MEDFORD, MA (September 8, 2026) – As a less experienced team last year, Tufts University Women's Cross Country may have surprised a few people by winning the NCAA East Region Championship and then placing 11th at the NCAA national meet.
The Jumbos won't be taking anybody by surprise this year. With six starters from last year's NCAA national team returning, the 2026 squad is aiming even higher. They will open the season on Saturday at Middlebury College's Aldrich Invitational as the #1 team in the East Region and the #6 team in the nation, according to the USTFCCCA preseason polls.
"The sky is the limit for this group," said
Jamie Norton, Director of Track & Field / Cross Country at Tufts. "That's what we've been emphasizing so far this year. We see ourselves being able to compete with anybody in the country, and we want to bring that confidence and self-belief into everything we do."
The Jumbos did lose a valuable leader in All-American
Liz Donahue, though she is back with the team as an assistant coach. All of the other championship point scorers have returned, along with other returnees trying to make their mark, while a promising class of seven first-years will debut with the Jumbos.
"We have an extremely deep team with a lot of top-end talent," Coach Norton said. "Right now, you could give me 10 different combinations of five runners that I would feel confident about. We're not reliant on one or two people to be really strong. There's potential for a lot of them to be in that All-American or All-NESCAC range."
Seniors
Deirdre Flanagan and
Katya Henisz, juniors
Zoe Margolies and
Samara McVey and sophomores
Zui Chinchalkar and
Lily Simmonds each earned All-Region honors (top 25) last fall when Tufts defeated #1 in the Region and #3 in the nation MIT to capture the NCAA East title.
Henisz and Margolies return with the most experience, having ran with the 2024 team that placed 16th at Nationals and was the Regional runner-up. Henisz has competed at championship meets since 2023. Margolies, who was eighth at the 2024 Regional, finished as the runner-up in the NESCAC 10K last spring.
Chinchalkar (12th at the NCAA Regional last year), Simmonds (13th), Flanagan (19th) and McVey (24th) all competed at the Regional for the first time last fall, and will have benefited from last year's experiences.
Senior
Sonia Olson, who started for the Jumbos at Nationals in 2025, and who has made championship season starts since 2023, also brings valuable experience. Classmate
Eleanor Whitehouse has stood out with her potential to take a step up for the team.
The rest of the squad's depth includes seniors
Mia Corso and
Kaya West and sophomores
Lauren Downer,
Kayleigh Forde,
Alanna Jacob and
Bridget Yu.
"Generally, we feel like we'll be in the mix to win every meet we go to," Coach Norton said. "I feel like we're a top 10 team in the country just with who we have returning. We'll see if any of the others can help us raise the ceiling even higher than that."
--JUMBOS--
