COLUMBIA, Mo.—Villanova concluded one of its best seasons in the last several years with a strong performance at the 2025 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships on Saturday morning. A lineup that consisted exclusively of runners appearing at the NCAA Championships for the first time in their collegiate cross country careers finished 25^th out of 32 teams on the Gans Creek Cross Country Course. It is the 33^rd time that Villanova earned a team berth to the cross country national championships and the Wildcats best national finish since 2019.
 
The talent and depth of the Villanova roster was on display as the team's five scoring runners had a spread of less than 46 seconds between them. Three of the seven runners in the Wildcats lineup are in their first or second season of cross country eligibility, while the duo of junior Tilly O'Connor (Spring Lake, N.J.) and graduate student Nikki Vanasse (Martinsville, N.J.) each placed in the top half of the field of 262 runners.
 
O'Connor recorded her fifth straight 6,000-meter cross country race with a time below 20 minutes and paced Villanova with a 78^th place overall finish. She covered the University of Missouri home course in 19:45.6, just over 10 seconds faster than her time at the Pre-National Invitational on the same course last month. Five of the Wildcats seven runners posted better times in Saturday's national championship race than in the Pre-NCAA meet on October 18.
 
O'Connor and Vanasse were the top finishers in the Villanova lineup. Vanasse came in 128^th overall with a time of 20:06.2 and finished just ahead of graduate student Margaret Carroll (Mount Wolf, Pa.) who had a time of 20:10.9 and came in 142^nd in the field. Sophomore Rosie Shay (Middletown, N.J.) and senior Amelia Arrieta (Kansas City, Mo.) posted times of 20:23.2 and 20:31.5, respectively, while finishing 168^th and 193^rd. Villanova rounded out its lineup with first year collegians Zoe Mosher (Pleasantville, N.S.) and Maeve Smith (Ocean City, N.J.) who crossed the finish line with respective times of 20:49.2 and 21:21.5.
 
A young Wildcats team rolled through the season with six straight first or second place invitational finishes before coming in fourth at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional last week and earning an at-large selection to Saturday's NCAA Championships. Along the way, Villanova had five runners earn All-BIG EAST accolades and four be named Mid-Atlantic All-Region selections.
 
There are only 11 Division I women's programs to make as many as 33 team appearances at the NCAA Championships in cross country. The Wildcats have won a record nine team titles and have also had nine individual national champions over the years; no other school has come close to matching those numbers.