With the NCAA Cross Country Championships just a month away, the 2024 Wisconsin Pre-Nationals offered teams a final opportunity to familiarize themselves with the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course. Recognizing that Pre-Nationals would be the final regular season meet, most teams took the chance to showcase their strongest seven-man lineups. Thus, stakes were undoubtedly high in Madison, Wis. on Saturday morning.
The Zimmer Championship course is well-known to the Cardinal, having made the trip to Wisconsin in nine out of the ten past seasons. At the 2024 Pre-Nationals, No. 9 Stanford men’s cross country secured a third-place finish. Right before the men’s race, the No. 8 Stanford women finished eleventh in a fiercely competitive race, where six women went under the course record that was held by former University of Florida standout Parker Valby.
Women’s Race
The Women’s “A” Race featured the top five ranked teams: No.1 Northern Arizona, No. 2 BYU, No. 3 Washington, No. 4 Notre Dame, and No. 5 NC State. Despite the high-pressure race, graduate student Zofia Dudek and sophomore Sophia Kennedy quickly positioned themselves near the front, trailing a few seconds behind eventual course-record breaker Pamela Kosgei from New Mexico.
The Kennedy and Dudek duo worked side-by-side in the chase pack until the final two kilometers, where Kennedy hammered home to take 13th in a collegiate best time of 19:41. Dudek also dipped under the 20-minute mark for the second time in her career to secure 23rd place. Junior Riley Stewert, senior Imogen Gardiner, and junior Nicole Hogg rounded out the top five for the Cardinal, with Gardiner securing her highest team finish in her career at No. 4.
With many teams debuting their full squads for the first time at Pre-Nationals, it is not surprising that four lower-ranked teams placed in the top ten ahead of the Stanford women. Dudek and Kennedy, however, have consistently led the Cardinal in the past two meets, and their momentum will be tested at the upcoming ACC Championships.
Men’s Race
The Men’s “A” race was electric, with 19 ranked men’s teams in attendance and another course record broken by New Mexico’s Habtom Samuel. No. 9 Stanford also finished on the podium ahead of powerhouse schools New Mexico and Northern Arizona.
The Stanford men went hard from the start, with graduate students Thomas Boyden and Cole Sprout, and sophomore Lex Young, immediately positioning themselves in the front pack. The three stayed within one second of each other up until the 6-kilometer mark, where Sprout took the lead for the Cardinal, finishing ninth in a season’s best time of 23:03. Young, Boyden and sophomore Leo Young kicked hard to the line for the No. 2 through No. 4 team finishes, and freshman Paul Bergeron rounded out the Cardinal’s top five, moving up 29 places from the 2-kilometer mark to the finish.
From the first to seventh man, Stanford only had a spread of 37 seconds – the least out of any team on the podium. The Cardinal’s depth will be hard to ignore when it meets No. 1 Oklahoma State and No. 2 BYU at the DI National Championships later this season.