Washington junior cross country runner Amy-Eloise Neale won the NCAA West Regional championship Friday afternoon in Sacramento, Calif., and the UW women finished second to secure an automatic bid to nationals.
The Washington men’s team finished 10th but junior Fred Huxham was third overall and should advance to NCAAs as an individual.
Stanford took the women’s title. The Huskies had the lead at the first two splits, but at the third split UW had fallen back to fourth place.
Neale ran the 6,000 meters in 19:27.8 and won by more than 12 seconds. She is the third Husky to win the women’s regional title and the first to win the Pac-12 championship and regionals back-to-back.