Both Cougar squads remain in the USTFCCCA top 30 along with UW women heading to nationals...

NEW ORLEANS--With all nine regional championships finished Friday, and the field set for this Saturday's NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Columbia, Missouri, the USTFCCCA released its final Division I regular season coaches' poll Monday morning.

Washington State, which finished third in the competitive West Regional in Sacramento, dropped one spot from the last poll to head into nationals ranked as the nation's number 12 team.

As they have all season long, the Cougars were led by Solomon Kipchoge (#759/Paul Merca photo) and Evans Kurui, who went 1-2 at the regional meet, but were surprised in the team race by Cal Baptist, who finished ahead of WSU by a 95-98 count.

Going into Saturday's national championships, the nation's top five teams are in order: Oklahoma State, Iowa State, New Mexico, Syracuse, and Virginia.

On the women's side, the Cougars dropped one spot to number 25 after finishing fourth at the West Regionals, while Washington, the fifth place team in the meet, dropped to number 27, nine spots from the last coaches' poll two weeks ago. Both teams qualified as at-large selections to nationals based on their performances in the regular season and their conference & regional championship meets.

Of the teams still in the national women's top 30, the Huskies had the biggest slide from the previous poll.

The national top five heading into Saturday's title race are in order: NC State, BYU, Florida, New Mexico, and Notre Dame.

The NCAA Division I cross country championships will be telecast 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 USTFCCCA men's release is available here, while the women's release is available here.

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

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