COLUMBIA, Mo.- Gonzaga Men's Cross Country will be racing in the Gans Creek Classic on Saturday, taking on the biggest national event of the season.
The Zags will be running against 19 ranked teams when they compete in the Gold Championship Invitational. The incredibly deep field features both the defending national champions and the top ranked team in the country, with BYU and Iowa State each respectively representing the top end of the field. The 17 other ranked teams include teams from each official USTFCCCA region as the entire cross country world converges on Missouri for the largest of the year thus far.
The meet will host five teams that are ranked in the top 10 in the USTFCCA polls, as Virginia, Wake Forest and Stanford will all travel to the meet as well. Stanford is currently the top ranked team in the West region. The Zags sit in sixth in the region. Gonzaga men's cross country has received votes in the national coaches poll thus far, and the Zags have a chance to make an impact and move further up the polls if they are able to knock off ranked teams on Saturday.
The 2025 NCAA Cross Country Championships will be run at the Gans Creek Cross Country Course, giving teams a change to get a look at the course this weekend before they hope to return there in late November. The route back for the Zags runs through Sacramento, where the NCAA West Championships are scheduled to be run on November 14th.
The Gans Creek Classic will be broadcast on SEC Network+, which is available to stream in the ESPN app. The men's Gold Invitational is slated to take place at 9:45 a.m Central Time.
The Zags will return to Washington next week when the men's cross country team runs at Walla Walla on October 4th, while the women's team will be running at the Lakefront Invitational in Chicago on the 3rd.
Full list of teams racing in the Gold Invitational (USTFCCA Week 1 Rankings in order)
Iowa State (1), BYU (4- Defending National Champions), Virginia (6), Stanford (7), Wake Forest (9), Alabama (11), Syracuse (12), Colorado (13), NAU (14), Butler (15), Eastern Kentucky (17), Washington State (18), Princeton (20), Tulane (23), Air Force (24), Ole Miss (25), Michigan State (27), Furman (28), Tulsa (29), Michigan (Received Votes), Gonzaga (RV), Weber State (RV), Iona (RV), Portland (RV), Tennessee (RV), Duke, Florida, Furman, Lipscomb, Navy, Texas Tech, Tulane
