Viking cross country teams aim to qualify for NCAA nationals Saturday...
Western Washington University (photo courtesy GNAC), fresh off of sweeping both the men's and women's team titles at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championships in Anchorage, Alaska two weeks ago, heads down to Monmouth, Oregon for the NCAA West Regionals hosted by Western Oregon University Saturday at Ash Creek Preserve Park on the WOU campus.
Action gets underway at 10 am with the women's 6k, followed by the men's 10k at 11:15 am.
All four Washington GNAC schools are expected to send athletes to the meet.
In the most recent USTFCCCA West Regional rankings, the Western women's team is ranked number 1, while the men's team comes in at number 3.
The Saint Martin's women's squad is the only other men's or women's team from the state of Washington ranked in the regional rankings, coming in at number 6.
In all of the eight NCAA regional meets contested around the country Saturday, the top three teams advance to the NCAA championship meet in Joplin, Missouri in two weeks.
To complete the field, ten teams will be selected by the NCAA D2 coaches committee as at-large entries.
For individual entries into the NCAA championships, the top two individuals who are not part of a qualifying team advance to nationals, along with all individuals who place in the top 5 but aren't on an advancing team. There are also at-large individual qualifiers who will be selected by the NCAA D2 coaches committee.
All at-large teams and individuals will be announced on Monday on ncaa.com.
PAN AM GAMES RECAP
In Santiago, Chile, what initially was a victory for Washington alum Gianna Woodruff (screenshot via panamsportschannel.org) in the women's 400 meter hurdles turned out to be a disqualification on the penultimate day of competition Friday at the Pan American Games at the Coliseo del Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez.
Woodruff started the race well and appeared to lead through the first five hurdles, when she slightly hit one of the hurdles entering the final turn.
Coming off the turn, she hit hurdle number nine, but recovered enough to run to the final hurdle and clear it, and had enough to cross the line first in 56.44, ahead of Marlene Santos of Brazil's 57.18.
In the final results posted, the rule cited for Woodruff's disqualification was 22.6.2, which essentially states that an athlete shall be disqualified, if "they knock down or displace any hurdle by hand, body or the front side of the lead lower limb".
In other action at the Pan Am Games, Olympia native Brooke Feldmeier advanced to Saturday's final in the women's 800 as a time qualifier, placing fourth in her heat in 2:06.37.
Seattle resident and Western Oregon alum Derek Holdsworth was sixth in his heat of the men's 800, running 1:48.41 and did not advance to Saturday's final.
Saturday, Feldmeier runs in the final of the women's 800 at 3pm Pacific/7 pm local time.
Pasco native Marisa Howard runs in the final of the women's 3000 steeplechase 20 minutes later, while Holdsworth in in the pool for Team USA in the men's 4 x 400 relay, which concludes the meet at 3:48 pm Pacific/7:48 pm local time.
The link to live results and the track & field time schedule for the Pan Am Games is available here. A free live stream of the Pan Am Games is available here.
NOTE: The Santiago 2023 LOC, the sports information office of Western Washington, Saint Martin's, Central Washington, and the Great Northwest Athletic Conference contributed to this report.
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