2025 NCAA DI Women’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll – Preseason
NEW ORLEANS – The return of cross country means that polls reign until championship season.
NCAA Division I — Women’s Cross Country
This Week’s National Top Five
1 BYU
2 Oregon
3 NC State
4 New Mexico
5 West Virginia
Preseason polls can be taken different ways.
Take BYU, for example. The Cougars are a unanimous No. 1 in the preseason edition of the NCAA DI Women’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll released on Tuesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
But last year BYU wasn’t among the two programs that tied for No. 1 in the preseason poll nor even a third that earned first-place votes. Instead, BYU started No. 6 and ended up taking home the national championship trophy in November.
How will this year’s preseason poll do? We’ll see – prior to last year it successfully predicted the actual winner twice, but that was after a stretch from 2014-21 when it didn’t (there was no preseason poll in 2020).
No. 1 BYU returns four from last year’s national-championship seven, including scorers Riley Chamberlain (31st) and Taylor Rohatinsky (43rd). Chamberlain has twice anchored BYU to NCAA Indoor distance medley titles and this summer lowered her 1500 best to 4:02.03. The Cougars have a major new addition in freshman Jane Hedengren, whose high school record setting included national bests last spring of 4:04.68 (1500), 4:23.50 (mile), 8:40.03 (3000), 9:17.75 (2-mile) and 14:57.93 (5000). Also returning to the roster is Jenna Hutchins, who led off last year’s DMR team and placed sixth in the 2023 NCAA 10,000 with a PR 32:44.05.
Oregon’s No. 2 preseason ranking is its highest since 2017. The Ducks – seeking their first national title since 2016 – were fifth last year and return four runners (three scorers), led by Silan Ayyildiz (13th) and Anika Thompson (32nd). That duo has impressive track credentials as well – Ayyildiz was fourth in the NCAA Indoor mile and Outdoor 1500 last year, while Thompson won the Euro U23 10,000 title this summer (32:31.47). Their group is bolstered by Diana Cherotich, who clocked 31:45.22 in the 10,000 this spring and was fifth in the World U20 Cross Country Championships in the spring of 2024, as well as Juliet Cherubet (11th last year and fifth in the 2024 NCAA 5000 in 15:25.41 while at Texas Tech) and Bahiya El Arfaoui (4:05.20 in the 1500 while at Eastern Kentucky).
No. 3 NC…
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