NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) announced its regional rankings on Monday and the USF women's cross country team was included in the West Region's top 10.
San Francisco women's team is ranked ninth in the West Region with fellow West Coast Conference programs Loyola Marymount and Portland coming in at 10th and 12th, respectively. Pac-10 Conference teams hold the top six spots in the West Region with Washington ranked No. 1, followed by Oregon, Stanford, Arizona, Arizona State and California.
The NCAA Regional Championships will take place on November 13 at nine sites. Click
here to find a complete listing. The top two teams in each region earn automatic berths to the national NCAA Championships and will be joined by 13 at-large squads – a format that has been in place since 1998. The NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships will be held on Monday, November 22 in Terre Haute, Ind.
The Mountain region had three of its men's teams finish in the top 10 at the NCAA Championships last fall as Northern Arizona claimed fourth, Colorado sixth, and New Mexico eighth. While BYU won the region last year, the Cougars sit fourth in the preseason rankings, behind the Lumberjacks, Buffaloes, and Lobos. Oklahoma State, the defending national champion men's team is No. 1 in the Midwest region with Oklahoma and Iowa State rounding out the top three.
On the women's side, the Mid-Atlantic region witnessed three from the region notch top-10 national finishes a year ago, including national champion Villanova. The Wildcats enter the year as the top-ranked team in the region. Princeton, who was fifth at the national meet last fall, is second in the region with Georgetown, West Virginia, and Penn State – all NCAA qualifying teams a year ago – composing the rest of the top five. The Mountaineers was the nation's sixth-place finishing team in 2009.
Eleven men's squads from the Big 12 Conference made the regional top 15 in their respective regions while the ACC, Big East, and Big Ten placed nine in the lists. On the women's side, all 12 members of the Big 12 were mentioned in the preseason regional rankings. The Big Ten notched all of 11 of their members in the listing, the ACC also had 11 and the Big East claimed ten spots.
The top 30 teams in the national cross country coaches' poll in Division I will be released on Tuesday. The next regional rankings will be released on September 13.
