MALIBU, Calif. — This Friday, the Pepperdine cross country team will head to Colfax, Wash. for one final guaranteed race: the NCAA West Regionals.
The women's 6-kilometer race at the Colfax Golf Club starts at 11 a.m. PT, then the men's 10K follows at noon. All pertinent links can be found on the cross country team's schedule page on pepperdinewaves.com.
The top two teams from each region will qualify for the 2024 NCAA Cross Country Championships, held in Verona, Wisc. on Nov. 23. Additionally, the first four regional finishers not from an automatic qualifying or an at-large team will go to nationals. Pepperdine has never competed at the Division I cross country championships.
THE SEASON SO FAR
Both the men's and women's teams aim to finish the season on a high note after their results at the West Coast Conference Championships two weeks ago. While the teams saw improvements from the WCC Preview Meet, the rest of the conference improved dramatically, overshadowing the progress Pepperdine made. With every WCC team set to compete at the West Regionals, Friday will give the Waves a chance to knock off some teams that finished ahead of them at conference.
Each squad will bring eight runners apiece. Coming off a seventh-place finish at WCCs, the men's team will race a 10K for the first time all season this Friday. This jump in distance will benefit runners like Patrick Thomas, who ran the program's 10th fastest 10K time of 31:38.0 at last year's West Regional race. Thomas is coming off his best 8K race of the year at WCCs, where he and Gordy Nilsen ran together from wire-to-wire and finished less than a second apart. Nilsen was Pepperdine's top finisher in the Waves' last four races heading into WCCs.
The men's team returns four runners from last year's regional team: Thomas, Nilsen, Dominic Silhol and Elias Spence. As a true freshman last year, Silhol ran the 18th fastest 10K time in program history with his time of 32:23.7, while Spence ranks 19th all-time with the 32:26.3 he ran as a sophomore in 2022.
Johnathan Flint was Pepperdine's last top 100 finisher at the West Regionals race; he placed 95th while running the program's sixth-fastest 10K time of 31:16.2. The men's team's best regional finish under head coach Lauren Floris is 24th, which the Waves achieved in 2021 and 2023.
As for the women, Lizzy Crawford looks to continue her stellar sophomore year, which has included three top-20 finishes and her collegiate-best 5K time of 18 minutes flat. Her streak of 10 consecutive races as Pepperdine's top finisher is the third-longest streak in program history. While fellow scoring runners Eden Mittelsdorf and Caroline Graham have run lifetime bests over the last month of this season, fellow upperclasswoman Ashley Eagan has lowered her 6K personal best in back-to-back races. The junior was the only Wave to PR outright at WCCs.
Crawford and Graham are the lone returners from last year's regionals squad. The women's team's best finish under current Floris is 33rd, which happened in 2021 and 2022. Katie Engel was the Waves' last finisher in the top 100; she placed 61st as a senior at the 2015 NCAA West Regionals.
Last year the Pepperdine men placed 24th and the women placed 35th at the West Regional race. Although the men ran three new top-20 10K times at the course in Sacramento, Calif., conditions will not be as favorable in Colfax. Friday's high of 42 degrees will be the coldest weather the Waves have experienced all season.
THE FIELD
Historically, the West Region sent four men's and women's teams to NCAAs last year. Not surprisingly, all of those teams are poised to make a return trip this year.
Former Pac-12 schools Stanford, Washington and Oregon have the strongest men's and women's squads in the field. But the #16 CBU men, plus both WCC Championship teams will give the mid-majors solid representations as all squads aim to solidify their postseason berths. Thanks to their showings at the WCC Championships two weeks ago, the Portland men rose three spots to #25 in the latest USTFCCCA rankings, while the Gonzaga women checked in at #21 in the polls.
Even if the Gonzaga women and Portland fail to make NCAAs, the conference will make strong cases for at-large runners at the West Regionals. Washington State newcomers Evans Kurui and Zenah Cheptoo; Portland's duo of Fleur Templier and Laura Pellicoro; and Gonzaga All-American Wil Smith will be strong candidates for the West Region's individual bids.
WCC teams have won the West Regional five times, with the most recent being the Portland men's team's title in 2019.
