NCAA West Regionals
Mustangs Travel to Pacific Northwest for NCAA West Regionals
11/9/2022 10:00:00 AM | Cross Country
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Less than two weeks removed from its sixth Big West title sweep in program history, Cal Poly cross country heads to the Pacific Northwest on Friday to compete in the NCAA West Regionals hosted by Washington.
Action from Chambers Creek Regional Park starts at 10 a.m. Friday with the women's 6K, followed by the men's 10K at 11 a.m. You can follow the live results here.
This marks the first time the West Regional meet is being held at this course. It's also just the second meet UW has hosted at Chambers Creek, the first being the Pac-12 Championships in the spring of 2021.
Team and individual berths to the NCAA Championships will be up for grabs as the top two teams in each of the nine regionals across the country automatically qualify for the NCAA Finals. The rest of the 31-team fields on the men's and women's sides are chosen by an NCAA subcommittee. Performances at regionals play a pivotal role in the selection of the 13 at-large teams, making the third- and fourth-place finishers at each regional the most likely at-large candidates.
Individually, the top four finishers in each regional who do not belong to an automatic qualifier or an at-large team will automatically advance to the NCAA Finals provided they finish in the top 25 in their respective regional. Those 36 individual automatic qualifiers will be joined by two at-large selections for a grand total of 38.
The Mustangs are fresh off a stellar showing at The Big West Championships that saw the men cruise to their 18th title in program history and the women earn their eighth, edging out UC Irvine by just 1 point in the closest finish in conference history.
The Cal Poly men, who are seeking their first team bid to the NCAA Championships since 2011, will encounter six teams ranked inside the top 30 in the latest USTFCCCA National Coaches' Poll at regionals — No. 1 Stanford, No. 14 Washington, No. 18 Oregon, No. 24 Portland, No. 25 Cal Baptist and No. 26 Gonzaga.
The Mustangs are currently No. 7 in the West Region rankings and received votes in the latest USTFCCCA national poll for the third straight time. In the Week 4 poll on Oct. 4, Cal Poly garnered votes nationally for the first time since 2013.
Seven men will hit the course for the Mustangs Friday — John Bennett, Will Fallini-Haas, Anthony Guerra, Aidan McCarthy, Jake Ritter, Xian Shively and Spencer Thurman.
Ritter, the Big West Men's Athlete of the Year, has had an historic final season for the Mustangs after medically redshirting last year due to injury. On Oct. 29, he became the first athlete to claim three Big West individual cross country titles (2018, 2019 and 2022), running the 8K at UC Riverside's Ag/Ops Course in a conference meet record time of 23:27.4. Ritter is also the fourth athlete in program history to capture multiple Big West Men's Athlete of the Year awards.
Ritter is hoping to add another milestone to his record-breaking career Friday as he seeks his first NCAA Championship berth. Ritter's best performance at regionals came in 2019 when he placed 29th with a personal-best 10K time of 30:18.7.
Fallini-Haas, McCarthy, Guerra and Bennett also earned All-Big West honors at the conference championships, placing second, third, sixth and 10th respectively to help Cal Poly finish with 22 team points — the best mark by the men's conference champion since 2016. It's the second straight season Fallini-Haas and Guerra have grabbed all-conference praise.
Last year, the Cal Poly men captured 15th at the West Regionals and Stanford swept the team titles. Guerra, Shively, Fallini-Haas, McCarthy and Thurman all competed in the 2021 regional meet. Guerra paced the Mustangs with a 61st-place finish.
Underrated and overlooked all season, the Cal Poly women's team shocked the rest of the conference in Riverside when they raised The Big West trophy for the first time since 2018. In the final 1K of the race, multiple runners picked up valuable team points for the Mustangs to allow them to surge past their conference foes.
Riding that momentum, the women will look to improve on last year's 14th-place finish at regionals Friday in Washington with Carissa Buchholz, Tatiana Cornejo, Misty Diaz, Julia Heckey, Amanda Olla, Sydnie Rivas and Nina St. John all set to compete for the Mustangs.
Heckey, a sophomore, is coming off a stellar showing at the conference meet, placing third overall with a personal-best 6K time of 19:50.2 to secure All-Big West accolades. She was Cal Poly's second finisher at the 2021 West Regional, grabbing 59th as a true freshman. Rivas and Diaz also raced in last year's regional and this will be Diaz's third appearance at the meet.
Outside of Heckey, four other Mustangs placed inside the top 20 at The Big West Championships — Rivas 12th, Cornejo 14th, Diaz 15th and Buchholz 19th. Cornejo has impressed all season long and was named Big West Women's Freshman of the Year last week.
Cal Poly, 13th in the West Region rankings, will battle four nationally ranked teams at regionals — No. 10 Oregon, No. 11 Stanford, No. 14 Cal Baptist and No. 16 Washington.
The NCAA Championship meet is set for Saturday, Nov. 19, at Oklahoma State's Cross Country Course.
