The summer miles have all been logged, and the time has finally come for distance runners from around the country to return to the grass. From Gainesville to Gans Creek, it’s time for the 2025 NCAA cross country season to get underway.
The Florida cross country program features two teams in very different spots. An experienced women’s team that returns nearly all of last year’s biggest contributors is positioned to be in the thick of the national title fight. The men’s team is fueled by underclassmen and has less lofty expectations, but the excitement within the team is as high as ever.
Women’s team
Coming off the 2023-24 season, which was the best in the program’s history with a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Championships, the Florida women’s cross country team lost five of their seven runners going into last year. Plenty of new talent arrived in Gainesville to fill their shoes, but the new-look roster failed to defend the team’s SEC title, and it dropped to No. 12 on the national stage.
“I think we were dealing with some real … noviceness to the NCAA and to our program,” associate head coach Will Palmer told The Alligator. “It was just changes all over the place, and I thought they handled that pretty well.”
Palmer characterized 2024 as the team’s “caterpillar year,” where there was plenty of talent, but inexperience held them back. The team sees 2025 as its butterfly year.
“Hopefully, this year, everything will come together,” senior Tia Wilson said. “I think a lot of people that struggled last year will also get the same experience.”
Wilson, redshirt senior Beth Morley and senior Caroline Wells represent significant returners for the Gators, as all scored at last year’s nationals. Wilson and Morley had strong indoor track seasons that show plenty of promise when the duo is healthy. Wilson won the SEC mile title, while Morley became the 16th-fastest miler in NCAA history with her 4:26.76 run in February.
The most important athlete coming back to the course in the fall is Hilda Olemomoi. In the Kenyan senior’s three appearances at Division I cross nationals, her worst finish is sixth. Her best occurred last year, where she capped off her first season at Florida with a third-place finish.
A string of injuries held Olemomoi back during the spring, despite logging historically fast 5000-meter times during the beginning of indoor and outdoor seasons.
“Imagine you have a dam, and you’re trying to plug all the holes, and you just run out of fingers and toes,” Palmer said. “She just really needed a hard reset over the summer, and she got it.”
The returning athletes proved they can be nationally competitive last year, but an exciting crop of fresh faces could elevate the team into true title contenders.
The Gators brought in Arizona State transfer Judy Chepkoech, who placed 30th at nationals during her freshman year. Chepkoech finished inside the top five in her five races prior to NCAAs, giving Florida two legitimate low-stick options between her and Olemomoi.
Then there’s the freshman class. Desma Chepkoech, a native of Bomet, Kenya, is somewhat of an unknown commodity. The 22-year-old’s personal bests aren’t the flashiest on paper, owning marks of 9:29.70 for 3000 meters and 16:16.10 for 5000 meters. But both of those times were run at an elevation of 6,000 feet.
Isobelle Jones, an 18-year-old from England, earned bronze in the 1500-meter at the European Under-20 Championships Aug. 9. She ran 5000 meters on the roads in 15:52, a time that would already make her the seventh-fastest woman in the program’s history.
“I think Isobelle’s going to do amazing this year,” Wilson said. “She’s such a calm person, and I feel like she comes off very mature. She knows what she wants.”
Claire Stegall and Keeghan Edwards round out the freshman class with a boatload of high school accolades. Stegall, a native of Nolensville, Tennessee, ended her career with three TSSAA state titles on the grass and ranked No. 12, No. 6 and No. 8 in the nation over 800, 1600 and 3200 meters, respectively, in her senior year.
Edwards had slightly less impressive marks on the track, but a fourth-place finish at Nike Cross Nationals in December showed flashes of her potential.
“This is as good an [incoming] group as we’ve ever had, if not better,” Palmer said.
The makeup of the team could prove to be a leveled-up version of the 2023 squad. If Olemomoi and Judy Chepkoech can produce performances reminiscent of Parker Valby and Flomena Asekol, the stronger depth of this year’s roster could be the difference maker. At nationals two years ago, Florida’s fifth finisher placed 202nd, which completely took the team out of title contention. Between some combination of Wilson, Morley, Desma Chepkoech, Jones, Stegall and Wells, the Gators’ final scorer should finish significantly higher.
“I’ve directly coached a third-place team and a fifth-place team in the NCAA,” Palmer said. “I can say these women are on par with those teams.”
Men’s team
The House v. NCAA ruling on June 6 permanently changed collegiate cross country, and the men’s roster is perfectly emblematic of a new landscape. The SEC cut down the NCAA-imposed roster limit of 17 to 10 on July 1. The Gators only have nine men on the roster this season, down from 19 in 2024.
Keeping the squad healthy in a sport as injury-inducing as cross country is critical so that seven men can make it to the start line at SEC Championships and the regional meet. However, Palmer sees the condensed roster as a way of strengthening and solidifying a positive team culture.
“We have to be a lot more intentional, as coaches, about who we welcome onto the team,” Palmer said.
The roster is young, with redshirt sophomores Riley Novack and Gavin Nelson being the most seasoned athletes on the team. But Palmer said the squad’s lack of experience could become a strength.
The Gators haven’t qualified for nationals since 2013, and they finished No. 12 at the SEC Championship and No. 9 at South Regionals in 2024. Palmer said the team may be a year away from being a contender on the national stage, but the roster is capable of taking a big step from last fall.
Josh Ruiz is Florida’s top returning scorer from both SECs and the regional meet. The Miami sophomore finished 64th at the conference meet and 56th at regionals.
Jonathan Leon had a promising start to his freshman year, becoming Florida’s top finisher at both the Gans Creek Classic and Wisconsin Pre-Nationals, but he was forced to miss the postseason. He bounced back with a strong indoor season, running 14:07.03 for 5000 meters and ranking No. 9 on the program all-time list. His return to the grass should prove critical in the Gators’ hopes of making this season better than the last.
Oussama Allaoui and Kelvin Cheruiyot represent exciting potential as incoming international freshmen.
Allaoui, who hails from Morocco, has a skillset more geared toward middle-distance racing. His 1500-meter personal best of 3:38.47 would already be the second-best mark in program history.
He hasn’t raced anything over 1500 meters since 2022, but he ran 30:08.78 for 10,000 meters at 17 years old. Comparing times on a track to times on a cross country course is far from a perfect science. But despite being about the age of a high school junior at the time, Allaoui ran 11 seconds faster than any Florida athlete at South Regionals last fall.
Cheruiyot, a 24-year-old from Kenya, falls into the same boat as Desma Chepkoech, as his best times have all come at altitude, making it hard to gauge exactly what they can be capable of this season. His 5000-meter personal best is 13:47.
“We felt like he was gonna be a pretty good addition to the group,” Palmer said.
The Florida men also got a new training partner in a sense in the form of Cameron Ponder, who joined the team over the summer as an assistant coach but also tags along with the men’s team on easy runs.
Ponder ran at Furman from 2018-24, earning two All-American honors in his career. He spent his first post-collegiate year as an assistant coach at Toledo, where the women’s cross country team qualified for nationals and then set program records on the track at every distance from 800 to 5000 meters.
“What I can bring to this group is, ‘Hey, I was in your shoes less than two years ago,’” Ponder said. “Having that perspective and offering that to both the men’s and women’s team can be huge … I can kind of bring some wisdom to the group that way.”
Florida cross country will open its 2025 season on Aug. 29 in Jacksonville at the Florida Intercollegiate Cross Country Invitational, hosted by North Florida.
Contact Paul Hof-Mahoney at phof-mahoney@alligator.org. Follow him on X at @phofmahoney.
Paul is a junior sports journalism major who is covering the track and field beat in his first semester with the Alligator. In his free time, he enjoys watching commentary Youtube channels and consuming every medium of track and field content imaginable.
