2025 Cross Country Season Preview
9/4/2025
The Brown men’s and women’s cross country teams are ready to kick off their 2025 seasons on Friday, September 5, when they will compete in the Friar XC Invitational, hosted by Providence College at Highland Park in Attleboro, Mass. The season-opening meet will feature the Bears competing against Providence, URI, Dartmouth, Northeastern and Boston University. The women’s 4K race will begin at 3:15, followed by the men’s 6K at 4 p.m.
The Friar Invitational will mark the start of Brown’s six regular season meets throughout September and October, leading up to the Ivy League Heps on October 31 at Van Cortland Park in the Bronx, N.Y.
The first two meets of the 2025 season will be local, with the Friar XC Invitational (9/5) and the UMass Dartmouth Invitational in Dartmouth, Mass (9/20). Brown will attend the Paul Short Run on October 5, hosted by Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. The New England Championships will be on October 10 at the Hopkinton Fairgrounds in Contoocook, N.H., followed by the IC4A Championships at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y. on October 17. Brown will host the Rothenberg Run on October 24 at Highland Park, before heading back to the Bronx on October 31 for the Ivy League Championships at Van Cortland Park.
Both teams will look to start the year strong, with the women’s seeding at No. 11 in the USTFCCCA Northeast Region Preseason Rankings.
Women's Team Outlook
The women’s team will feature 29 runners in 2025, with 22 returners and seven newcomers, led by third-year head coach John Kenworthy.
The women concluded the 2024 season ranked 12th in the USTFCCCA Northeast Region, and were ranked 11th in the region this preseason.
Junior Olivia Fraga had a strong finish to her 2024 campaign, placing first on the team and 17th overall at Heps and third on the team at Regionals. Fraga also placed second at the Paul Short Run. Nitrit Ahuja is gearing up for her senior year. After finishing runner-up on the team at Heps and fifth on the team at the Northeast Regional, she’s looking to help lead the Bears’ pack this season.
After having a strong freshmen year, finishing top four on the team in five races, sophomore Morgan Boonshaft is looking to finish even stronger this go-around. Senior Emily Mrakovcic is looking to close out her college career on a high note after finishing fourth on the team at both the Ivy Heps and Northeast Regional in 2024.
“We have a pretty good mix of upper classmen, newcomers, everybody in between that are ready to contribute,” said Kenworthy. “We want to keep climbing through the region and get back to some places that I think our program is capable of in the long term. It’s cool to see we’re starting the year in a good spot. Hopefully the season goes well and we can replicate or beat those projections at the end of the season, but the goal is progress every year, so making some progress on 12th (regionally) would be great.”
Kenworthy mentioned the team's strength through the years is working together and never having a standout finisher.
“We’ve built our success the last few years on having the best fourth, fifth, sixth runners...just trying to improve who we have returning, but that pack is going to be the biggest asset versus a single person leading the way.”
Men's Team Outlook
Under the direction of third-year head coach Collin Zeffer, the men’s squad features 19 runners with 14 returners and five newcomers.
Junior Matthew Doherty had a strong 2024 campaign, finishing second on the team at both the Ivy League Heps and NCAA Northeast Regional. Junior Sebastian Margetts finished second on the team at the UMass Dartmouth Invitational and the Paul Short Run. Senior Tommy Gaffey is looking for a breakout year after finishing fourth on the team at both the Ivy League Heps and Northeast Regionals.
“I think we can continue to develop from last year,” Zeffer said. “We have been improving consistently over the last couple of years at the regional level.”
Zeffer spoke about the big aspirations the team had for the upcoming year and what he had seen during this year's preseason.
“We certainly flipped a switch at the end of last year,” said Zeffer. “We had some really big goals to go into this past summer and lay a really good foundation in terms of summer training. Just in our first practice (recently), it’s a completely different team than from what I think it was last year. The guys are hungry to be competitive, to compete well, and they’re in really good shape as it stands right now.”
