NCAA West Regionals
University of Washington hosted the west regions on Friday at Chambers Bay Creek near Tacoma, WA. Two teams automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships held this Saturday in Stillwater, OK. On the 6K women's course, Stanford had the lead from the beginning with Oregon staying a close second after the 2K mark. At the end Stanford women qualified with 76 points and Oregon finished second with 96 points. The next day on the selection show, Washington, Oregon State and California Baptist received at large bids. Individually, the front pack was large with Oregon State's Kaylee Mitchell in the back of the pack. In the final straight away for the finish, Mitchell of Oregon State pulled away for the win in 19:19.2. Individuals invited to the NCAA Championship include second place finisher Laura Pellicoro of Portland, Yasmin Marghini of Boise State, Ruby Smee of San Francisco and Brianna Weilder of UC Davis.
In the men's race, Stanford was running without one of their stars Cole Sprout, but they were in control at each K mark. At the 4K mark, Gonzaga slipped into the second spot and held it to the end as Stanford and Gonzaga became automatic qualifiers. On the Mt Rushmore of great high school cross country coaches, Pat Tyson is certainly going to up there with his teams at Mead High School. Now Coach Tyson is getting it done at the D1 level with the automatic qualifier. Washington and Oregon received at large bids to race on Saturday. Individuals invited include Vincent Mauri of Arizona State, Jonathan Shields of Boise State, Jake Ritter of Cal Poly and Nicholas Russell of Santa Clara.
Photo gallery for NCAA West Regional Meet is HERE
NXR Boise
Like the NCAA West Regional, two bids are given automatically for the national meet sponsored by Nike. Pre meet predictions had Jesuit and Summit qualifying to NXN and it turned out accurate, except Summit won over Jesuit in a mild upset. Summit scored 58 points led by Barrett Justema and Jesuit finished second with 77 points led by Maura O'Scannlain. Boise finished third with 153 points. Five individuals who received invitations to race at NXN include meet champion Anna Callahan of Skyline (WA), Logan Hofstee of East Valley, Nelah Roberts of Skyline (ID), Emily Wisniewski of Crescent Valley and Keira Saavedra of Lincoln (OR).
Crater made NXN for the first time for a program that is always knocking on the door as a possible NXN contender. They scored 75 points for the win and led by individual champion Tyrone Gorze. Jesuit finished second and punched their ticket to NXN with 101 points and led by Jacob Nenow. Rocky Mountain of Idaho finished a close third with 129 points and hope to get one of the four at large bids that will be announced in two weeks. Bozeman duo of Weston Brown and Nathan Neil finished second and third in the race and received an invitation to NXN. Alexander Garcia-Silver of Marshfield, Zack Munson of Sehome and Samy Anderson of Lincoln also finished as the top five individuals. With the two Jesuit programs, Crater and Summit automatically qualifying for NXN, it was a clean sweep from Oregon schools.
Photo gallery for Girls Championship Race is HERE
Photo gallery of Boys Championship Race is HERE