10 D3 XCTF Moments from the 2024/25 School Year
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What a year in D3 track and field and cross country. This year was special for D3GD because we got to become involved in the division in new ways. We went on the road. We covered our first non-national meet in Terre Haute at Pre-Nats in the fall. We added a live show to the Augustana Pre Regional cross country meet and, most recently, at outdoor track nationals. We expanded our coverage of field events by bringing decathlon national champion Jackson Anderson on board. Our follower count on Instagram is up to 19.5k after outdoor nationals, and we are so thankful for all of the support everyone has shown for what started as two passionate DePauw alumni reliving the glory days on the mic.
We thought we would take a moment at the end of the year to remember some of the top moments from the 2024-25 season, even though there are far too many to recount. Let us know what your favorite moment of the year was, and if you like our coverage, help us out with a follow on Instagram, subscribing to our newsletter, or giving a gift on Patreon.
Here’s to the glory days!
Josh Rivers 2x Long Jump National Record
While D3GD was still recovering from the cross country season, Josh Rivers whipped us back into track-and-field attention. Perhaps one of the most impressive performances of the whole year occurred on December 7, when Oshkosh’s Rivers opened up his track season with an absolutely jaw-dropping 8.13-meter leap in the men’s long jump (for those of you keeping track with the Imperial system, that’s 26 feet 8.25 inches). He shattered previous record holder Shawn Watson’s 1999 record of 7.88m by almost an entire foot and became the first athlete in D3 history to leap over eight meters. For further context, this mark puts Rivers just seven centimeters outside of the top-25 mark in NCAA history across all divisions. What a dominating performance.
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Though Rivers was already a two-time long jump national champion, he certainly had the best year of his career so far, adding two more long jump national titles to his resume, two national records (his 8.04-meter outdoor best broke Watson’s 1996 record by 8 centimeters), and a fifth place finish at the USATF Indoor National Championships. With multiple marks over 8 meters this year, the long jump star is on the highest level ever seen in D3 men’s long jump history.
Lynchburg Miles
To this day, one of the most iconic track barriers is breaking four minutes in the mile. Until now, only four athletes in history could claim they had reached this milestone in their D3 careers, and only one has done so outdoors. For the first time in history, two D3 athletes broke 4 minutes in the mile in the same race. Oh yeah, and they were from the same team.
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If you’ve paid attention to D3 at all, you know that this was Lynchburg duo Tor Hotung-Davidsen and Sam Llaneza. To add to the prestige, their teammate Chasen Hunt narrowly missed the barrier, running 4:00.98 for third place (so maybe you can understand why I might have suffered a major brain malfunction indoors when I accidentally wrote that Hunt was the 2024 outdoor 1500 champ instead of Llaneza…sorry, Sam and Chasen!). That’s some serious mile depth for the Hornets, the deepest same-school roster in D3 history. And now, each of them has an individual national title to show for it.
Llaneza (not Hunt) won the 2024 outdoor 1500m title to get the ball rolling, and in 2025, his teammate Hotung-Davidsen took the win after coming back from what was almost a year-long injury. Hunt ended an incredible outdoor campaign in which he broke the 5k national record with a national title of his own in the 12.5-lap distance finale, in part with the help of his 4:00-mile closing speed. What the Lynchburg Hornets have been able to accomplish this year under Coach Jake Reed has been truly special, and it was one of our favorite storylines of the year.
UWL women’s 4x1 lead four under national record
There were certainly several moments during the 2025 outdoor championships when I caught my jaw dropping, but I think it dropped the lowest when the results of the women’s 4x100m relay final populated on the screen. An astonishing four teams ran under the D3 national record. Imagine breaking a D3 national record but still finishing fourth overall!
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The teams from WashU, UW-Whitewater, Elmhurst, and UW-La Crosse battled toward the fastest women’s 4x100m competition in history to cap off storied seasons within their programs and the division as a whole. As many are prone to do, I was guilty of giving most of my attention to the winners UW-La Crosse, but how can you not when anchor leg Lauren Jarrett rocketed the Eagles from fifth at the exchange zone to first? The career of Jarrett is one from which you cannot avert your eyes. The sprints star has nine national titles and three national records, and still has a year of eligibility to go! Her dominance is leading all of D3 women’s sprinting to new levels, as evidenced by this jaw-dropping relay final.
Alexis Boykin Shot Put National Record
Another moment that left my mouth wide open at the 2025 outdoor national meet was MIT’s Alexis Boykin’s incredible shot put national record. Though the throwing star has eight national titles and several top-10 all-time marks, a national record continued to evade her until attempt three in the women’s shot put prelim. With a huge toss of 16.80 meters (55 feet 1.5 inches), she finally passed Robyn Jarocki on the all-time list.
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Jarocki’s record stood for 19 years, and we see Boykin’s now standing for potentially just as long. D3 women’s throwing has not seen someone as dominant as Boykin in a long time. This year alone, she won three national titles and set four top-10 all-time performances, including her outdoor shot put national record and a No. 2 all-time mark in the indoor weight throw. What a career for Alexis Boykin!
Hurdle national records fall
Not many in the nation knew the name Jamir Brown at the beginning of the year, but now his name will go down as one of the greatest in D3 history. The freshman hurdle star exploded onto the scene when he dropped a wicked-fast 7.72 60m hurdle national record in the first meet of the indoor season on December 6 (once again while we were still recovering from cross country season).
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The previous record was held by Salisbury’s Luke Campbell, who, until this year, owned the most men’s individual national titles in D3 history. Since then, Brown has been a dominant force over the high hurdles for Rowan, taking second indoors to teammate Jason Agyemang in a Rowan 1-2-4-5 punch. He carried the momentum into the outdoor season, shattering the 110-meter hurdle record by over a tenth of a second, running a blazing fast 13.6. In his final race in a D3 jersey, Brown won the 2025 outdoor 110mH national title in dominating fashion.
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D3 saw both outdoor high hurdles records fall this year. The second record came at the national meet when UMass Boston’s Aryianna Garceau rocketed over ten hurdles to soar to a new record time of 13.54, beating Christopher Newport’s Bridget Cochran’s previous record from 1998. Garceau swept both titles this year in the high hurdles, winning her first national title indoors and adding a second just a few weekends ago. It was a fast year in D3 for hurdles!
Blaskowski vs. Willems WIAC 60m Final
There is no question: Sam Blaskowski is the greatest male D3 sprinter of all-time. What probably doesn’t get discussed enough in the wake of Blaskowski, however, is how his competitors have elevated their performances to contest with him. Outdoors, St. John’s Kevin Arthur ran a new D3 No. 3 all-time 10.17 to narrowly finish runner-up to Blaskowski’s 10.14. The only other athlete to run faster than Arthur besides Blaskowski is none other than Oshkosh standout Davian Willems, who accomplished a similar feat indoors in the 60m WIAC final.
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Willems’s resume tends to be overshadowed by Blaskowski’s, but the fellow Wisconsinite is also one of the fastest sprinters in history. He owns five All-American honors, including three runner-up finishes, and two No. 2 all-time performances in the indoor 60m and outdoor 100m. In the indoor WIAC final, he and Blaskowski finished 0.01 seconds off of each other, Blaskowski’s 6.62 narrowly edging out Willems’s 6.63 new personal best and No. 2 all-time mark. This final went down as one of the fastest men’s 60m races in D3 history until two weeks later, in the national final, when Blaskowski ran 6.62, Willems 6.64, and Bethel’s Landen Liu 6.69, marking the first time in history that three athletes dipped under 6.70 in the same race. Because of standouts like Blaskowski, Willems, Liu, and Arthur, the state of D3 sprinting is forever changed.
Faith Duncan No. 2 fastest 6k XC
Only three women in D3 history have dipped under 20 minutes in the 6k in cross country: Missy (Buttry) Rock, Fiona Smith, and as of November 2, 2024, Faith Duncan. At the OAC XC Championships in Findlay, Ohio, Duncan soloed a commanding 95-second victory to become the second fastest woman over 6k in D3 history. Her 19:49.2 is second only to the legendary Rock.
Duncan went on to earn her first national title in cross country, with a 42-second margin of victory. Indoors, she swept 3k and 5k titles to give her at least one national title in every season of competition following her 5k national title last outdoor season. Though Duncan unfortunately had to scratch the outdoor championships this year due to injury, there is no doubt she goes down in D3 history as one of the distance greats.
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MIT Women win first triple crown in women’s history
It was a year of firsts for MIT women, who started with one victory that compounded into more. After winning the first women’s cross country team title in history, MIT women followed this performance up with the first track and field team national title. Then, they won their first outdoor team national title. All of these wins together made them the first women’s program in D3 history to win a triple crown.
They kicked off the year with a ten-point win in cross country, led by Kate Sanderson, Rujuta Sane, and Christina Crow, all of whom won individual All-American honors. All seven of their athletes finished within the top 55 in the field of 293, showing why this year’s squad was the best in the nation. Indoors, the Engineers edged out WashU by 3.5 points, led by dominant performances in the throws by Boykin and a runner-up finish in the DMR. Outdoors, MIT posted a much more comfortable lead over WashU, winning 56-47. They were led by Boykin’s shot put victory and a victory in the 4x4, the program’s first 4x4 relay title.
MIT’s triple crown takes the headline since it made history as the first women’s team triple crown, but also for the first time in history, both the men’s and the women’s sides saw triple crowns. UWL won their fourth men’s triple crown in history to finish off a storied season that saw an impressive 25 national qualifiers indoors (how can you not win a title with those numbers?!)
UChicago DMR victory
Everybody loves a comeback story, and UChicago’s Claudia Harnett’s eight-lap anchor leg in the indoor DMR completed a comeback arc that cannot be forgotten. After suffering nearly two years of injury, 2025 marked the return of Harnett, and she returned with a vengeance, running a 4:52 mile in just her second race back. Several weeks later, she teamed up with Nora Holmes, Ren Brown, and Emma Kelly to run a new D3 national record under all conditions in the women’s DMR.
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This same quartet toed the line at nationals, and Harnett, who scratched her individual events to focus on running with her team, ran a gutsy last leg in which she overtook MIT’s Kate Sanderson to bring UChicago home to DMR victory, the program’s first ever relay national title.
Harnett, who had never finished an outdoor season due to nagging injury, finished this outdoor season fourth overall in the women’s 1500m, a fantastic end to a rollercoaster of a collegiate career.
Bati versus Patzka
Two north XC powerhouses joined in the fall for a faceoff the north hasn’t seen since the Battle of Winterfell. Bati showed his cards at the regional meet foreshadowing what was to come in Terre Haute. He hadn’t lost an 8k race all season, and even dipped under 24 minutes on a challenging MIAC course. Patzka lined up as the twice-runner-up out for blood. It came down to the final 400 meters. Bati made a hard move at 1k to go, but just when he thought he could hold the lead long enough, a patient and seasoned Patzka stalked him down.
What feels like one of the longest straightaways in cross country played to Patzka’s favor and Bati’s detriment. As Bati tied up, Patzka soared past and won his first national title. Bati, who didn’t even qualify for the national meet last year, finished runner-up. How’s that for improvement? The battle between Patzka and Bati was highly anticipated all year, and it surely did not disappoint. Throw in star performances from Grant and Aidan Matthai and Nathan Tassey, and it was truly a memorable 8k.
Again, a big thanks to Bombas for supporting D3 Glory Days this monthcheck out their Lightweight Athletic Socks. Stu wore them in his marathon and didn’t have any blisters!
For every pair purchased, Bombas donates a pair to someone facing homelessness, and they’ve donated over 150 million essential clothing items so far.
Use code GLORYDAYS21 for 21% off your first order on Bombas.com and GLORYDAYS15 for 15% off for returning customers – for D3 Glory Days readers only!* *One time use per customer, expires July 31st, 2025.