SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – For the first time since 2015, Gonzaga women's cross country earned a team bid into the NCAA Cross Country Championships, which will be held on Saturday, Nov. 23, at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis. The championships will be broadcast on ESPNU and ESPN+ beginning at 6:30 a.m. PT. 
 
The women's 6K race will start at 7:20 a.m. PT, and the men’s 10K race will begin at 8:20 a.m. PT. Click here for live results. 
 
Six WCC teams will be represented at the national championships with three men's runners qualifying as individuals and two women's runners. The men's runners are Evans Kurui (Washington State), Matt Strangio (Portland) and Wil Smith (Gonzaga). Smith will compete in his fifth NCAA Championships. Strangio will compete in his second consecutive national championship meet. The women's individual qualifiers are Zenah Cheptoo (Washington State) and Laura Pellicoro (Portland). Pellicoro will compete in her third consecutive NCAA Cross Country Championship. She earned All-America honors with a 25th place finish at the 2022 NCAA Championships. 

The Gonzaga women's team finished fourth at the NCAA Regionals, led by two-time WCC Individual Champion Rosina Machu's fourth-place finish. The 134 team points were the second lowest in program history. The Bulldogs carried their momentum from winning the WCC Championships into the regionals. 

After winning WCC Freshman of the Year honors with her top-three finish at the Conference championships, Cheptoo finished 10th in the regionals. Pellicoro came in eighth (19:42.5), helping the Pilots finish fifth as a team at the regionals. 

On the men's side, Kurui heads to the national championships after winning both the WCC Men's Individual title and coming in first at the NCAA Regionals by 15 seconds. The WCC Freshman of the Year led for the entire race with no close margins. Finishing second after Kuri was another WCC runner, Portland's Strangio. The Pilot clocked in at 29:08.4 to advance to the national championships.  Smith finished sixth at the regionals, clocking in at 29:11.9.