- Jane Hedengren finished second at the NCAA championships in Columbia, Missouri, Saturday
- Alabama's Doris Lemngole won in a record 18:25.4 becoming a back-to-back champion.
- BYU placed second overall with 130 points; North Carolina State won with 114 points.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — BYU's Jane Hedengren came agonizingly close to breaking the tape on a 40-year streak.
The first-year harrier from Provo had the field beat for most of Saturday's 6K women's championship at Gans Creek — except for the top contender.
Alabama's Doris Lemngole held off Hedengren in a course-record 18 minutes, 25.4 seconds, holding off Hedengren by 13.5 seconds for second to become the first back-to-back individual national champion since 2011 at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Missouri.
Riley Chamberlain added a fourth-place individual finish for BYU, the defending national champion who finished second with 130 points. North Carolina State won its fourth national title in five years with 114 points, a team effort that included Hannah Gapes and Grace Hartman in fifth and sixth place, respectively, and all five scoring runners in the top 44.
"We had to have an absolutely perfect day, beyond perfect with some help, to get the win today," BYU coach Diljeet Taylor told her team after the race in a video captured by FloTrack. "And we came within 16 points, as NCAA runner-up. That is incredible; you have to be happy with that."
BYU's scoring runners placed inside the top 47, with Oregon, New Mexico and Florida rounding out the top five.
🔊 Coach Taylor immediately found her team after the BYU Cougs finished runner-up at the NCAA XC Championships.#NCAAXC25 and #CollegeXC coverage presented by @hokapic.twitter.com/LJTgjVrzWp
— FloTrack (@FloTrack) November 22, 2025
"I've learned a lot about myself this season," Hedengren told reporters prior to the championships. "I think there has been a lot of growth, and that's been a win in itself. It's a privilege to be here with my team, and to be on such a great team and have those resources with BYU is great.
"I'm going to put my best self out there, and compete to the best of my ability," she added. "Where ever that puts me, I want to be proud of the effort."
The eighth-ranked BYU men's team finished 11th in the 10,000-meter final, the Cougars' lowest finish under head coach Ed Eyestone since placing 16th in 2014.
Led by freshman Tayvon Kitchen, who finished 36th overall and 29th in scoring in 29:01.5. The former Oregon prep star led with the top pack through 5K, when he recorded a mid-race split of 14:25.3.
But Kitchen faded down the stretch, and New Mexico's Habtom Samuel only got stronger to clinch his first individual title in 28:33.9. Oklahoma State had three of the top six finishers to cruise to its sixth team title.
Erin Vringer finished 59th in 19:38.2 to lead Utah to 17th place in the team standings. Utah Valley's Morgan Nokes finished 23rd in 19:10.4, claiming All-American honors less than nine months after giving birth to her first child.
Hedengren was seeking to become the first true freshman to win a national championship since NC State's Suzie Tuffey in 1985.
Hedengren, the reigning national runner of the year by Gatorade who rewrote the Utah and national record books during her four-year career at Timpview High, erupted in her inaugural season as a collegian.
The 19-year-old shattered the Gans Creek cross country course record in 18:42.30 in her first collegiate meet, winning the Missouri Pre-Nationals by more than 23 seconds over the runner-up.
After a Big 12 title in her freshman season, Hedengren used a home crowd to win the NCAA Mountain regional in Salt Lake City, emerging as a "Jane-erational" talent in 19:06.6. — some 42 seconds faster than New Mexico's Pamela Kosgei, the reigning NCAA 10,000-meter national champion.
Hedengren opened with a 2:59.6 opening 1,000-meter split, then asserted herself through the first third of the race to lead defending national champion Doris Lemngole of Alabama in 6:07.4.
The duo ran arm-in-arm until Lemngole's experience took over down the stretch as the duo both finished under Hedengren's course-record time on the muddied course.
"I knew it was going to be a competitive race today with Jane and some other strong women," said Lemngole, who finished fifth at the 2025 World Championships in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. "My goal is to just stay witih the best, and when I saw I was in control, I just stayed there."
Noah Jenkins was the second from the BYU men's team, finishing 43rd overall in 29:08.5. Weber State's Peter Visser wrapped up his collegiate career with a 35th-place finish in 29:02.3.
