By Jordan Bond / The Jambar
After a milestone season, the Youngstown State University men’s and women’s cross country teams closed out the 2025 campaign at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championships on Nov. 14 at the Angel Mounds Cross Country Course in Evansville, Indiana.
The men placed 12th in the 10K race, while the women finished 16th in the 6K to wrap up their postseason run in Division I.
As the women opened the day, junior McKinley Fielding set the pace for the Penguins. Fielding crossed the line at 21:03.38 to place 42nd overall, and improved 20 spots from her regional finish a year ago.
Behind her, YSU’s pack stayed tight in the middle of the field. Sophomore Caleigh Richards capped her second season with a 75th-place finish at 21:34.82, and senior Jenna Razavi followed close behind in 77th with a time of 21:37.35. Razavi’s finish gave the Penguins three runners inside the top 100.
Further back, sophomore Megan Stafford finished 142nd at 22:35.14, while sophomore Maggie Hopple was just a few seconds behind in 146th at 22:39.33. Junior Lillian Katsaras placed 167th at 23:00.45, while freshman Karis McElhaney rounded out the lineup in 202nd with a time of 23:48.87.
As a group, the women totaled 461 points to secure 16th in the team standings. University of Notre Dame controlled the front of the race and won the regional title with 22 points, followed by University of Wisconsin–Madison in second with 95 and University of Toledo in third with 104.
In the men’s 10K, graduate student Tobias Jones led the Penguins one last time. Racing his final cross country meet, Jones placed 53rd at 31:42.78, improving one spot from his 54th-place finish at last year’s regional.
Redshirt junior Sage Vavro placed 57th at 31:45.50, giving YSU two runners in the top 60 in the men’s field. Redshirt junior Blaze Fichter was the next Penguin across the line in 74th with a time of 31:11.09.
A trio of younger runners packed up to secure the remaining scoring positions, as redshirt freshman Brock Farris finished 97th at 32:27.59, redshirt freshman Ethan Cope took 111th at 32:41.90, redshirt junior Owen Brady placed 131st at 33:05.16 and redshirt freshman Patrick Burgos closed in 173rd at 34:01.78.
The men scored 388 points to place 12th as a team. Notre Dame won the men’s regional title with 60 points, followed by Butler University with 75 and Wisconsin with 99.
While the Great Lakes Regional brought the 2025 season to a close, the results in Evansville were the final chapter of one of the most successful fall campaigns in program history.
Two weeks earlier, Youngstown State swept the HL team titles for the first time in school history, as the women captured just their second conference championship, and first since 2014, while the men claimed their fourth-straight HL crown.With the conclusion of the season, three Penguins earned accolades for the program. Fielding entered the regional as the defending Horizon League Individual Champion after breaking her own program record with a 20:10.9 performance at the conference meet. Burgos earned Horizon League Men’s Freshman of the Year honors, and Head Coach Brian Gorby was recognized as the HL Women’s Coach of the Year.