Heavy rains hit Sacramento's Haggin Oaks course in advance of Friday's NCAA D1 West Regionals...

SACRAMENTO--On a very un-California like morning and afternoon, all five Washington schools inspected what they could of the Haggin Oaks Golf Course, site of Friday's NCAA Division I West Regional cross country championships.

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 Columbia, Missouri, with the rest of the field filled by at large entries decided by the NCAA committee based on, among other factors, strength of schedule. 

The women's 6k race starts the day at 9 am, with the men's 10k going at 10 am.

Washington and SeattleU (Paul Merca photo) were among the first teams to inspect the Haggin Oaks Golf Course, when the skies began to dump heavy rain onto the course. They and several other teams throughout the morning and early afternoon started running to either side of the course, to avoid making the center of the course muddy for Friday's race.

Later in the day, Eastern Washington, Gonzaga and Washington State were out on the course, and those teams cut part of their normal pre-race routines in deference to the worsening weather conditions.

Friday's forecast is for mostly cloudy skies during the race, with temperatures approaching 60 degrees by the time the men's 10k starts at 10 am.

The bigger concern is whether or not the course can sufficiently drain enough water off. There were parts of the course, particularly in the last 150 meters of the race that had standing water.

The Oregon women are the top-ranked team in either race on Friday. The Ducks are fourth in the USTFCCCA poll and had a dominant showing at the Big Ten Championships where they totaled just 19 points. Stanford ranks second in the west and is 14th nationally while Washington (18th), WCC champion Washington State (24th) and Gonzaga (28th) complete the teams currently in the top 30 from the West Region. 

Four men's teams which will run at the meet are currently ranked among the top 30 in the country in the latest USTFCCCA poll. The group is led by Oregon which is seventh nationally and is also coming off a team title at the Big Ten Championships. West Coast Conference champ Washington State is 11th nationally while WAC champion California Baptist is 17th in the national poll. Boise State is ranked number 29 nationally.

In the women's race, Oregon and Stanford are the two projected automatic qualifiers, with Washington, Washington State and Gonzaga projected to finish 3-4-5. Assuming the teams finish in that order, those five are projected to advance to the national championships on November 22nd.

Washington is expected to get back World University Games 5000m champ Julia David-Smith for Friday's race. David-Smith hasn't raced since the SeattleU dual meet on September 2nd.

UPDATE (4:30 am): Washington will not run with Julia David-Smith, according to the UW release sent late Thursday. She was on the entry list posted earlier in the week.

Washington State's Rosemary Longisa, the West Coast Conference champ, is one of the favorites alongside Oregon's duo of Diana Cherotich and Juliet Cherubet, who went 1-2 in the Big Tens two weeks ago. Last year's West regional champ Amy Bunnage of Stanford, who has not raced so far this season, is entered, and could make the individual race interesting.

Oregon and Washington State are the two projected men's auto Q's coming out of the West, with Cal Baptist, Boise State and possibly Stanford getting bids assuming they finish in that order.

The only scenarios for either Washington or Gonzaga to make it to nationals is quite simply a top two finish Friday. Both the Huskies and the Zags would have to run over their heads Friday, a task, that in the case of Washington, may not be realistic, as both Evan Jenkins and Tyrone Gorze are redshirting. 

The Cougars will have in their arsenal defending NCAA West Region champ Evans Kurui, and reigning West Coast Conference champ Solomon Kipchoge. Others to watch include Oregon's Abdel Laadjel, the Big Ten champ, Leo Young of Stanford, and Cal Baptist's Valentin Soca, who started his cross country season late after competing in the finals of the 5000 at the world championships in Tokyo.

Besides the five Washington schools, Arizona, Boise State, Cal Poly, Cal State Fullerton, California, CBU, CSUN, Fresno State (w), Grand Canyon (m), Hawaii (w), Idaho, Long Beach State, Loyola Marymount (w), Oregon, Oregon State (w), Pacific (w), Pepperdine, Portland, Portland State, Sacramento State (w), Saint Mary's, San Diego, San Diego State (w), San Francisco, Santa Clara, Stanford, UC Davis, UC Irvine (w), UC Riverside (w), UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, UNLV (w), Utah Tech, and USC (w) are entered.

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. There is no live stream available.

After the nine regional races are completed Friday, the NCAA Division I cross country committee will meet to determine the at-large teams and individuals selected to compete at the national championships. The committee will make the announcement Saturday.

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

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