Zags rocket up national rankings after second place regional finish...
NEW ORLEANS--With only one meet to go in the NCAA Division I cross country season, there was some shuffling of the deck in the final USTFCCCA national coaches poll released Monday.
After coach Pat Tyson's Gonzaga Bulldogs (Kim Spir photo) earned an automatic qualifying spot to Saturday's NCAA cross country championships in Stillwater, Oklahoma on Friday at Chambers Creek Regional Park in University Place with their second place finish, the panel who votes on the national rankings rewarded the Zags.
Gonzaga is now up to number 15 this week, up from number 26 in the poll conducted after the conference championship weekend ending October 29th.
During the regular season, they were ranked as high as number 12, before they dropped out of the national rankings after a bad performance at the Nuttycombe Invitational in Wisconsin last month.
The Washington Huskies, who finished third behind Gonzaga at the West Regionals, dropped slightly to number 17 in the final regular season poll.
The nation's number one team, West regional champ Stanford, remains at the top, followed in order by Northern Arizona, WCC champ BYU, Oklahoma State, and Tulsa.
Other schools ranked in the poll from the Pac-12 ranked include number 7 Colorado, and number 21 Oregon.
In the women's poll, Maurica Powell's Washington Huskies moved up one spot to number 15 after their third place finish at regionals, where they ran without their All-American at 10000 meters and former Pac-12 cross country champion Haley Herberg.
The top five teams in the country heading into Saturday's national championship race are in order: North Carolina State, New Mexico, Oklahoma State, Notre Dame, and Alabama.
Other teams from the Pac-12 and the WCC in the national rankings include number 7 Utah, number 8 and West Regional champ Stanford, number 9 Oregon, number 10 BYU, number 11 Colorado, and number 23 Oregon State.
Western Athletic Conference champ Cal Baptist, which qualified for nationals by placing fifth at Chambers Creek, is ranked just ahead of Oregon State at number 22.
Saturday's NCAA championships will be televised live on ESPNU starting at 7am, pacific, or on the ESPN app.
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.
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 22:08.
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.
NOTE: The USTFCCCA, and the sports information offices of the University of Washington, and Gonzaga University contributed to this report.
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