Both Washington squads enter the USTFCCCA national top 15 after SoCal performances...

NEW ORLEANS--Thanks to several top ten marks generated over the weekend in Southern California, both University of Washington squads are now firmly entrenched in the national top 15 in the latest USTFCCCA NCAA Division I National Rating Index released Monday.

The Washington men, which for the last several weeks, were outside the national top 25, rocketed 17 spots to number 11, thanks to the nation-leading mark in the 5000 by Brian Fay (Paul Merca photo), the number 2 mark in the 1500 by Joe Waskom, and the number 7 mark in the 400 hurdles by Cass Elliott.

The Huskies were boosted by marks inside the top 20 by Jonathan Birchman in the 400 hurdles, Sam Ellis in the 800, Luke Houser in the 1500, Jayden White in the hammer, and Jami Schlueter in the decathlon.

The nation's top five teams after the busy weekend which included several major meets are in order: Arkansas (which was out of the top 25 entering last week), Texas Tech, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida.

Other Pac-12 schools in the top 25 include number 15 Stanford, number 18 Cal, number 21 Arizona and number 25 UCLA.

The Husky women, who were ranked number 24 last week, got a nation leading mark in the pole vault from Nastassja Campbell, the number 2 mark in the heptathlon from Ida Eikeng, and a number 3 performance in the steeplechase from Kayley DeLay.

The other top 20 performance from the Huskies last weekend also came from Eikeng in the javelin when she threw 171-7 (52.29m) in her heptathlon, which is the number 19 mark in the country.

The nation's top five women's teams are in order: Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Oregon and LSU.

Other Pac-12 schools in the national top 25 include number 6 USC, number 12 Stanford, number 23 Oregon State, and number 25 Utah.

The USTFCCCA release is available here, while the detailed men's rankings are available here and the women's detailed rankings are available here.

Only marks submitted to the TFRRS.org site from the current outdoor season are used for the purposes of these rankings.

Washington will send athletes to the Payton Jordan Invitational Friday and Saturday, hosted by Stanford University. The following week, the Huskies will split between the Fresno State Invitational in Fresno, the Desert Heat meet in Tucson, and the Penn Relays in Philadelphia (the Penn Relays was added to the schedule within the last week).

NOTE: The USTFCCCA contributed to this report.

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