracke was 18th at Regionals, completing the 8k course in 25:03.

Paquet and Stracke got the nod by virtue of finishing among the top seven individual runners at the NCAA Division III West Region Championships not on a qualifying team. 

The NCAA release is available here, which includes a link to the live stream of the meet. 

NOTE: The NCAA, USTFCCCA, Great Northwest Athletic Conference, and the sports information offices of Oklahoma State University, the University of Washington, Gonzaga University, and Pacific Lutheran University contributed to this report.

paulmerca.blogspot.com may receive a commission for any purchases made from links clicked. Please support this site and our sponsors by clicking on the links.