The WSU men and women’s cross country teams will travel to Long Beach, Calif., to compete in the Pac-10 Championships on Friday at the Skylinks Golf Course.

This year’s race is hosted by USC. The men’s 8,000m race will begin at 3 p.m., while the women’s 6,000m race will begin at 4 p.m.

The No. 26 ranked men’s team will race against No. 2 Oregon, No. 13 Washington and No. 16 Arizona State. The women’s team will face No. 1 Washington, No. 8 Oregon, No. 12 Stanford and No. 17 Arizona.

The Cougar men, coming off a seventh place finish at the ISU Pre-Nationals Meet, will send nine runners to the meet. Seniors Sam Ahlbeck, Mark Moeller and Dominic Smargiassi will lead the Cougars into this meet along with juniors David Hickerson and Dan Geib. Sophomores Justin Englund, Peter Miller and Jono Lafler and freshman Andrew Kimpel round out the runners representing WSU.

Lafler is coming off a successful Pre-Nationals meet where he took 40th overall.

“As long as we are close to Arizona State or Washington, it will almost guarantee us a spot to nationals, hopefully,” Lafler said. “Nothing is guaranteed, so we’re not going to let up at all. We have to push forward.” Lafler said the team has been preparing hard all season, and this race is no different “We have done all the work that we have been doing all summer and all fall, and nothing really changes,” Lafler said. “It’s just another race to us, basically. We want to place top three.” The WSU women will send seven runners to the meet, including seniors Lisa Egami, Marisa Sandoval and Chelsea VanDeBrake, juniors Amanda Andrews and Ashlee Wall, sophomore Emily Farrar and freshman Caroline Austin.

The women’s team is coming off of a 28th place finish in the Pre-Nationals meet, and Farrar said the team will look to build off the experience gained at this race and work toward the future.

“Each race is about gaining experience,” Farrar said. “You take the good parts from the last race, and leave the bad parts, and keep going and keep competing.” Farrar said the team is looking for a strong finish in this race to energize them for regionals.

“This race would set us up nicely for regionals. And give us some confidence going into regionals. And show that our hard work has paid off. And we’re going to race well,” Farrar said.

Last year, the men’s team finished in sixth at the Pac-10 Championships, while the women took fifth.

The men’s team is ranked No. 6 in West Region in the latest Division I Cross Country Regional Rankings, as well as tied with Duke for 26th in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association National Rankings. This marks the first time a Cougar team has been ranked nationally in the past six years.

After the Pac-10 Championships, the Cougars will have two weeks to train before traveling to Springfield, Ore., for the NCAA West Regional Championships on Nov. 14.