Championship Saturday beckons for Washington State, Washington & Western Washington squads...
The collegiate cross country season races to the finish line Saturday as the NCAA Division I championships are contested in Columbia, Missouri, while the Division II championship competitors will race in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
DIVISION I PREVIEW...
The women's championship race will go off at 7:20 a.m. Pacific time, locally in Missouri at 9:20 a.m. ESPNU will broadcast the meet live from the Gans Creek Cross Country Course, with coverage starting at 7 am.. This is the first time that Missouri has hosted the NCAA D1 Cross Country Championships (they hosted the D2 championships in 2023).
Both Washington State and Washington have teams entered in the race, with both the Cougars and Huskies earning at-large berths thanks to their fourth and fifth place finishes at the NCAA West Regionals last week in Sacramento.
Going into the national championships, the Cougars, who are in the meet for the first time since 1985 when they tied for seventh, are ranked number 25 in the latest USTFCCCA D1 women's national poll, while the Huskies are ranked number 27.
Under head coach Maurica Powell, now in her eighth season leading UW, the Huskies have never finished outside the top-20 at NCAAs. Powell has led the Huskies to top-10 finishes in 2018 (9th) and 2023 (8th). UW could look to the 2021 season for inspiration. That year they were ranked 23rd going into NCAAs but finished 11th-place on the day.
Washington will run without Julia David-Smith, the World University Games 5000 meter champion. There was hope that she would have been ready to race at the regionals, but that didn't materialize. UW will go with the same seven that they ran at regionals, led by Mia Cochran, along with Abby DeVeau, Chloe Foerster, Maeve Stiles, Jenica Swartz, Samantha Tran and Josephine Welin.
The Cougars, who won the West Coast Conference championship meet three weeks ago, are on a bit of a roll, led by freshman Rosemary Longisa (Paul Merca photo), who won both the WCC and the NCAA West Regional races.
They'll also have in their arsenal Zenah Cheptoo, who ran at nationals last year as an individual. They'll run the same personnel as in Sacramento, including Caroline Jepkorir, Nicole Bissell, Kylah Madariaga, Aleeya Cossey, and Kaleena Narus.
While Washington has run a 1-5 split under 55 seconds in all four significant meets (Loyola, Nuttycombe, Big Ten, and NCAA regionals), the Cougars have not broke 1:30 in any of their meets this season.
We did an in-depth analysis of both the WSU women's and men's teams here, which shows what they need to do, particularly on the women's side, in order to finish in the top half of the 32-team field.
There are three women with Washington ties competing at the national championships.
Logan Hofstee and Jessica Frydenlund of Gonzaga will race as individual competitors.
Hofstee finished seventh at regionals, while Frydenlund was 13th in Sacramento.
Victoria Rodriguez, who competed for Mercer Island HS last season, was part of Wake Forest's team that finished fifth at the Southeast Regionals in Earlysville, Virginia. She was 92nd at their regionals last week.
MEN'S D1 PREVIEW...
Like their counterparts on the women's side, the Washington State men have been on a roll after winning the West Coast Conference championship, then finishing an oh-so-close third at the regionals behind winner Oregon and runner-up Cal Baptist.
Solomon Kipchoge (Paul Merca photo), the Texas Tech transfer, has kick started the Cougars, winning all but three races this season (Alumni Open, Cougar Classic, and Nuttycombe). Kipchoge is considered by a number of national websites and publications as one of the favorites along with New Mexico's Habtom Samuel, and Oklahoma State's Brian Musau to contend for the individual title.
Like the women, Evans Kurui, the All-American, gives the Cougars a solid 1-2 punch. At last year's championship race, Kurui actually held the lead at the 3k mark, before fading to 36th. At last week's regionals, he started off in 117th place at the mile, before working his way to a second place finish.
The Cougars' biggest bugaboo this season has been with their 3 through 5 runners, who haven't been able to close the gap behind Kurui. They've run 1-5 splits of 2:07, 2:13, 1:26, 1:13, and 1:24 at the Cougar Classic, Gans Creek, Nuttycombe, WCCs, and NCAA West Regionals.
The Washington State men have closed the gap from their number 3 to their number 5 runner, going from 47 seconds at Nuttycombe to 10 seconds at the WCC championships. At the West Regionals, where the race distance increased from 8k to 10k, the gap from their third through fifth runner was 17 seconds.
If the Cougars can somehow get their 1-5 split under a minute, they can have a realistic shot at a top ten team finish, assuming Kipchoge and Kurui are front-running and can finish in the top ten to fifteen.
Yakima native Jonas Price from the University of Portland is the one individual with Washington ties competing in the meet.
Price, who began his collegiate career at Oklahoma State before transferring to Portland, was fifth at the West Regionals in Sacramento. Price will make his second appearance at the NCAA cross country championships, with his previous appearance coming at the spring 2021 championships, where he finished 186th.
The men's race begins at 8:10 am (10:10 am local time), with ESPNU televising the meet and streaming on the ESPN app.
DIVISION II PREVIEW...
The women’s 6k championship race begins at 8 am Pacific/10 a.m. local time with the men’s 10k championship race following at 9:15 am Pacific/11:15 a.m. local time.
WWU’s men’s squad has been led this season by all-conference performers Sten Brakstad (photo courtesy WWU Athletics), Jonah Billings, Jared Alderfer and George Fernandez. Brakstad was the conference runner-up with an 8k time of 24:18, before running a personal-best 10k time of 30:23 minutes to earn all-region honors with a 17th-place finish at the regional meet.
Billings finished in the top-10 in both meets, taking fourth at the GNAC Championships in 24:27 and following with an eighth-place regional finish in 29:52.
Alderfer also contributed to both WWU’s league title and regional runner-up finish, taking ninth at the conference meet in 24:40 and 13th at the regional championship in 30:12.
Fernandez was another all-region performer for the Vikings, placing 23rd in 30:28 after taking tenth at the conference meet in 24:41.
On the women’s side, the Vikings are in their third consecutive national championship meet and are coming off an 11th-place finish last fall. Overall this will be the 12th national championship team appearance for the WWU women, with their best-ever finish being sixth place in 2015.
Ella Edens was the team’s top performer at regionals in 21:06 for 16th place, after she picked up her second all-conference honor by placing fifth at the GNAC Championships in 21:36. She is the lone returner to the WWU lineup who competed at last year’s national championship, where she placed 114th.
Right behind Edens at regionals was Jill Philbin, who finished 17th with a time of 21:06. GNAC runner-up Alexis Parker was another all-region performer last week, finishing in 23rd with a time of 21:16.
Seniors Emmy Kroontje and Laura Halsell are two other experienced runners for the Vikings. Kroontje was 12th at the conference meet and 62nd at regionals.
Halsell had a similarly strong fall, placing 11th at the GNAC Championships and 51st at the regional meet. WSU transfer Sabrina Colbert earned GNAC Newcomer of the Year honors with a conference finish of 26th, and followed up by placing 35th at regionals.
GNAC champion Maya Ewing of Seattle Pacific is the one individual with Washington ties competing in the meet. She makes her national championship debut after placing eighth at the regional championships in Monmouth two weeks ago. It will mark the second straight year with a Falcon competing at the national meet, after 2024 senior Annika Esvelt finished in fourth place.
The event will be streamed live on ncaa.com with live results available online here.
O'TOOLE SIGNS WITH ATLANTA TC ELITE...
University of Washington alum Justin O'Toole (Paul Merca photo), who represented Canada at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September, will compete as a professional for the Atlanta Track Club Elite, according to a release from the team.
O'Toole comes to Atlanta with an 800m personal best of 1:44.42, set this past August in Pfungstadt, Germany. He finished second at the Canadian championships in the 800 behind 2023 world champion Marco Arop.
During his one season at Washington, O'Toole, who came to the Huskies as a grad transfer from Columbia University, advanced to the finals at the NCAA indoor championships in the 800, where he finished sixth. He set school records for the outdoor 800m (1:44.42) and indoor 600m (1:16.12).
O'Toole is the third Washington alum on the Atlanta TC Elite, joining Luke Houser and Aidan Ryan.
"I chose Atlanta Track Club Elite for the people," O'Toole said in a release from the team. "The organization has taken great care to build the team around people with strong values and clear vision. I knew my aspirations and well-being would be in good hands in Atlanta. I'm looking forward to helping the track club build a legacy of success on the highest level of the sport. The team has had strong results in the past few years and I believe we can break through to another level."
NOTE: The NCAA, the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and the sports information offices of Gonzaga, Western Washington, Seattle Pacific, University of Washington and Washington State, contributed to this report.
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