Meet: NCAA Cross Country National Championships
Date: November 22nd
Time: Women - 9:20, Men - 10:10
Location: Gans Creek Cross Country Course - Columbia, Missouri
Distance: Women 6k, Men 10k
Streaming: ESPNU - 9am
Qualifiers: https://www.ncaa.com/news/cross-country-women/article/2025-11-15/2025-ncaa-division-i-mens-and-womens-cross-country-championships-qualifiers
Live Results: https://live.pttiming.com/xc-ptt.html?mid=8126
Meet Preview
NATIONALS BABY!! The pinnacle of the sport! The elite of the elite! The Aggies will be competing in the National Cross Country Meet tomorrow morning in Columbia, Missouri. Although the women qualified in 2023, we aren't a common name in this meet but that's starting to and will change.
Our women's team won the South Central Meet last weekend over teams like Tulane, LSU, and Arkansas. 5 of the girls places in the top 25 led by Joyce Kemboi who placed 4th and Debora Cherono who placed 7th. Those top ten finishes led the team as Megan Roberts finished 12th. The meet was won with our 4th and 5th runner placing 23rd and 25th. That was freshman Sophia Bendet and grad student Elise Smoot! It was only the second time in school history that we have won the meet on the women's side and the first in 25 years.
A quick turnaround and now it's nationals time. 32 other teams qualified and will be competing in the team race; 18 automatic qualifiers and 14 at large bids. It will be an elite competition and we are going in ranked 26th, the first time we are ranked all season. In 2023 we placed 30th. Nationals is a tricky competition because of the large number of runners. With over 250 runners and with such an elite level of competition, the team standings are interesting. 2 years ago we had no runners place in the top 100, the best being 129th. Our next 4 placed 164, 207, 209, and 231.
This team can be a little different because we have Joyce Kemboi, Debora Cherono, and Megan Roberts. I think they can put up a fight to score up high. It'll be really interesting to see how they fare against national competition. Will nerves play a factor, will the pace be too fast, will some of us try to get out too fast, will we be timid and get out too slow? I want to see all of us in the top 200 and I wanna see how high some of us can place. Having a couple runners placing up high can really drop our score and help us out overall. I'm so excited to see how they run. I wonder how Kemboi and Cherono will do with the tougher competition. They are great competitors to me and I think they will rise to the occasion! Hopefully Roberts - Bendet - Smoot can run their best and keep our score low.
This will be an amazing meet and test for our ladies. 4 freshman in our top 7 in Debora Cherono, Sophia Bendet, Alexandra Fox, and Ava Cole. Sophomores in Joyce Kemboi and Megan Roberts. We have a very young team and this opportunity is amazing for them. If nationals is the standard, I'm glad they get to see this race young!
As for the competition, it's the usual competition up top. Schools like BYU, NC State, New Mexico, Florida, and Oregon will be the favorites. The individual race will be very interesting between Alabama's Doris Lemngole and BYU's Jane Hedengren. The vet vs the rookie! I can't wait to see who makes the first move and how the other responds! Lemngole is the reigning champion, but Hedengren is a freshman phenom that will probably reset every ncaa record book in her career!
On the men's side, we ran well at regionals but came up short behind Tulane and Arkansas. We were also close to an at large bid, but we didn't race many top teams in the regular season. We will have one individual running in Jack Johnston. The junior from Prosper, Texas continues his ascent into the upper echelon of Aggie distance. His continued improvement year after year is a testament to his hard work and McRaven raved about his attitude and self belief. Johnston as an underclassmen stepped up for the Aggies. Last season he led us most of the year then proceeded to have a great track season. He carried that momentum into this cross country and broke through as of late. He finished top ten at every meet aside from a 20th place finish at conference.
At regionals he gave himself a chance and stayed up top the entire meet with an elite group of runners! He stayed with the top pack till the top 5 broke away. He ended up finishing 9th and the 2nd fastest American in a top 20 that saw a handful of Americans. It was an incredible performance that led him to earning an individual berth to nationals. The top 4 runners who aren't on an automatic qualifier team advance to nationals.
It'll be interesting to see how Johnston does and what strategy he employs. This will be a great boost for his track season. He was already a confident young man, this will improve that! Our region is extremely top heavy. The other individual qualifiers were all East African runners. Getting to this meet is an extremely difficult task. Less than half of the individual qualifiers are Americans. Only a few other Aggies have qualified individually in recent years such as: Jon Bishop, Erick Casarez, and Jonathan Chung.
The men's team race will be interesting to follow. Individually Habtom Samuel of New Mexico is the favorite. Team wise it'll be a crazy competition between Oklahoma State, New Mexico, and Iowa State. All with 5 or more international runners. Oregon, Virginia, and Syracuse are dark horses but this seems like a 3 team race with Oklahoma State holding the edge.
I can't wait to see what our women do. They accomplished such an amazing feat last Saturday and it feels like celebration time was so short due to nationals being right away! But I'm still over the moon as I'm sure they are and everyone should be! However, while we celebrate their triumph, they get to run another 6k in a tricky course against elite athletes! But hey, we're elite too! We're not here to just participate, we're here to show the entire nation that Texas A&M is becoming a distance powerhouse and that they better get used to seeing us roll into nationals year in and year out because we'll be there. A new standard has been set. BTHO EVERYBODY!!!
Aggies Competing
Women
Joyce Kemboi
Debora Cherono
Megan Roberts
Sophia Bendet
Elise Smoot
Alexandra Fox
Ava Cole
Alternates
Maddie Peters
Sj Leal
Staucie Lees
Men
Jack Johnston
Date: November 22nd
Time: Women - 9:20, Men - 10:10
Location: Gans Creek Cross Country Course - Columbia, Missouri
Distance: Women 6k, Men 10k
Streaming: ESPNU - 9am
Qualifiers: https://www.ncaa.com/news/cross-country-women/article/2025-11-15/2025-ncaa-division-i-mens-and-womens-cross-country-championships-qualifiers
Live Results: https://live.pttiming.com/xc-ptt.html?mid=8126
Meet Preview
NATIONALS BABY!! The pinnacle of the sport! The elite of the elite! The Aggies will be competing in the National Cross Country Meet tomorrow morning in Columbia, Missouri. Although the women qualified in 2023, we aren't a common name in this meet but that's starting to and will change.
Our women's team won the South Central Meet last weekend over teams like Tulane, LSU, and Arkansas. 5 of the girls places in the top 25 led by Joyce Kemboi who placed 4th and Debora Cherono who placed 7th. Those top ten finishes led the team as Megan Roberts finished 12th. The meet was won with our 4th and 5th runner placing 23rd and 25th. That was freshman Sophia Bendet and grad student Elise Smoot! It was only the second time in school history that we have won the meet on the women's side and the first in 25 years.
A quick turnaround and now it's nationals time. 32 other teams qualified and will be competing in the team race; 18 automatic qualifiers and 14 at large bids. It will be an elite competition and we are going in ranked 26th, the first time we are ranked all season. In 2023 we placed 30th. Nationals is a tricky competition because of the large number of runners. With over 250 runners and with such an elite level of competition, the team standings are interesting. 2 years ago we had no runners place in the top 100, the best being 129th. Our next 4 placed 164, 207, 209, and 231.
This team can be a little different because we have Joyce Kemboi, Debora Cherono, and Megan Roberts. I think they can put up a fight to score up high. It'll be really interesting to see how they fare against national competition. Will nerves play a factor, will the pace be too fast, will some of us try to get out too fast, will we be timid and get out too slow? I want to see all of us in the top 200 and I wanna see how high some of us can place. Having a couple runners placing up high can really drop our score and help us out overall. I'm so excited to see how they run. I wonder how Kemboi and Cherono will do with the tougher competition. They are great competitors to me and I think they will rise to the occasion! Hopefully Roberts - Bendet - Smoot can run their best and keep our score low.
This will be an amazing meet and test for our ladies. 4 freshman in our top 7 in Debora Cherono, Sophia Bendet, Alexandra Fox, and Ava Cole. Sophomores in Joyce Kemboi and Megan Roberts. We have a very young team and this opportunity is amazing for them. If nationals is the standard, I'm glad they get to see this race young!
As for the competition, it's the usual competition up top. Schools like BYU, NC State, New Mexico, Florida, and Oregon will be the favorites. The individual race will be very interesting between Alabama's Doris Lemngole and BYU's Jane Hedengren. The vet vs the rookie! I can't wait to see who makes the first move and how the other responds! Lemngole is the reigning champion, but Hedengren is a freshman phenom that will probably reset every ncaa record book in her career!
On the men's side, we ran well at regionals but came up short behind Tulane and Arkansas. We were also close to an at large bid, but we didn't race many top teams in the regular season. We will have one individual running in Jack Johnston. The junior from Prosper, Texas continues his ascent into the upper echelon of Aggie distance. His continued improvement year after year is a testament to his hard work and McRaven raved about his attitude and self belief. Johnston as an underclassmen stepped up for the Aggies. Last season he led us most of the year then proceeded to have a great track season. He carried that momentum into this cross country and broke through as of late. He finished top ten at every meet aside from a 20th place finish at conference.
At regionals he gave himself a chance and stayed up top the entire meet with an elite group of runners! He stayed with the top pack till the top 5 broke away. He ended up finishing 9th and the 2nd fastest American in a top 20 that saw a handful of Americans. It was an incredible performance that led him to earning an individual berth to nationals. The top 4 runners who aren't on an automatic qualifier team advance to nationals.
It'll be interesting to see how Johnston does and what strategy he employs. This will be a great boost for his track season. He was already a confident young man, this will improve that! Our region is extremely top heavy. The other individual qualifiers were all East African runners. Getting to this meet is an extremely difficult task. Less than half of the individual qualifiers are Americans. Only a few other Aggies have qualified individually in recent years such as: Jon Bishop, Erick Casarez, and Jonathan Chung.
The men's team race will be interesting to follow. Individually Habtom Samuel of New Mexico is the favorite. Team wise it'll be a crazy competition between Oklahoma State, New Mexico, and Iowa State. All with 5 or more international runners. Oregon, Virginia, and Syracuse are dark horses but this seems like a 3 team race with Oklahoma State holding the edge.
I can't wait to see what our women do. They accomplished such an amazing feat last Saturday and it feels like celebration time was so short due to nationals being right away! But I'm still over the moon as I'm sure they are and everyone should be! However, while we celebrate their triumph, they get to run another 6k in a tricky course against elite athletes! But hey, we're elite too! We're not here to just participate, we're here to show the entire nation that Texas A&M is becoming a distance powerhouse and that they better get used to seeing us roll into nationals year in and year out because we'll be there. A new standard has been set. BTHO EVERYBODY!!!
Aggies Competing
Women
Joyce Kemboi
Debora Cherono
Megan Roberts
Sophia Bendet
Elise Smoot
Alexandra Fox
Ava Cole
Alternates
Maddie Peters
Sj Leal
Staucie Lees
Men
Jack Johnston
