Late Moves Earn Women's Cross Country 11th at NCAA Championship Race

SPARTANBURG, SC (November 22, 2025) - With a strong finish today, the Tufts University women's cross country team placed 11th out of 32 squads at the NCAA Division III Championship Race on the six-kilometer course at the Roger Milliken Center.

Tufts was just outside the top 10 and its 11th-place effort was the best national finish by the Jumbos since the 2021 team placed ninth.

The Jumbos were in 14th place as a team at the five-kilometer check point, then passed three schools to get to 11th by the finish line. All five of their scoring runners moved up during the final kilometer.

Senior Liz Donahue's last kilometer resulted in her first career All-American honor (top 40 individuals). In 53rd place through five kilometers, she powered through to the finish line and a 21:54.9 time for 36th place.

At her first NCAA Championship, first-year Zui Chinchalkar passed four runners on her route to the finish line and was second for Tufts and 91st overall in a 22:44.8 mark. Junior Katya Henisz moved up 11 positions in her final kilometer for a 22:48.3 time that was 102nd out of the 290 total finishers.

Moving up five spots late in the race, junior Deirdre Flanagan also scored for Tufts at her first Nationals running a 23:09.1 race for the 148th spot. The most dramatic improvement over the final kilometer came from sophomore Zoe Marolies, who advanced 41 spots from 197th place to a 156th finish (23:12.9).

First-year Lily Simmonds was sixth for Tufts, also passing 24 runners over the final part of the race for a 23:26.1 time that was 193rd. Sophomore Sonia Olsen, also one of Tufts' four first-time participants at Nationals, recorded a 24:25.5 mark for 263rd place.

Along with the men's team finishing seventh, it's the best combined performance at NCAA's in Tufts team history. 

Today's 11th at the NCAA national meet is part of an outstanding finish to the 2025 season for Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Jamie Norton's Jumbos. They won the NCAA East Region title last Saturday to earn an automatic berth into Nationals.

NYU captured the 2025 national championship with a team score of 72. Audrey Maclean from Middlebury College was the individual national champion in a 20:16.8 time.