2025 Cross Country Season Recap

December 23, 2025 | Cross Country

By: UW Athletic Communications

SEATTLE -- This fall, the Husky women's cross country team remained a factor on the national stage, earning a top-20 NCAA finish for the eighth year in a row. The men's team went through a rebuilding year, but peaked well for two solid postseason runs, and set themselves up for a big track campaign.

19th At Nationals
The women's team headed into the NCAA Championships for the 19th consecutive season ranked 27th nationally. Undaunted, the Dawgs ran well in Columbia, Mo. on Nov. 22 and finished eight spots better than their ranking, placing 19th overall to earn an eighth-straight top-20 finish.

Washington was led by a 58th-place finish by Mia Cochran and a 65th-place finish from Chloe Foerster. Abby DeVeau also got inside the top-100 in 96th. It was a mostly new NCAA lineup compared to UW's 2024 squad, as only Foerster and Maeve Stiles were back from the 2024 top-seven.

Washington scored 472 points. The Dawgs were very close to jumping up even higher in the top-20. Utah in 17th and Northwestern in 18th were just seven, and three, points ahead of UW. The Huskies were just 18 points out of 14th-place, which went to Georgetown with 454. Conversely, UW had a 19-point gap behind them to 20th-place Iowa State.

Six Huskies Earn All-Region Honors
Both the men's and women's squads had a trio of All-West Region honorees, based on their finishes at the NCAA West Regional Championships on Nov. 14 in Sacramento.

The women's team placed fifth, just 10 points out of third-place, to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships, while the men's team made a strong effort to swipe an at-large bid of its own but fell a few spots short in seventh. The men were just one point behind Stanford and four points behind fifth-place Portland.

They were led by Mia Cochran in 11th-place in 19:53 for the 6,000-meter course. Abby DeVeau continued her sensational first season with a 15th-place finish, and Chloe Foerster was close behind in 17th-place, as those three Huskies all earned All-West Region.

Leading the men was sophomore Nathan Neil in 17th overall, clocking 29:51 for the 10k course. Jamar Distel was 20th in 29:56, and Reuben Reina was 22nd in 29:57, all earning All-West Region.

Top-Five Finishes At Big Tens
In East Lansing, Mich. for their second run at the Big Ten Cross Country Championships, the Husky men's team finished fifth out of the 15-team field, and the 20th-ranked women placed fourth out of 18 teams, beating out a pair of top-25 squads in 24th-ranked Michigan State and 19th-ranked Wisconsin to help their postseason chances.

Jamar Distel turned in one of the best performances of his career to finish fifth overall in 23:29 and lead the Husky men. He earned All-Big Ten First Team honors with that performance, as he ran at the front of the race for the first 4k, then held strong up front in the second half. Next after Distel, Nathan Neil crossed as the No. 2 Dawg in 21st-place in 23:56. Isaac Briggs finished 30th after he was 44th at the 4k mark. Reuben Reina was 38th overall in his first Big Ten meet, and Thom Diamond capped the scoring in 47th overall in 24:24.

The women were led by Foerster, who was 11th overall in a time of 20:20. Senior Maeve Stiles had her second-straight top-20 finish at the Big Ten meet, finishing 15th in 20:25. Abby DeVeau, in just her second career race, amazingly grabbed some Big Ten hardware with a 19th-place finish in 20:31. Foerster, Stiles and DeVeau all earned All-Big Ten Second Team status. The fourth scorer for the women was Mia Cochran, who was 22nd in 20:33, as the top-four Huskies were separated by just 13 seconds. Sam Tran capped the scoring in her final Big Ten run, as she was 36th.

Men Reload
The men's squad had to fight without two of its top returners this fall, as Evan Jenkins and Tyrone Gorze both sat out the fall. Jenkins was the Big Ten 10k Champ on the track last spring and he was an All-Big Ten First Teamer in XC in 2024, and Gorze was an All-Big Ten Second Team finisher in 2024 and the No. 2 Husky at 2024 NCAAs. UW also redshirted freshman standout Owen Powell.

That meant several Huskies stepped up into scoring positions for the first time in their careers. Juniors Isaac Briggs, Cruize Corvin, Thom Diamond, and redshirt freshman Parker Mong had just one top-five scoring run between the four of them going into the season, but all four became scorers this fall. Briggs was the No. 3 scorer at three of four meets and No. 5 at the fourth. Corvin was the No. 5 scorer at the season-opening Loyola Lakefront meet. Diamond was in the top-five at three of four races, including the No. 4 scorer at Regionals in 45th. Mong was the No. 4 Dawg at the first two races, and No. 6 in the two postseason meets.

UW also had Arkansas transfer Reuben Reina step in to help lead. Reina earned All-West Region in 22nd-place as the No. 3 scorer. True freshman Josiah Tostenson also made his cross country debut. He was the seventh Dawg at Big Tens and Regionals, gaining valuable experience.

DeVeau Trades Scrums For Packs
The surprise of the year for the Huskies, and maybe in the entire NCAA, was the sudden presence of Abby DeVeau at the top of the Husky lineup. DeVeau was in her fourth year at UW but her first on the cross country/track team. She had spent the past three years getting her running in on the club rugby team. After doing well in a summer road race, she contacted Maurica Powell about potentially joining the Husky squad.

DeVeau's first collegiate race of any kind came at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational, and she impressed in 93rd overall in the elite field, running fourth on the Huskies. Two weeks later, in just her second race, DeVeau was an All-Big Ten honoree, as she was 19th at Big Tens and third on the squad. She was then the No. 2 Husky scorer at West Regionals, in 15th overall, for an All-Region honor. DeVeau then cracked the top-100 at NCAAs with a 96th-place finish, third on the squad, to help UW finish in the top-20 as a team. It's safe to say that without DeVeau's unexpected contributions, the Huskies would have been hard pressed to reach Nationals.

National, European Success Builds Towards World Championships
NCAAs was far from the end of the cross country season. It's a big year for national and international cross country races, all leading up to the World Athletics Cross Country Championships on Saturday, Jan. 10, hosted by the U.S. in Tallahassee, Florida.

The first Husky to earn a spot at Worlds was Chloe Thomas. Thomas came to UW this year from UConn, but did not have any cross country eligibility remaining. But she raced at the Canadian National Championships and took runner-up honors, securing a spot on the Canadian team for Worlds. Thomas then went straight into the indoor track season and she broke the UW School Record in the 5k in her opener, going 15:16.93.

Husky senior Julia David-Smith, who did not race during the Husky cross country season, was ready to go again late in the fall and headed to Europe to compete for France. David-Smith won the World University Games 5k for France this past summer. She headed to Portugal to run at the European Cross Country Championships, leading the U23 French team to the gold medal with a fifth-place finish.

Also at Euro XC, former Husky Brian Fay was 10th in the senior race to help Ireland win a team silver, and 2025 grad Amina Maatoug was the top finisher for the Netherlands in the women's senior race, with an outstanding sixth-place finish.

Awards

All-West Region
Men
Nathan Neil
Jamar Distel
Reuben Reina

Women
Mia Cochran
Abby DeVeau
Chloe Foerster

All-Big Ten
Men
Jamar Distel – First Team

Women
Chloe Foerster – Second Team
Maeve Stiles – Second Team
Abby DeVeau – Second Team

Fall Academic All-Big Ten
Men
Martin Barco - Sophomore - Comparative History of Ideas
Isaac Briggs - Sophomore - Education Studies: Sports and Education
Cruize Corvin - Junior - Real Estate
Thom Diamond - Junior - Economics
Jamar Distel - Senior - Communication
Evan Jenkins - Senior - Construction Management
Parker Mong - Sophomore - Pre-Major
Nathan Neil – Sophomore - Pre-Major

Women
Ella Borsheim - Senior - Bioengineering
Mia Cochran - Junior - Pre-Major
Julia David-Smith - Fifth-Year - Postbaccalaureate Study
Stephanie Driscoll - Graduate Student - International Studies
Chloe Foerster - Senior - Biology
Gioana Lopizzo - Junior - Economics
Brianna McInnis - Junior - Economics
Maeve Stiles - Graduate Student - Bioengineering
Sam Tran - Graduate Student - Global Health
Josephine Welin - Senior - Applied & Computational Mathematical Sciences