COSTA MESA -- While it is only the first step towards actually making the NCAA DII Cross Country National Championship, the Vanguard women's team is ready to race tomorrow at the Regional in Monmouth, Oregon.  It is a huge day regardless for the Lions at the Ash Creek Preserve tomorrow, as the squad is the first to have a go at a first NCAA Division II Championship appearance in school history.  The race is at 10:00 a.m., but it will be a stacked field as plenty of the top teams along the West Coast are in the starting box, so nothing is guaranteed.
 
The top two teams are Chico State and Stanislaus, who are ninth and 10th, respectively, in the USTFCCCA rankings, and they were the top two at the CCAA Championships.  Biola checks in at 13th, Western Washington 20th, and Alaska Anchorage in 27th to round out the squads in the national coaches' rankings.  In the west regional rankings, Seattle Pacific follows those teams above in sixth, followed by Simon Fraser, Cal Poly Pomona, Point Loma, and then Vanguard, the first time the team has been in the regional top 10.  The top three teams tomorrow automatically reach the NCAA Championships, though there is lengthy process to determine at-large teams and individuals, which Coach Bryan Wilkins explains in the video above.
 
The Lions sent Kate Baranski, Ella Murray, Madyson Nakamura, Lauren Pahl, Giselle Rubio, Kaitlyn Smith, and Zoe Tavares to the event, Hailey Quiroz serving as an alternate.  Vanguard has never gone over the two-hour mark as a lineup this season and had a program record 1:48:40 at the UCR Highlander Invite as the best 6K time of the year.
 
Murray was second at the Pacific West Conference Championships, netting a First Team All-Conference laurel with that finish.  Murray finished in the top 10 in four of her five races this season and had an additional top five placement at the TMU Mustang Challenge (fifth).  Murray had a best overall time of 18:09.6 at the VU Invite, as every Lion did, and her best 6K time was 21:26.2, which came at the UCR Highlander when the lineup reset the Vanguard team record.   Baranski missed one race this season but had two top 10s and almost had a third with their 11th-place showing at the Pomona-Pitzer Invite.  Her VU Invite time was a tick over 18 minutes flat (18:00.2) and her fastest 6K time was 21:28.4 at the UCR event.  If she had shaved off seven seconds at the PP Invite, she would have had every race under 22 minutes this season.  With a seventh-place finish at the PacWest Championships, Baranski was a First Team All-PacWest honoree with Murray.
 
Pahl was a Third Team All-PacWest runner with a 21st-place finish, and the Minnesota native has thrived in Southern California.  She placed third at the PP Invite, her best placing all season, and was never outside of the top 25 in any race.  She had an 18:51.2 at the Vanguard Invite and a 21:09.3 at the UCR race as her top times this fall.  Nakamura was 40th at the PacWest title competition, recorded an overall-best time of 18:20.7 at the Vanguard Invite, and had a top 6K time of 22:13.3 at the Highlander race.  Her best placement at a 6K distance was 23rd at the PP Invite.
 
Rubio opened the season with an 18:29 in ninth at the Vanguard Invite and had a best 6K mark of 22:36.5 at the UCR clash, though she had her placement classification at a 6K event at the PacWest championships (36th).  Smith was 10th at the VU season opener with an 18:31.5.  Her Highlander result of 22:21.9 was her best 6K time, and she finished 35th at the PP Invite for her best 6K placement.  Tavares was under 24 minutes all season and had an 18:55.1 at the Vanguard race and a 22:33.7 at the Highlander contest.  Her best result at a 6K distance was 25th at the TMU Mustang Challenge.  While Quiroz is an alternate, she had her best 6K time at the UCR battle (23:02.7), while her 18:29 and ninth-place finish at the Vanguard 5K were the best overall marks of her season.
 
Get up and be ready for the mid-morning start time, and you can find the live results here.  It is looking like it will be a shade under 50 degrees Saturday morning, though no rain is set in the current forecast, making it a solid day to run if you can stay warm in the buildup to the start gun.
 
Best of wishes to the runners of VU women's cross country, and any qualifiers will be announced as soon as they are known!