Dawgs Look To Pass Regional Test

Friday, November 9

Sacramento, CA

11:00 AM

University of Washington

NCAA West Regionals

November 08, 2018 | Cross Country

USTFCCCA Regional Central Meet Notes

By: UW Athletic Communications

NCAA West Regional Championships
Friday, Nov. 9, 2018
Sacramento, Calif. | Haggin Oaks Golf Complex

Women's 6k - 11 a.m.
Men's 10k - 12 p.m.

Flotrack Live Stream | Live Results

SEATTLE - Just two meets remain in the 2018 cross country season, and to get to the second, the Huskies will need to run well first at Friday's NCAA West Regional Championships, hosted by the Sacramento Sports Commission at the Haggin Oaks Golf Complex. A strong run on Friday would qualify the Husky men's and women's squads to the NCAA Championships, just eight days after Regionals on Nov. 17.

Flotrack.org will be live streaming the races for a subscription fee. The women's 6,000-meters will be first at 11 a.m. while the men go up in distance to 10,000-meters and start their race at 12 noon.

Thirty-one teams will be bound for Nationals after Friday's Regional meets, of which there are nine around the country. The top-two teams in each gender at every Regional automatically advance to NCAAs, making for 18 teams auto advancing. The next 13 "at-large" qualifiers will be determined by a process of counting up "points" that teams earned with wins over other NCAA qualifiers throughout the year, with the order of finish at Regionals also playing a large part.

The Husky men's team remains ranked No. 7 in the USTFCCCA national poll, their highest ranking in the history of the poll. Still that is just third in the West Region going into the meet, as Portland ranks fourth and Pac-12 champion Stanford is ranked fifth. Boise State is also ranked ninth and Oregon is 11th, giving the West Region five of the top 11 teams in the country. Three more ranked squads are No. 22 Washington State, No. 24 UCLA, and No. 28 Gonzaga.

The Washington women are No. 17 nationally and the West field will be no less challenging than the men's. The West features No. 2 Oregon and No. 3 Boise State, along with No. 6 Stanford, and close behind the Huskies are No. 19 Portland.

The Husky men's team has finished second at every race this season, so another second-place on Friday would mean an auto bid to NCAAs. Two weeks ago at the Pac-12 Championships, the Huskies had their best team finish in 24 years, taking second behind Stanford, and Talon Hull had the best individual finish in school history, placing second by just .04 seconds. Hull was named All-Pac-12 First Team and Tanner Anderson and Tibebu Proctor were both named Second Team.

Junior Katie Rainsberger led the women's team once again with an 11th-place finish at Pac-12s to earn All-Pac-12 Second Team honors. The Huskies were fourth overall and also had a top-25 finish from Allie Schadler who was 23rd.

Last year at West Regionals, the Husky men used the home course to their advantage and finished second overall. Among returners, Andrew Snyder was ninth, Mahmoud Moussa was 18th, Proctor was 26th and Hull was 31st. Tanner Anderson was sixth racing for Oregon. Two years ago, Fred Huxham had the best individual West Regional finish by a Husky since 1994 as he was third.

Also traveling for the men are Julius Diehr and Gavin Parpart. Seven runners will compete out of the eight Dawgs making the trip.

The women have four entries who would be running Regionals for the first time this week. Those who did race Regionals a year ago are Rainsberger, who was fifth, and Lilli Burdon, who was ninth. Emily Hamlin was 40th last year and Allie Schadler was 66th. The newcomers making the trip are Sarah Carter, Kelly Makin, Shona McCulloch, and Olivia O'Keeffe.