SPOKANE, Wash. – The Gonzaga women's and men's cross country programs head to the Cougar Classic in Colfax, Wash. The Zags will get tested against stellar competition at the Colfax Golf Course Friday.
 
The Bulldogs will line up against six Div. I team, plus an NAIA power, this week. The hosts, Washington State, enters ranked No. 13 in the men's national poll and fourth in the West Region. The GU men are ninth in the region, while Idaho is 14^th, and both will be chasing the Cougars in the race. Pepperdine, Eastern Washington and Portland State join the field as well.
 
The course was the host of the 2015 Pac-12 Cross Country Championships and will be the site of the 2019 NCAA West Region Cross Country Championships. The runners will circle a 2,000-meter loop four times on the men's side, and three times in the women's race.
 
The Idaho women enter the race ranked 12^th in the region, climbing two spots after placing first at the Clash of the Inland Northwest on Aug. 31.
 
Gonzaga once again opened its season at the Clash of the Inland Northwest. The annual meet was held on the University of Idaho's Golf Course. The Zags' James Mwaura opened his collegiate career with a dominating first place finish in the men's race. He cruised to the win over the 6,000-meter course with a time of 17:04.8. The Tacoma, Wash. native led the GU men to a first place finish. Seven Zags placed in the top-eight.
 
The Gonzaga women made their debut under new head coach Jake Stewart. The Zags placed third as a team, led by Aimee Piercy's sixth-place finish on the 4K course.
 
"Another exciting opportunity for our program to continue to grow," Stewart said. "We've really had a good couple weeks of work coming out of our first meet at Idaho. I'm confident we can take a step forward in our racing as well. We've got a handful of athletes making their seasonal debut; I'm excited to see Lauren Bourgeois, Kelly Gilbert, Katherine Gustafson, Amanda Kiefer and Jordan McPhee get their season going. We also have some athletes coming back from Idaho with an opportunity to continue to develop their racing habits, working on different areas we can improve upon.
 
"This will be our first race of the fall at 6k, and this is a great course to get experience on. I think we've done a good job developing some momentum in the group the last couple weeks, our goal is to have that carry over to our race on Friday before we head into the heart of our competitive season coming up at the end of the month."
 
The Gonzaga men will take 22 runners to Colfax. Director of GU Cross Country Pat Tyson believes the men's team is the deepest in program history.
 
"This should be a really fun 8K tempo for us," Tyson said. "It is still early in the season. To put it in perspective, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, and Washington are all at preseason camps, as their schools' academic calendar doesn't start for two more weeks. Thus, we are training through and building that nice base. Still, we have so much respect for the WSU Cougars. When you are ranked deep in the top 25 nationally, that is a pretty cool thing. Obviously that is the direction we want to be heading.
 
"This will be chapter two in our 2018 cross country season journey. Our goal is to continue to show some early season competitiveness that we can continue to grow with and peak perfectly for West Coast Conference Championships in six weeks. I know this for a fact, GUXC is all about the team. These guys are a 'Band of Brothers' tied together knowing when they lineup, this is not about the individual. They all run for each other."
 
The men's 8K race begins at 5:15 p.m., followed by the women's 6K race at 6 p.m. Results will be available on GoZags.com after the event.