By Citius Mag Staff
October 22, 2025
By Jasmine Fehr & Audrey Allen
It’s an interesting time in the NCAA cross country calendar. It’s not early in the season by any means, but some athletes are just opening up. It’s not championship season, and yet the NCAA Championship is only a month away. Right now, everyone is just trying to make it through in one piece, keep their cards close to their chest, but still somehow show everyone they’re not to be trifled with.
These themes manifested themselves on Columbia, Missouri’s premier cross country course for Pre-Nats, and at the “post-nats” grass of Madison, Wisconsin, for Nuttycombe. But the dominant storyline this week is one of the most highly anticipated debuts in NCAA cross country history.
BYU’s star freshman Jane Hedengren finally raced in a Cougar kit at Pre-Nats, and the high school phenom—who shattered three national records last track season—made her college debut in spectacular fashion. She ran 18:42.3 to win by 23 seconds and set a massive course record. With a performance like that, the question now becomes: can she win the NCAA Championship as a true freshman?!
It’s more than possible, but to do so, she’ll have to face and beat world-class competition. Defending champion Doris Lemngole and runner-up Pamela Kosgei are back, along with five more top ten finishers from last year: Hilda Olemomoi (3rd), Amy Bunnage (4th), Grace Hartman (5th), Paityn Noe (7th), and Hannah Gapes (8th). Bunnage and Noe have yet to open their seasons, but other experienced runners across the NCAA are ready to step into top-10 territory if there’s an opening.
So how do you make your individual title predictions? Do you bet on experience, on talent, or on momentum?
Lemngole and Kosgei have proven time and again that they belong at the top. In addition to their first and second place finishes at last year’s cross country championship, Lemngole won the NCAA steeplechase title (in a barrier-breaking collegiate record, of course) and Kosgei won both the 5000m and 10,000m. Someone like NC State’s Hartman has both experience and momentum on her side too, after winning the Nuttycombe Invite in 19:30.1. She was followed closely by her teammate (and World Championship finalist) Angelina Napoleon in 19:34.6, who could be another favorite for the individual title.
But even without NCAA championship experience (or global experience like Lemngole and Napoleon possess), Hedengren has made it clear that she’s in the title conversation. Let’s not forget that, before she even got to college, she ran 4:23.50 for one mile and 14:57.93 for 5000m, which would rank her #2 and #6 on the NCAA all-time lists had she run them a few months later. Kosgei and Lemngole both have 5000m PBs of 14:52, so it’s not like Hedengren was way behind them even before this latest performance.
After a summer of uninterrupted training, she may be fresher and more finely tuned for November than those who extended their track seasons into September. And let’s not downplay the dominance she displayed at her first-ever college race! Winning Pre-Nats by 23 seconds against some of the best runners in the country isn’t something you can just shrug off.
She also has one of the best support systems in the country. Being coached by Diljeet Taylor and training alongside her BYU teammates, Hedengren is in an environment built for sustainable success and peaking at the right time. Aside from a 14th place team finish in 2023, Taylor’s squads are known for stepping up when it matters most. Only one true freshman has ever won the NCAA cross country title on the women’s side: NC State’s Suzie Tuffey in 1985. Jane Hedengren might just be the second. We’ll find out in about a month!
But Hedegren wasn’t the only runner to make a statement this weekend, and the championship picture is taking clearer shape, as more harriers started firing on all cylinders and geared up for a run at a conference title.
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It’s raining cats and dogs, just not at the same meet: The growing storyline between No. 1 BYU and No. 2 NC State women’s squads can’t get much better than this. You might be inclined to think the defending champs are miles ahead of their next challenger, especially after a weekend where BYU placed all their scorers and a plus-one inside the top 10, their seventh in 18th, their ninth in 23rd, and 12 inside the top 100. (Plus, they still haven’t raced Jenna Hutchins, a 15:16 5000m girlie and 10,000m All-American two seasons ago.) But a 25-point win at Pre-Nats might not be worth as much as a 41-point win for NC State at a more competitive Nuttycombe in Wisconsin. With 18 of 30 ranked teams racing: Grace Hartman and Angelina Napoleon marked themselves as reliable ultra-low sticks, and ninth-placer Bethany Michalak has clearly leveled up since a 160th-place finish at NCAAs last year, running under 20 minutes. Given that the two are in different conferences and different regions, we won’t see the head-to-head we’ve been waiting for until NCAAs. The Cougars’ depth sure seems untouchable, and they have more room for people to have bad days or injuries. But if the Wolfpack can land two or more runners in the single digits in late November, it could be an epic battle.
And the solo breakout award goes to… Florida’s Kelvin Cheruiyot or Notre Dame’s Mary Bonner Dalton. The Gator was 16th in his NCAA debut at Gans Creek three weeks ago, but went out super conservatively (92nd at 2K, to be precise). This time around, a more aggressive run rewarded him with the Pre-Nats title. At the ‘Combe, Bonner Dalton continued her quiet run to the top ranks this fall with a fourth place finish. She won on home turfgrass at Joe Piane Invitational, and while her track season was respectable but not exactly head-turning, here’s a friendly reminder that she got 4th at the late Foot Locker Cross Country Championships as a high school junior. So maybe she’s just now finding her footing at collegiate level as the leader of a No. 5 Fighting Irish squad that’s improved every meet so far this season.
It’s spooky szn and conference wknd: So what’s next? After essentially a bye this week, all eyes will turn back to “local” racing at conference championships (for Stanford or Cal heading to Louisville for ACCs, maybe not so much). We recommend keeping tabs on the aforementioned NC State vs. aforementioned Notre Dame women at that one. On the men’s side, do we think No. 4 Virginia can hold off No. 6 Syracuse, No. 12 Wake Forest and No. 16 Notre Dame. Over in Kansas, BYU’s likely to keep their undefeated Big 12 status the same, but it will be interesting to see the Nos. 6, 7 and 11 in Iowa State, West Virginia, and Oklahoma State women duke it out for second. And good news—the men’s race at Big 12s is essentially another pre-Nats, with top-ranked Iowa State vs. defending conference champs BYU vs. No. 2 OSU vs. No 5 Colorado. And these are only two of the “Power 4.”
Better pencil in the course records at Gans Creek: To date, the highest-stakes race to hit Mizzou’s home course was SECs in 2021, where Alabama’s Mercy Chelangat and late Eliud Kipsang swept the individual titles, while a freshman Parker Valby finished fourth. It’s a relatively young course that debuted in 2019, and its records entering this year were 19:50 and 23:07 (both from the 2024 Gans Creek Classic). Just like a newcomer to the sport sees an exponential improvement before facing more incremental gains, it makes sense that this course has already seen the women’s time drop a whopping 1:08 (thanks, Jane!), with a staggering 31 women running below the old record this year, alone. In comparison, the men’s mark has fallen a full 0:43, with the current high-water mark belonging to Washington State’s Solomon Kipchoge at 22:24, and been bested 34 times.
So get your race-day Halloween costumes prepped, get your picks in the openers of big names we haven’t seen on the grass yet, and say your goodbyes to the 8K… because it’s almost the postseason, baby!
Citius Mag Staff
