2025 Midseason D3 XC Rankings
The rankings you’ve all been waiting for are finally here after a big weekend in D3 cross country to kick off October. Even though these are our first rankings of the season, we saw shake ups for podium positions, contenders for national qualifying spots, and teams making a push for top-10. Here are some of the weekend highlights:
Men’s
Make way for the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays! With an impressive top-15 finish in the largely D1 Gold race at Paul Short led by individual title contender Emmanuel Leblond, Johns Hopkins shows they can contend for a place on the podium. Behind Hopkins, SUNY Geneseo and RPI finished second and third, respectively, out of D3 teams. NYU, who narrowly missed out on the podium last year is bringing back the fight in 2025 by winning the White race by almost 50 points, making it a sweep for the Violets.
Returning champions UWL take the top position following a dominant 6th place finish at Joe Piane, where they beat several notable large-division schools and four of their five scorers finished under 24 minutes. No. 2 Wartburg posted a 23-point win at home, showcasing their depth with 10 athletes in the top 15.
No. 14 UW-Platteville posted a huge win over WIAC competitor Whitewater at Blugold to move closer to contention for top 10. No. 17 Hope mixed it up with the WIAC with a third place finish.
Women’s
Paul Short saw some drama! With MIT and Johns Hopkins in the Gold race and everyone else in the all-D3 White race, we don’t have clean head-to-head data. BUT NYU posted an impressive 55-point victory in the White race, which, when scored out with MIT and Hopkins, would see them as the Paul Short D3 victors this weekend over both Hopkins, who led the way in the gold race, and MIT, who ran missing key contributors Gillian Roeder and Rujuta Sane. Assuming a full-strength performance with Roeder and Sane, the Engineers hold the top spot (though not by much!) Both the Violets and the Blue Jays brought some serious heat to the battle for podium contention.
The drama continued at Joe Piane, where the UWL Eagles took down UChicago to place second overall in the mixed-division 5k. UChicago did split squads this weekend, but ran mostly at full strength led by freshman Katja Dunayevich. UWL, led by Lily Higgins, boasted impressive depth placing seven runners in the top 35, showing they just might have what it takes to contend for the podium.
Other big performances this weekend came from Carnegie Mellon, SUNY Geneseo, and Middlebury, who impressed at Paul Short, as well as Calvin, who hung on for a top-ten finish at Joe Piane. Trine took an impressive runner-up finish at Louisville with new national qualifying contenders Trinity (TX) finishing as the next D3 team in fourth ahead of JCU, and Carleton placed fourth at Blugold without low-stick Hannah Preisser.
