Cougs roll out the red carpet for Friday's NCAA West Regional cross country championships...

The Washington State men's team poses for a photo
in front of the video board. From left: Evan Bruce, Brian 
Barsaiya, Evans Kurui, Kelvin Limo, Ethan Martin,
Jacob Easton & Leo Cook (Paul Merca photo)

COLFAX--Seattle University, Gonzaga, the University of Washington and the host Washington State University Cougars took to the Colfax Golf Club early Thursday afternoon to inspect the course for Friday's NCAA West Regional cross country championships 15 miles north of Pullman.

The top two teams from each of the nine regional meets contested around the country Friday will earn automatic bids into next week’s NCAA championship meet in Verona, Wisconsin (outside of Madison), with the rest of the field filled by at large entries decided by the NCAA committee based on, among other factors, strength of schedule. 

Action in Colfax starts at 11 am with the women's 6k, followed by the men's 10k at noon.

The men’s race includes four conference champions: Cal Baptist in the WAC, Portland in the WCC, and Cal Poly in the Big West. The women’s race incudes three conference champions: Oregon in the Big Ten, Gonzaga in the WCC, and Cal Poly in the Big West.

Number 3 ranked Washington is one of the safest bets to qualify for its 18th straight NCAA championships, despite losing the Big Ten title to Oregon 33-60 in Savoy, Illinois.

Assuming the other eight regional championships play out as ranked by the USTFCCCA coaches in the latest regional polls, the Huskies could get away with finishing as low as fourth or fifth on Friday.

All American Rosina Machu (front/Paul Merca photo) and 21st ranked Gonzaga, should qualify for their second NCAA championship meet in school history, assuming no team in the West region ranked below them with the possible exception of Portland, jumps over them on Friday.

Washington State will have to have the race of their lives in order to qualify for nationals. Anything less than a second place finish at regionals will leave the Cougars on the outside looking in.

Even with front running freshman Zenah Cheptoo leading the way, they will need career best races from everyone not named Zenah Cheptoo to get a spot in the national championships.

After finishing second in the Big Ten behind Wisconsin, the Washington men go into Colfax with a chip on their shoulder, after not qualifying for the NCAA championships for the first time since the 2016 season.

At last year's regionals in Sacramento, 2023 WCC champ Gonzaga finished second, and Portland third, taking out Cal Baptist, which going into the meet, was ranked fifth in the country.

The chaos the Zags and the Pilots created came at the expense of Washington, which finished fifth. 

After Stanford won the meet with 73 points, Gonzaga was second with 98, then Portland was third with 125, the same score as Cal Baptist (Portland won the head to head tiebreaker over CBU 3-2), while Washington scored 129.

The Huskies are currently ranked number 12 in the USTFCCCA national coaches poll.

In addition to the Dawgs at 12, teams from the West region ranked in the national top 30 include number 7 Stanford, number 15 Oregon, number 16 Cal Baptist, and number 25 Portland.

Washington State's Evans Kurui is one of the heavy favorites in the men's race after breaking the 8k course record in September at the Cougar Classic at the Colfax Golf Club set by Oregon's Edward Cheserek in 2015 by 20 seconds.

Besides the five Washington schools, other schools competing are: Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, Cal Poly, Cal State Fullerton, California, CBU, CSUN, Fresno State, Hawaii, Idaho, Long Beach State, Loyola Marymount, Oregon, Oregon State, Pacific, Pepperdine, Portland, Portland State, Sacramento State, San Diego, San Diego State, San Francisco, Santa Clara, St. Mary's, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, UNLV, USC, and Utah Tech.

Unlike the conference meets, where the teams ran up to ten runners, the teams will comprise of seven athletes. 

The link to live results is available here, while the NCAA championship central page for the West Regional race is available here

The announcement of the at-large entries into the national championship meet happens Saturday at 2pm Pacific on ncaa.com.

NOTE: The NCAA, and the sports information offices of Seattle University, Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington, the University of Washington and Washington State University contributed to this report.

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