Men?s XC Team Earns At-Large Bid into NCAA Champs

Photo by: Washington State Athletics

November 14, 2015 | Cross Country

By: Washington State Athletics

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Washington State men's cross country team, under the direction of second-year coach Wayne Phipps, earned an at-large bid to compete at the NCAA Championships, the NCAA announced Saturday. The Cougars, coming off a fourth-place NCAA West Regionals finish, were one of 13 men's teams nationally to receive the at-large bid. The NCAA Cross Country Championships are Saturday, Nov. 21, at the E.P. “Tom” Sawyer Park in Louisville, Ky.

WSU's John Whelan and Michael Williams led the youthful and unranked Cougars to the upset team finish Friday at Jefferson Park Golf Course in Seattle. Whelan, a junior from Etna, Calif., was the runner-up on the 10,000m course in a time of 30 minutes, 54.9 seconds. Williams, a sophomore from Richland, Wash., finished third in a time of 31:05.4. The other WSU men scoring at the Regional were Sam Levora (sophomore, Sandpoint, Idaho) 32nd, Nathan Tadesse (freshman, Surrey, British Columbia) 37th, and Chandler Teigen (freshman, Anatone, Wash.) 51st. A pair of freshmen rounded out the WSU team with Jake Finney (Post Falls, Idaho) 95th, and Nathan Wadhwani (Maple Ridge, British Columbia) 107th.

Whelan and Williams were accorded NCAA All-Region honors Friday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). A total of 450 student-athletes (225 men and 225 women) earned the distinction by finishing among the top 25 individual finishers at one of the nine regional sites across the country.

The Washington and Stanford men's teams automatically advanced to the NCAA Cross Country Championships with their first and second-place West Regional finishes. Pac-12 and defending national champions, Colorado, won the Mountain Regional and advanced to the national meet. The other men's teams joining WSU in receiving at-large berths includes: Boise State, Brigham Young, California, Eastern Kentucky, Furman, North Carolina State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Southern Utah, Tulsa, UCLA, and Virginia Tech. There are seven Pac-12 men's teams competing at the NCAA Championships this year.

This is the 13th appearance for the WSU men's team at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. The last time a WSU men's team competed was in 2011, when the unranked Cougars, under the direction of coach Pete Julian, finished fourth at the NCAA West Regionals at Stanford and went on to place 21st at the NCAA Championships, the best finish since the 1998 men's team, led by Bernard Lagat, placed 18th.

The University of Louisville will host the championships, Saturday, November 21, at Tom Sawyer State Park located in Louisville, Kentucky. The women's race will begin at noon Eastern Time, followed by the men's race at approximately 1 p.m. ET. A live webcast of the championships will be broadcast from Noon ET until the conclusion of the awards ceremony, Saturday, November 21, on NCAA.com.