Women Take Third, Men Fifth At West Regionals

Complete Results

The Husky women’s cross country team successfully navigated its way through the NCAA West Regional field to all but secure a 17th consecutive trip to the national championships this morning as the Dawgs finished third overall. The Husky men gave their all and wound up fifth, just a couple points out of third.
 
The official selections for the NCAA Championships will be announced on Saturday, Nov. 11, at 2 p.m. Pacific in a selection show on NCAA.com. Only the top-two teams in each region automatically advance, so the Huskies will have to wait until Saturday. Thirty-one women’s teams and thirty-one men’s teams will move on to Charlottesville, Va. in just eight days for the national championships on Nov. 18.
 
Unofficially, the women are projected to make the field while projections are putting the men just outside the cut, but nothing will be set in stone until Saturday.
 
Women’s Race

 
The Huskies knew a top-three finish should easily qualify them for nationals and the team put itself in that spot early, sitting second to Stanford after the first mile of the race. At the end of the 6k, the Huskies had the first four women within 20 seconds of each other, all in the top-25. Tori Herman came across as the fifth Dawg in 40th-place to cap the scoring.
 
Chloe Foerster led UW today placing 13thi n 19:47. Sophie O’Sullivan was 17th in 19:59, then India Weir was 20th in 20:02. Julia David-Smith was 25th in 20:07. Herman crossed in 20:31. Ella Borsheim improved 19 spots over the final split to finish 60th, and Naomi Smith was the No. 7 Husky in 80th in 20:54.
 
7th-ranked Stanford got the win with 77 points, and 12th-ranked Oregon finished just ahead of the 8th-ranked Huskies with 109 points compared to 115 for the Dawgs. No. 21 Cal Baptist was fourth with 126 and Gonzaga rounded out the top-five with 173.
 
“Today was going to be a grind for a number of reasons, so I’m grateful and happy that we were able to get the job done and set ourselves up to take a big swing next weekend,” said Pac-12 Coach of the Year Maurica Powell. “We have eight days now to get everyone feeling as close to 100-percent as we can. I’m pleased with our toughness and how we played the cards we had today.”
 
All-West Region honors go out to top-25 finishers, so UW’s top-four all earned that honor.
 
Men’s Race

The men went out aggressively together…