Huskies Ready For NCAA Championships Challenge

2024 NCAA Cross Country Championships

Saturday, Nov. 23

Madison, Wisc. | Thomas Zimmer Championship Course

The NCAA Championships are this Saturday as Washington Cross Country returns to its home away from home, the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Madison, Wisconsin. Ready to run the course for the third time this fall, Saturday will be the one that settles the score for 2024.
 
Both the Husky men’s and women’s teams have made it to NCAAs, the seventh time in the past eight years that both squads are among the final 31 teams standing on the NCAA starting line. Washington is one of just sixteen programs to qualify both teams.
 
The meet will be broadcast and streamed on ESPNU/ESPN+ starting early Saturday morning for fans in Seattle. The women’s 6,000-meter race goes off at 7:20 a.m. Pacific, then the men’s 10,000-meters starts at 8:10 a.m. PT.
 
The UW women come into the meet ranked No. 6 nationally, and have two excellent runs over the Zimmer course to draw confidence from. The women won the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational to start the season at the end of September, then finished second at Pre-Nationals in mid-October. The women then took second-place at the first Big Ten Championships and third at NCAA West Regionals last weekend to reach nationals for the 18^th year in a row.
 
The women have finished in the top-25 in all previous 17 appearances in this current streak. During Head Coach Maurica Powell‘s previous six NCAA appearances leading the Dawgs, they have finished 17^th or better every time, with top-10 finishes last season (8^th) and in 2018 (9^th).
 
The top-five scorers for the women at NCAAs last year are all back again on Saturday. Last year, Chloe Foerster led the team in 47^th-place, followed by Sophie O’Sullivan (56^th), Julia David-Smith (58^th), Ella Borsheim (119^th), and India Weir (140^th). They’ll be joined by Maeve Stiles who has led the Dawgs twice this season, at the Wisconsin Invite and West Regionals, and also Amina Maatoug, who has earned All-America honors in the past at NCAA XC.
 
The 12th-ranked men’s team is coming off its first West Regional team title since 2015, and just its second in program history, returning to NCAAs for the sixth time in seven years after just missing the cut last…