Can both Western Washington cross country teams make it five straight GNAC titles?

Thanks to the NCAA Division II Fall Sports Festival, which groups all of the sports with fall championships in one metropolitan area (in 2026, it's the Kansas City area), the Great Northwest Athletic Conference cross country championship meet is two weeks later than usual.

This year's championship meet is set for Saturday at Ash Creek Preserve in Monmouth, Oregon, hosted by Western Oregon University. The men's 8k gets the meet started at 10 am, with the women's 6k following 45 minutes later.

The big story surrounding the meet is whether or not both Western Washington squads can win their fifth straight cross country team titles.

Should the Western women win on Saturday, they will tie Alaska Anchorage for the most consecutive team titles with five, a streak that UAA accomplished from 2009-13.

The men on the other hand, have a ways to go to threaten the GNAC record of seven straight team titles won by Alaska Anchorage from 2010-16.

MEN'S PREVIEW...

As we said in our analysis of the state's four Division II teams, if any team in the GNAC wants to take the conference championship, you must go through Western Washington.

Up front, the Vikings, who had Jared Alderfer and George Fernandez (Paul Merca photo) leading the way at the Lewis Crossover, where they finished fourth and eleventh last month, are expected to get another weapon in their arsenal.

Jonah Billings, who was fourth at the GNACs last year, is expected to make his 2026 season debut at the conference championships.

Assuming the Vikings put at least all of their five scoring runners inside the top ten, they should easily win yet another conference championship.

On the men's side, for either Central Washington, Seattle Pacific or Saint Martin's to place someone inside the top 20 is at best, a reach.

WOMEN'S PREVIEW...

The women's team race is on paper, a bit of a tossup between Western Washington and Central Washington.

Western Washington has the better depth than Central with their fourth through their tenth runners (teams can run up to ten runners at the conference championship).

As we said in our analysis, Central has a better trio of runners than Western with Maddy Harrison, Payton Conover (Paul Merca photo), and Dawn Hulstedt than Western, whose front runner Ella Edens, has clearly been the best runner in the conference so far this season.

For Central to win the team title, they must have their fourth through sixth runners: Hannah Pidduck, Katie Manly, and Julie Johnson run even with Western's fourth through sixth runners. 

The Wildcats cannot have a 1-5 split over two minutes as they did at the Lewis Crossover. In an ideal world, a 1-5 split of 1:15 or less, which they ran at the Pat Tyson Invitational (1:14 1-5) gives Central a fighting chance to dethrone Western.

Anna Prussian, who was ninth last year at the conference meet, and Alexa Gossett, who placed 21st, return for Seattle Pacific, but the Falcons don't have much depth.

Saint Martin's is in a worse predicament.

The link to live results is available here.

NOTE: The GNAC and the sports information offices of Western Washington, Central Washington, Seattle Pacific and Saint Martin's  contributed to this report.

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