All eight Washington schools set to compete at Spokane Invitational Saturday...

Assuming the four schools based in Western Washington: the University of Washington, Seattle Pacific, Saint Martin's, and Western Washington University (Seattle University is not sponsoring indoor track) can navigate through Interstate 90, all eight Washington teams are expected to have a presence and compete in Saturday's Spokane Invitational at The Podium.

Due to the heavy rains and flooding that have hit the state of Washington, certain parts of Interstate 90, particularly west of Ellensburg, were closed Thursday afternoon. 

Here's a live link to current traffic status across I-90.

All four West side teams were expected to either take vans or buses to get to Spokane on Friday afternoon for Saturday's meet.

The four Eastside schools: Central Washington, Eastern Washington, Gonzaga and Washington State, should have no problems getting to The Podium as of this writing. In fact, the Gonzaga campus is about a mile east of the venue.

With all of the schools finishing up finals this week, this meet will be a test of how their fall training has gone, and what they need to build upon when the season resumes for most of the schools the second full week of January either at the Spokane Sports Showcase/Indoor Challenge or the UW Preview in Seattle.

There's no shortage of stars projected to compete Saturday.

Gonzaga's Rosina Machu (Paul Merca photo), who broke her own school record last Saturday at 5000 meters, when she ran 15:21.19, well under her previous best of 15:37.05, is entered in the 3000. 

Machu, who was out of cross country eligibility this fall, has not raced much this fall. She also holds the Gonzaga school record at that distance at 9:10.87. She went through 3000 in Boston at 9:13.82, less than three seconds off her school record.

While it's not expected that Hana and Amanda Moll, who tied for sixth at the World Championships in Tokyo will compete Saturday, the Washington pole vault crew will be out in force. 

They'll be led by Penn transfer Jimmy Rhoads, who finished sixth at last year's NCAA outdoor meet. He'll go against UW alum Mathis Bresko.

Jonathan Frazier of the Dawgs, who was a Pac-12 scorer two seasons ago, is entered in the 60 hurdles.

NCAA D2 champion Emy Ntekpere of Central Washington is projected to compete in several events Saturday, including the triple jump and the 60 hurdles.

Washington State will have a small presence at the meet, as none of the athletes who ran in Boston will compete.

Media partner RunnerSpace.com ($) will live stream the meet starting at 9:45 am, fifteen minutes before the first running even, while field event videos will be available on demand.

The link to live results is available here.

NOTE: Spokane Sports and the sports information offices of Washington, Western Washington, Seattle Pacific, Saint Martin's, Central Washington, Eastern Washington, Gonzaga, and Washington State contributed to this report.

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