Washington squads, and Gonzaga women officially into next week's NCAA D1 XC championship race...

INDIANAPOLIS--The Washington men's cross country team (Lance Jording photo), which won its second NCAA West Regional championship in program history on Friday, did not have to watch the NCAA selection show Saturday after clinching one of the two automatic qualifying spots in Colfax.

However, the Husky women, who finished third, and the Gonzaga women, who were fourth at regionals, had to sweat it out overnight before the NCAA men's and women's track and field committee officially named them to the 31-team field competing in next Saturday's NCAA Division I cross country championships in Verona, Wisconsin, just outside of Madison.

Despite their third place finish at the West regionals behind Oregon and Stanford, the Huskies, who were ranked third in the latest USTFCCCA national coaches' poll entering the  nine regional meets around the country on Friday, were the first of thirteen at-large teams selected.

Washington's overall resume during the regular season, which included a team victory at the Wisconsin Nuttycombe Invitational, and a second place finish behind Oregon in the Big Ten meet two weeks ago, were more than enough to push them to a berth.

The selection of the Huskies marks their eighteen straight trip to the national championships and 28 in the last 30 years.

Gonzaga, the West Coast Conference champions, earned their second national championship berth in their program history, and first since 2015, when they won the WCC title.

The Bulldogs' regular season resume included an eighth place finish at the Nuttycombe, where all the teams who finished ahead of the Zags earned a spot in the national championships, and a win at the Arturo Barrios Invitational at Texas A&M.

INDIVIDUALS

Washington State's NCAA West Regional champion Evans Kurui and Gonzaga's Wil Smith (Paul Merca photo) were two of the four individual runners from the region not on a qualifying team selected to compete in the national championship race.

Kurui dominated the field, winning Friday's 10k race by 15 seconds in a time of 28:54 after leading by as much as 29 seconds with 2k to go.

Wil Smith will compete in his fourth career NCAA championship cross country race, but will go solo for the first time, as Gonzaga's streak of three straight team appearances was snapped after their sixth place finish Friday.

Smith finished sixth at the regional race, running 29:12, just nosing out Washington's Nathan Green, who was seventh in the same time.

Washington State freshman Zenah Cheptoo, who finished tenth in the women's regional 6k race in 19:47, earned the last of four individual spots into the national championship race.

The NCAA Division I cross country championships will be telecast next Saturday on ESPNU & the ESPN app starting at 6:30 am Pacific. The women’s race will begin at 7:20 a.m. PT, followed by the men’s race at 8:10 a.m. PT. 

The NCAA release is available here. 

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

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