BERKELEY – The California men's and women's cross country teams will commence their postseason campaigns Friday at the Pac-12 Championships following a strong three-meet regular season this fall. This year's conference championships will be held in University Place, Washington at Chambers Creek Regional Park. The men's 8,000-meter race will begin at 10 a.m. PST with the women's 6,000-meter competition to follow at 11 a.m. Both races will be broadcasted live on the Pac-12 Network and live results will be made available here.
 
Cal is expected to return all of its top runners to the course this weekend, looking to build upon the Golden Bears' successful regular-season campaign. The men's team boasts a 10th-place regional ranking while the women's team holds a No. 14 ranking in the Western region, according to the latest USTFCCCA poll.
 
The Bears enter the postseason following one of their best outings in recent program history at the Bronco Invite on Oct. 14. Thirteen of the 18 Cal student-athletes who competed set personal records, lifting the men's team to a second-place finish – which was just three points behind a nationally ranked Cal Poly squad – and the women's team to third-place overall.
 
Last time out on the men's side, Cal's top six scorers raced collegiate personal-bests. Carrick Denker, Garrett MacQuiddy and Caden Carney all locked in top-10 overall marks and John Sesteaga and Justin Pretre rounded out Cal's first five scorers. All five student-athletes finished the course in under 24 minutes, helping the squad achieve an impressive 23:48.36 team average.
 
On the women's side, Claire Yerby and Amelia Wardle-Stacey were in lockstep taking eighth and ninth place overall with personal record times of 20:09.5 and 20:09.9, respectively. Sage Holter and Addie Johnson clinched the third and fourth scoring positions for Cal with their best collegiate times, and Anastasia Snodgrass, Sophie Tau and Sydney Morrow also added to the tally of personal record-setting at the competition.
 
At last year's Pac-12 Championships, the Cal men took home a ninth-place team finish while the women's team took 10th place. Returner Gabriel Abbes was the first to cross the line for the Bears on the men's side, taking 56th place overall and Yerby notched 69th place overall for the women's top scoring position.
 
This year, the Bears will once again face a tough field of conference competitors, including eight nationally ranked teams. The men will face a pair of ranked programs in No. 9 Colorado and No. 25 Stanford while the women will take on six ranked teams – No. 5 Stanford, No. 9 Oregon State, No. 14 Oregon, No. 19 Washington, No. 20 Colorado and No. 21 Utah. Stanford will look to defend its men's title and the Utah women will defend theirs.
 
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