Hello everyone, Paul Hoff Mahoney here with Isaac Wood from the 2025 NCAA Cross Country

Championships at the Gans Creek Cross Country course in Columbia, Missouri. Champions were crowned today.

Isaac, what a day of cross country. Yeah, this is this is a moment for accountability, I think,

you know, for the things that I've said, for the for the things that happened out here to see where, you know, what we thought was going to happen and then what actually happened. And isn't that why we love sports? It's always up in the air until the actual day.

Yeah. And today was, there were so many great storylines coming into this meet. But I think the one that a lot of people were most excited about and where we'll start is that women's individual race, the defending

champion Doris Lemongol, the upstart freshman from BYU, Jane Headingren. And through 5K,

it was a battle. And then the champion showed her medal. Isaac, what did you see in that women's race? Yeah, you know, it's, I think there's, it was fun. I mean, it went out the way we kind of thought. Honestly, like it was, a lot of times in cross-country races, it actually just doesn't go the way you think. Like there's always some sort of wrinkle or something. It really just did Jane and Doris together for a long time. And I think that

pace just kind of war on Jane a little more than I think she thought it was going to. And Doris has

a level of quality of like, you know, she's run at world championships. Like she's, you know, I think

there's a certain level of confidence that kind of came with that.

That, you know, to be honest, like when we were picky who's going to win that maybe we should have accounted for is like that, that really, really high level actual championship racing experience.

Jane's running some big-time races, but she's still young.

She's a true freshman in college, right?

And so I still think that Jane, you know, she's going to learn a lot from this.

But Doris was clearly, you know, the better athlete today. And I think, I think, you know, from my perspective watching it, you know, I think she just kept tightening the screws as, you know, as that final, you know, K-plus men on. And it was clear that she would, that she had a lot more in there really yeah i mean a true freshman

hanging with the fifth best steeple chaser in the world this year and i think one of the top 10

steeple chasers in history off time like that's nothing to be disappointed about were you kind

of surprised with how much doris's move seemed to really break jane like did you think there would be more of a response? You know, I think there were several moves that were just subtly, like Jane did match. I think, I think, like I said, I do think that Doris was kind of, you know, she just kept kind of tightening the screws as the phrase I want to use. I think she just kept trying to make his little moves on her to kind of gauge where she would do. And I think she finally got the feeling of that like, okay, if I just finally hit it here right now, I think I can do it. And that's when that final breakaway happened. And so, you know, I think that, you know, eventually that just kind of wore Jane down. I do think that Jane just felt like she kind of had a constantly match for, you know, for a good mile in that last mile. Yeah. And then that third spot, it's the same finisher as last year, Hilda Lemimoie, but I mean, we were talking about a little bit before we started. Hilda went from 20th at 4K to third at the close. And Hilda hasn't even been the best runner on her own team this year and she returns to third in the nation like how impressed were you by

what hilda was able to do the close and Hilda hasn't even been the best runner on her own team this year and she returns

to third in the nation like how impressed were you by what Hilda was able to do out of

yeah we're having conversations all week leading up to this like how like why are we not talking

about Hilda well because the results this year kind of said maybe we didn't need to but there's

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