NCAA Women's X Country Championship: Jane Hendergen predicted to finish 7th

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Way Too Early NCAA Women's Cross Country Rankings 2025 - FloTrack

John Davern

With months until the start of the 2025 NCAA Cross Country Season, we took an early crack at the women's individual rankings.

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1. Lemngole

2. Kosgei

3. Hartman

4. Noe

5. Olemomoi

6. Bunnage

7. Hedengren

8. Sjoberg

9. Kennedy

10. Cherubet

It’s not hard to imagine her placing a few spots higher, but on balance I think 7th is fair for now. Those are some really good runners both ahead of and behind her.

All things being equal, no athlete suffers major injury are the top 3 written in NCAA X Country stone? Will any of the top 3 compete at Outdoor Worlds and delay their NCAA x country season?

Way too early indeed. For now. I'd slot Joy Naukot into the bottom half of the top 10 and place Olemomoi at #11 until she reverses course and returns to form.

They are being rightly conservative, as move from hs to ncaa does not always go smoothly.

The list looks like at least most of the right candidates and maybe the right general order but I would not get too hung up on the exact order of 3-10 as they seem pretty close to me. Compared to some Flotrack lists in prior years this makes a lot more sense to me.

She will win

Gans creek will be called Grens creek after what she does on November 22nd

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Agreed. Also, Napoleon listed in the top 20 despite her 96th pl finish last Nov seems wise, something FloTrack might have overlooked in years past.

Going off recent history, what are the odds a top 3 HS girl races as well her freshman XC season as you’d hope?

Seems under 50%, but I haven’t actually checked.

Best freshman results:

1st - Suzie Tuffey (1985)

2nd - Amy Skieresz (1995), Allie Ostrander (2015), Pamela Kosgei (2024)

3rd - ???

I think Hedengren will finish top-3 but will not win. Besides, it seems like a freshman always steps up in a "5" year - 1985, 1995, 2015, and now 2025.

She’s not even leaving her home town. How could the transition not go smoothly?

I just watched Jane run a ~32 flat 10k at 4500 ft this morning. I think she’ll transition just fine.

32 flat, you say.

I was wondering if Jane ever had any interest in the 10 km HS record. Maybe this benchmark run is enough for her.

Did she run the race in Provo? I heard Keira D'Amato won it. How close to KD was JH?

How has Jane done in races with similar level runners around her? Can she outkick them? That would be the key. I see her as more of a grinder right now. I'd say she will be top 3 if she carries the momentum she has now.

Hedengren hasn't had much competition lately. But her sophomore year she outkicked everyone in the mile at Brooks PR. And her junior year she outkicked Leachman at Woodbridge.

Here are the results...

https://www.runsum.com/results/results.php?raceid=637

Hedengren can compete with anyone in college

Yes. Jane had a huge gap on Kiera when she ran past me 400m from the finish. Not sure what happened between then and the finish, but the two guys running with her finished 32:03 and 32:05. I assume an issue with the timing as her official time is 43:50.

Does anyone know if she’s planning on running the 5000m at USATF?

At 32:52, the HS girls record is ridiculously slow. She’s not going run one all out and it seems like a waste of time to set a soft record like 32:00, or so.