Road to Kenosha & NCAA D2 XC champs begins Saturday in Monmouth...
While it's most likely the final race of the 2025 cross country season for Central Washington, Saint Martin's and the Seattle Pacific men's teams, Saturday's NCAA Division II West Regionals in Monmouth, Oregon at Ash Creek Preserve on the campus of Western Oregon University is where both Western Washington squads hope to secure their places to the NCAA championships in Kenosha, Wisconsin on November 22nd.
The women's 6k get the racing started at 10 am, and concludes with the men's 10k at 11:15 am.
While the women stay at the same racing distance as they have over the regular season, the men jump up in distance 2k from the regular season max distance of 8k.
As has been the case over the last four seasons, Western Washington's men's and women's cross country teams head into Monmouth with a target on their back, as the four-time Great Northwest Athletic Conference team champions are ranked number 13 (men) and number 20 (women) in the latest USTFCCCA Division II national coaches' poll.
In the West regional poll, the Viking men were bumped down to number 2, while the women stand at number 4 going into regionals.
Thanks to a surprising second place finish at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference meet two weeks ago, the Seattle Pacific women are ranked sixth in the West region, and could be in the mix to qualify for nationals.
A top three team finish in this meet and the other seven regionals contested around the country will assure teams of a trip to the national championships in Kenosha. A complicated formula determines the remaining ten at-large berths for nationals (34 total teams; top three from each of the eight regional meets nationally are the auto qualifiers).
The top two finishers not on a qualifying team advance to the nationals, as well as any individuals who finish in the top five that aren't on a qualifying team.
In 2024, both Viking squads qualified for nationals marking the tenth time since joining the NCAA in 1998 that both the WWU men's and women's cross country teams have qualified for nationals. The WWU women have made eleven trips to NCAA nationals and the Viking men have appeared at nationals fourteen times in program history.
At last year's regionals in Billings, Montana, the Western men were second behind Chico State, while the women's team took the victory. Seattle Pacific finished tenth at regionals.
Seattle Pacific's Maya Ewing (photo courtesy GNAC), who won the conference championship two weeks ago, looks to qualify for her first NCAA cross country championship. As a team, the Falcons look to upset the form chart and possibly sneak into nationals with either a top three finish, or as one of the ten at-large teams.
Other than at the Mike Johnson Classic in Monmouth in late September, where Chico State won the meet, the Falcons did not race against any nationally ranked teams until the GNACs two weeks ago, which could come back to haunt them if they run strong Saturday but fall short of the top three in the eyes of the NCAA Division II selection committee.
No matter how you slice it, those runners behind Ewing will have to run better than what they ran at the conference championships where their 1-5 split was 1:42.
Western Washington will have to contend with Chico State, Stanislaus State, and Biola of California for one of the three spots out of the West region, along with Alaska Anchorage, Seattle Pacific, and Simon Fraser.
The Vikings did see both Chico State and Biola at the Lewis Crossover in Illinois last month. Chico won the team title, with Biola third and Western Washington sixth.
At the GNACs, Western, led by second place finisher Alexis Parker, turned in their best effort of the season, running an outstanding 1-5 split of 20 seconds.
In the men's team race, Chico State is looking to avenge a fourth place finish at the Lewis Crossover behind Western Washington's third place finish.
At the Lewis Crossover, Chico's Mario Giannini, who later won his conference championship, finished third in 23:52, 29 seconds ahead of Western Washington's top runner Sten Brakstad, who was tenth.
The Vikings ran a 1-5 split of 50 seconds at Lewis, and improved to 31 seconds at the GNAC championship meet.
At the CCCA Conference championship meet two weeks ago, Chico State escaped with a 6-point win over Cal Poly Pomona, 30-36, as each school placed four in the top ten.
In the eyes of the national voters, that was enough to put Chico State ahead of Western Washington in both the West regional and national coaches' polls.
NOTE: The Great Northwest Athletic Conference, and the sports information offices of Western Oregon, Western Washington, and Seattle Pacific contributed to this report.
paulmerca.blogspot.com may receive a commission for any purchases made from links clicked. Please support this site and our sponsors by clicking on the links. You can also support the site by clicking the yellow "Buy Me A Coffee" link below.
Comments