Huskies Seek Big Finish At NCAA Championships
November 20, 2015 | Cross Country
NCAA Championships
Saturday, Nov. 21
Louisville, Ky. - E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park
Live Results | Live Video
Women's 6k - 9 am PT
Men's 10k - 10 am PT
SEATTLE - Two races will settle things this Saturday afternoon in Kentucky, and both Washington cross country squads will be in the thick of the pack. The 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships will take place in Louisville at E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park, with 31 men's teams and 31 women's teams jockeying for spots on the podium and All-America honors. The Huskies are one of 17 programs to qualify both squads to the championships, and both teams will be looking to run into the top-10 when all is said and done.
The women's 6,000-meter championship will be up first at 12 noon Eastern time, 9 a.m. Pacific. The men's 10,000-meter finals will go off at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. The races will be streamed live online at NCAA.com.
This is the 22nd NCAA appearance for the Washington women, the ninth in a row, and the 17th in the past 19 years, those 19 seasons coinciding with the tenure of Head Coach Greg Metcalf. The men are making their 13th all-time appearance, and seventh under Metcalf, who was named West Region Men's Coach of the Year for the first time this week.
The Dawgs bring a mixture of veteran experience and youth on both sides. Senior All-Americans Maddie Meyers and Tyler King are joined by senior standouts Izaic Yorks and Eleanor Fulton running their final cross country races on Saturday. But among the Huskies expected to compete, all the rest are sophomores, redshirt freshmen, or true freshmen, with the exception of junior Kaylee Flanagan. Senior Jenna Sanders is also on the trip as an alternate as well.
Washington has been flirting with the top-10 of the USTFCCCA Rankings all season. The women were as high as No. 10 in one poll, and head into the meet ranked No. 12 after a third-place finish at West Regionals and a fourth-place finish at Pac-12s. The Husky men, meanwhile, are at a season-high No. 11, going into NCAAs with the momentum boost of their victory at last week's West Regional Championships. That win raised the Huskies from 17th prior to Regionals to 11th this week.
Running in the wet and wind last Friday at Seattle's own Jefferson Park Golf Course, the UW men's team made history with its first ever West Regional title. The men had not finished higher than fourth in the always loaded West since 1994. The Huskies put their top-five scorers up in the front early and they stayed there throughout. Senior Tyler King had his best race of the season and one of the best of his career as he led UW in fifth-place. Sophomore Andrew Gardner had his own breakthrough, running 10th, with sophomore Colby Gilbert and senior Izaic Yorks taking 12th and 14th. Sophomore Fred Huxham rounded out the scoring in 22nd-place. All five Dawgs earned All-West Region honors.
While he was UW's fourth man at Regionals, Yorks had led the Huskies in the previous four races, and will try to earn his first All-America honor in cross country. Yorks made another bit of history for the UW men this season, as his third-place finish at the Pac-12 Championships was the best individual finish ever for a Husky.
Sophomore Johnathan Stevens and redshirt freshman Mahmoud Moussa should round out UW's top-seven, with freshman Charlie Barringer as an alternate.
Meyers has led the Huskies for 11 races in a row dating back to the first race of the 2014 season. She earned a second-straight All-Pac-12 First Team honor this year, placing third at the Pac-12 meet, and followed that up with a third-place finish at Regionals, both career-highs. The Seattle native will now be looking to better last year's 27th-place run at Nationals.
Behind Meyers, the Huskies have come through in various combinations, but always with a consistently strong top-five. Sophomore Anna Maxwell was the second Husky across at Pac-12s in 16th-place, but at Regionals, sophomore Katie Knight had her beset showing of the year, taking 10th. Freshman Charlotte Prouse has had a big impact all season, as the Canadian product was 17th at Pac-12s and 14th at Regionals to earn All-West Region honors with Meyers and Knight. Flanagan and Fulton have quietly helped the Huskies reach this point, as Flanagan had a solid 33rd-place finish at Regionals, and Fulton was 50th despite losing a shoe at Regionals, and also placed 34th at Pac-12s. Freshman Emily Hamlin will likely be the seventh Husky on the line, as the Idaho product has enjoyed a very consistent first year.
Last season in Terre Haute, the Husky men finished 20th in their first trip as a team to NCAAs in five years. Aaron Nelson placed 21st, and King was 40th, giving UW its first All-America men's duo in school history. Yorks (159th), Gilbert (195th), and Huxham (216th) all ran at NCAAs last year. Meyers led the women to a 23rd-place finish, and Maxwell (124th) and Flanagan (203rd) are back for second appearances, while Fulton (186th in 2014) is making her third. Knight makes her second appearance, as she was 128th as a freshman before redshirting last year.
Players Mentioned
