Recap of the 2025 NCAA Championships by The Stride Report. They cover the women's team race from 14:45-23:40 in this video. They say that with Laurie Henes winning her 4th National Title (and 4th in the last 5 years), that she is "among the all time greats" of NCAA cross country coaches.

Looking ahead to next year...

Grace Hartman said in interviews a couple times over the last week surrounding the national championship race that the team talks about how they believe they have enough talent on their roster to field two nationally competitive teams.

The last two recruiting classes have been stellar, and they redshirted two of those stud true freshman recruits this fall: Emily Wisniewski and Alexa Dow. Wisniewski finished 3rd at 2023 Nike Cross Nationals and 16th at 2024 Nike Cross Nationals. Alexa Dow won the U18 Canadian Cross Country Championship in 2024. Daniela Scheffler was another true freshman big-time recruit in the 2025 class, who finished 10th at 2024 Nike Cross Nationals. And they apparently redshirted Ellie Shea this fall, who has a ton of potential.

Briley Bickerstaff made major improvements this fall, for instance finishing 34th in the Southeast Region race in a time of 20:19, only 8 seconds behind Fleur Templier. The graduate transfer Kaylie Armitage did not race for us this fall, but appears to have one year of cross country eligibility left (she finished 13th at the 2023 Southeast Region race and 18th at the 2024 Southeast Region race)

The 2026 roster includes the following who project to be major contributors with potential to make the top 7:

Grace Hartman
Hannah Gapes
Angelina Napoleon
Bethany Michalak
Sadie Engelhardt
Ellie Shea
Emily Wisniewski
Daniela Scheffler
Alexa Dow
Kaylie Armitage
Fleur Templier
Briley Bickerstaff

You also have Kate Putman and Jolena Quarzo possibly being in the mix.

Team will be absolutely loaded....and obvious that they could field two nationally competitive teams with their roster. It's possible that all 5 of our scorers from this year's national championship team could be legit "low sticks" (or at least top 20 at nationals) by next fall. And with injuries so prevalent in the sport, it's a luxury to have such loaded roster with tons of other talented runners for depth. You have to like our chances to win the national title again in 2026.