Friday, November 10
Seattle, WA
10:30 AM
University of Washington
vs
NCAA West Regionals
Stellar Run By Men For Runner-Up At Regionals
November 10, 2017 | Cross Country
SEATTLE – The NCAA Regional Championships are often about "survive and advance" but the Husky men's cross country team thrived and advanced today on home turf at Jefferson Park Golf Course. The 20th-ranked UW men upset a couple top-10 teams and just missed out on a team title by two points, but the Huskies were thrilled with a second-place finish which means an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships in eight days.
Washington's 16th-ranked women's cross country team had more survival to its day, as the Huskies got another tremendous run from Amy-Eloise Neale, finishing third overall, but the Huskies placed sixth in the final standings and will have to wait to receive an at-large bid to NCAAs, although unofficial projections have UW in the field.
Should the women make the cut as expected, it will be the third time in four years that both Husky distance squads will be on the starting line at the NCAA Championships, which will take place next Saturday, Nov. 18, in Louisville, Ky. The official NCAA field announcement is scheduled for 12 noon Pacific this Sunday.
The last time NCAA West Regionals were held on the Jefferson Park course in 2015, the Husky men powered through the rain and mud to a surprise victory, their first in school history. Today, the sun was out and the course was in great shape, but the men nearly had a surprise repeat victory as UW put four in the top-20 and its full seven in the top-31 in a race that had 205 finishers.
Sixth-ranked Portland just held off the Huskies, scoring 63 points to UW's 65. Fourth-ranked Stanford, the Pac-12 Champion, was twenty points back in third with 85, 13th-ranked Oregon was fourth with 149, and 10th-ranked UCLA finished fifth with 164 out of thirty scoring teams.
The men went out very aggressively in the first 10,000-meter run of the season. Andy Snyder, Colby Gilbert, and Mahmoud Moussa were in the top-10 from the get-go and Andrew Gardner was close behind. It was Portland and Washington with big separation from the rest of the field for largely the entire race, and the Huskies closed the gap late, briefly taking a lead at the 7k split, but the Pilots ended up with three of the top-four finishers to get the slim victory.
Gilbert and Gardner closed the best for the Huskies, with Gilbert running to a fifth-place finish in 29:43 and Gardner right behind in seventh in the same time, both running their final home cross country races. Snyder, already one of the biggest surprises to this point of the season, had his most impressive run yet as he was ninth in 29:45. Last year Snyder was 174th in his first Regionals in 33:52.
Moussa backed up his great run at Pac-12s two weeks ago with another big effort, taking 18th in 29:53. Those top four Dawgs all earned All-West Region honors for placing in the top-25. Freshman Tibebu Proctor just missed that honor himself by one spot, and one second, as he was 26th in 30:02, but that was still a big step forward for the Seattle product in his first college 10k.
Senior Johnathan Stevens and freshman Talon Hull finished 30th and 31st, respectively, and would have been in the top-five for every other team in the field except the Pilots and Cardinal. Stevens improved 23 spots on his Regionals finish from a year ago, and Hull was the No. 4 freshman finisher overall with his time of 30:11.
The one to five gap for UW from Gilbert to Proctor was just 19 seconds and from one to seven was just 28 seconds, which had Head Coach Greg Metcalf impressed with the group effort.
"We have interchangeable parts, and they do it in training all the time," he said. "They think, 'Hey, we can go do this together.' We walked away from the Pac-12 Championships excited about what this group is capable of doing. This was a relatively safe environment for us, at home, our guys love this course, there's lots of people out here yelling at them, but it was a fantastic effort and probably the best effort from one to seven that I think we've ever had at Regionals.
"I think we walk away from today excited and fired up for the next one."
San Francisco, out of the West Coast Conference and ranked fourth in the nation, got the women's team win today with 59 points, followed by seventh-ranked Stanford with 76 points to get the second auto bid. Proving just how tough the West Region is, third-ranked Oregon the defending NCAA Champions were third today with 92 points followed by 10th-ranked Boise State with 104, 26th-ranked California with 183, and the Huskies with 202 points, crucially finishing one point ahead of seventh-place Arizona.
"The women will get in, and they'll get a chance to run at the NCAA Championships and that's nothing to take for granted," said Metcalf. "Amy-Eloise delivered today like she always does. Nikki and Kaitlyn both fell down at the start of the race, and Izzi was just okay today. Anna Maxwell was stuck in the back but then came on really strong late and I thought Emily Hamlin had a solid effort as well as Allie Schadler battling hard late in the race."
Neale came in as the defending champion but stayed in a chase pack when San Francisco's Charlotte Taylor and Boise State's Allie Ostrander went out hard together and opened up a big lead on the field. Taylor would go on to win in 19:14 for 6,000-meters with Ostrander two seconds behind. Neale would emerge from the chase pack and was the only runner to cut into the gap of the leaders, as she crossed in 19:25 for third-place.
Hamlin wasn't part of UW's Regional roster a year ago but made a big difference today with a 40th-place finish in 20:38 as Washington's second finisher. Izzi Batt-Doyle came in 44th in 20:44 and Anna Maxwell was 49th in 20:50. Freshman Allie Schadler capped the Husky scoring with a 66th-place finish in 21:02. Nikki Zielinski and Kaitlyn Neal suffered falls near the start and had tough days, as Zielinski was 79th overall and Neal battled to finish 135th.
"The most important thing is getting to Louisville and it wasn't pretty, but they got it done," said Metcalf.
Washington's 16th-ranked women's cross country team had more survival to its day, as the Huskies got another tremendous run from Amy-Eloise Neale, finishing third overall, but the Huskies placed sixth in the final standings and will have to wait to receive an at-large bid to NCAAs, although unofficial projections have UW in the field.
Should the women make the cut as expected, it will be the third time in four years that both Husky distance squads will be on the starting line at the NCAA Championships, which will take place next Saturday, Nov. 18, in Louisville, Ky. The official NCAA field announcement is scheduled for 12 noon Pacific this Sunday.
The last time NCAA West Regionals were held on the Jefferson Park course in 2015, the Husky men powered through the rain and mud to a surprise victory, their first in school history. Today, the sun was out and the course was in great shape, but the men nearly had a surprise repeat victory as UW put four in the top-20 and its full seven in the top-31 in a race that had 205 finishers.
Four Dawgs on the men's podium today! pic.twitter.com/V7dguvIp3k
— UW Track (@UWTrack) November 10, 2017
Sixth-ranked Portland just held off the Huskies, scoring 63 points to UW's 65. Fourth-ranked Stanford, the Pac-12 Champion, was twenty points back in third with 85, 13th-ranked Oregon was fourth with 149, and 10th-ranked UCLA finished fifth with 164 out of thirty scoring teams.
The men went out very aggressively in the first 10,000-meter run of the season. Andy Snyder, Colby Gilbert, and Mahmoud Moussa were in the top-10 from the get-go and Andrew Gardner was close behind. It was Portland and Washington with big separation from the rest of the field for largely the entire race, and the Huskies closed the gap late, briefly taking a lead at the 7k split, but the Pilots ended up with three of the top-four finishers to get the slim victory.
Gilbert and Gardner closed the best for the Huskies, with Gilbert running to a fifth-place finish in 29:43 and Gardner right behind in seventh in the same time, both running their final home cross country races. Snyder, already one of the biggest surprises to this point of the season, had his most impressive run yet as he was ninth in 29:45. Last year Snyder was 174th in his first Regionals in 33:52.
Moussa backed up his great run at Pac-12s two weeks ago with another big effort, taking 18th in 29:53. Those top four Dawgs all earned All-West Region honors for placing in the top-25. Freshman Tibebu Proctor just missed that honor himself by one spot, and one second, as he was 26th in 30:02, but that was still a big step forward for the Seattle product in his first college 10k.
Senior Johnathan Stevens and freshman Talon Hull finished 30th and 31st, respectively, and would have been in the top-five for every other team in the field except the Pilots and Cardinal. Stevens improved 23 spots on his Regionals finish from a year ago, and Hull was the No. 4 freshman finisher overall with his time of 30:11.
The one to five gap for UW from Gilbert to Proctor was just 19 seconds and from one to seven was just 28 seconds, which had Head Coach Greg Metcalf impressed with the group effort.
"We have interchangeable parts, and they do it in training all the time," he said. "They think, 'Hey, we can go do this together.' We walked away from the Pac-12 Championships excited about what this group is capable of doing. This was a relatively safe environment for us, at home, our guys love this course, there's lots of people out here yelling at them, but it was a fantastic effort and probably the best effort from one to seven that I think we've ever had at Regionals.
"I think we walk away from today excited and fired up for the next one."
San Francisco, out of the West Coast Conference and ranked fourth in the nation, got the women's team win today with 59 points, followed by seventh-ranked Stanford with 76 points to get the second auto bid. Proving just how tough the West Region is, third-ranked Oregon the defending NCAA Champions were third today with 92 points followed by 10th-ranked Boise State with 104, 26th-ranked California with 183, and the Huskies with 202 points, crucially finishing one point ahead of seventh-place Arizona.
"The women will get in, and they'll get a chance to run at the NCAA Championships and that's nothing to take for granted," said Metcalf. "Amy-Eloise delivered today like she always does. Nikki and Kaitlyn both fell down at the start of the race, and Izzi was just okay today. Anna Maxwell was stuck in the back but then came on really strong late and I thought Emily Hamlin had a solid effort as well as Allie Schadler battling hard late in the race."
Neale came in as the defending champion but stayed in a chase pack when San Francisco's Charlotte Taylor and Boise State's Allie Ostrander went out hard together and opened up a big lead on the field. Taylor would go on to win in 19:14 for 6,000-meters with Ostrander two seconds behind. Neale would emerge from the chase pack and was the only runner to cut into the gap of the leaders, as she crossed in 19:25 for third-place.
Hamlin wasn't part of UW's Regional roster a year ago but made a big difference today with a 40th-place finish in 20:38 as Washington's second finisher. Izzi Batt-Doyle came in 44th in 20:44 and Anna Maxwell was 49th in 20:50. Freshman Allie Schadler capped the Husky scoring with a 66th-place finish in 21:02. Nikki Zielinski and Kaitlyn Neal suffered falls near the start and had tough days, as Zielinski was 79th overall and Neal battled to finish 135th.
"The most important thing is getting to Louisville and it wasn't pretty, but they got it done," said Metcalf.
Players Mentioned
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