NNU's Grady Mylander, UAA's John Peckham, and WWU's Sten Brakstad and Jonah Billings are all set to represent their teams at the NCAA XC Championships on Nov. 22 (Photo: Shi Robison).
NNU's Grady Mylander, UAA's John Peckham, and WWU's Sten Brakstad and Jonah Billings are all set to represent their teams at the NCAA XC Championships on Nov. 22 (Photo: Shi Robison).

GNAC to send 4 teams, 3 individuals to NCAA XC Championships

11/11/2025 9:39:42 AM

By: Evan O'Kelly, Associate Commissioner for Communications

PORTLAND, Ore. – Four teams and three individual runners from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference are headed to the 2025 NCAA Cross Country Championships, with the qualifiers announced by the NCAA on Monday.
 
Representing the conference will be the men’s teams from Western Washington, Alaska Anchorage and Northwest Nazarene, and the women’s team from Western Washington. Alaska’s Dexter Delaney also qualified as an individual on the men’s side, while Seattle Pacific’s Maya Ewing and Simon Fraser’s Rachael Watkins were the league’s individual women’s qualifiers.
 
The national championship meet is Nov. 22 at Wayne E. Dannehl National Cross Country Course in Kenosha, Wis. The women’s 6k championship race begins at 10 a.m. (Central) with the men’s 10k championship race following at 11:15 a.m. (Central). The event will be streamed live on www.ncaa.com with live results available online here.
 
Claiming both the women’s and men’s team titles at the GNAC Cross Country Championships for the third consecutive season, Western Washington was once again the league’s top performing team. The Viking men will be making their sixth national championship appearance in the last seven seasons and their 14th overall since the GNAC was formed in 2001. WWU finished in 13th place as a team at last year’s meet, and its best-ever men’s national finish was fourth place at the 2009 championships.
 
WWU’s men’s squad has been led this season by all-conference performers Sten Brakstad, Jonah Billings, Jared Alderfer and George Fernandez. Brakstad was the conference runner-up with an 8k time of 24:17.6 minutes, before running a personal-best 10k time of 30:22.8 minutes to earn all-region honors with a 17th-place finish at the regional meet. Billings finished in the top-10 in both meets, taking fourth at the GNAC Championships in 24:26.7 minutes and following with an eighth-place regional finish in 29:51.2 minutes. Alderfer also contributed to both WWU’s league title and regional runner-up finish, taking ninth at the conference meet in 24:40.0 minutes and 13th at the regional championship in 30:11.9 minutes. Fernandez was another all-region performer for the Vikings, placing 23rd in 30:28.0 minutes after taking 10th at the conference meet in 24:40.2 minutes. Alderfer and Brakstad are the two runners in WWU’s lineup who competed at nationals last year, with the former placing 75th (31:04.3 minutes) and the latter following in 149th (31:50.7 minutes).
 
The Alaska Anchorage men will be making their GNAC-record 16th team appearance and first since placing 34th at the 2023
NCAA Championships. The Seawolves’ best-ever national finishes were third place twice, coming in 2012 and once again in 2015. The Seawolves are led by 2025 GNAC Cross Country Male Athlete of the Year John Peckham. The GNAC champion in 24:04.6 minutes on Oct. 25 followed up with a fourth-place regional finish as he clocked in at 29:36.6 minutes. Peckham finished 91st at last year’s NCAA Championships and will be making his third national championship race appearance as a member of UAA. Right behind Peckham placing fifth at regionals was Ty Elliott, who finished with a time of 29:38.9 minutes. That came after he was an all-conference performer in sixth place (24:33.1 minutes) at the GNAC Championships. Elliott will be making his second national championship meet appearance, after being a member of the UAA team in 2023.
 
It will be a historic first-ever team appearance for the Northwest Nazarene men, who placed third at the GNAC Championships and earned an at-large national berth after placing fifth at the NCAA West Region Championships. The trio of Grady Mylander, Brody Kemble and Ian Stockett have fueled the team’s success, with all three being top performers on the conference and regional stages. Mylander took third place at both the GNAC Championships (24:21.9 minutes) and NCAA West Region Championships (29:35.4 minutes), leading NNU’s lineup in both postseason races thus far. Kemble earned all-conference with a fifth-place GNAC finish (24:30.9 minutes), and all-region by taking 11th place (30:08.9 minutes). Stockett followed suit as well, placing seventh at the conference meet (24:33.9 minutes) and 12th at regionals (30:10.3 minutes).
 
Delaney, the 2025 GNAC Freshman of the Year, will also make history as he will become the first-ever Alaska men’s runner to compete at the national championship meet. Delaney earned his spot by finishing seventh at the NCAA West Region Championships, running a time of 29:45.5 minutes in his first collegiate 10k. That came after he was an all-conference performer at the GNAC Championships, finishing eighth with an 8k time of 24:39.6 minutes.
 
On the women’s side, the Vikings are in their third consecutive national championship meet and are coming off an 11th-place finish last fall. Overall this will be the 12th national championship team appearance for the WWU women, with their best-ever finish being sixth place in 2015. WWU will rely on a combination of national championship returning experience and a deep lineup to try to climb the national leaderboard.
 
Ella Edens was the team’s top performer at regionals in 21:05.2 minutes for 16th place, after she picked up her second all-conference honor by placing fifth at the GNAC Championships in 21:35.8 minutes. She is the lone returner to the WWU lineup who competed at last year’s national championship, where she placed 114th (22:17.8 minutes). Right behind Edens at regionals was Jill Philbin, who finished 17th with a time of 21:05.4 minutes. GNAC runner-up Alexis Parker was another all-region performer last week, finishing in 23rd with a time of 21:15.5 minutes. That was an 11-second improvement upon her conference-meet time of 21:26.6 minutes.
 
Seniors Emmy Kroontje and Laura Halsell are two other experienced runners for the Vikings. Kroontje was 12th at the conference meet (21:46.8 minutes) and 62nd at regionals (21:50.1 minutes). Halsell had a similarly strong fall, placing 11th at the GNAC Championships (21:46.1 minutes) and 51st at the regional meet with a personal-best time of 21:42.9 minutes. Sabrina Colbert earned GNAC Newcomer of the Year honors with a conference finish of 26th in 22:09.3 minutes, and followed up by placing 35th at regionals in 21:24.7 minutes. WWU will also rely on freshman Cecilia Villagomez Edvalson, who was 23rd at the GNAC meet (22:01.5 minutes) and 50th at the regional meet (21:42.1 minutes).
 
Ewing, the 2025 GNAC Cross Country Female Athlete of the Year, will make her national championship debut after placing eighth at the regional championships last week. She clocked a personal-best 6k time of 20:51.9 minutes to earn her national championship spot, after winning the GNAC Championships individual title with a time of 21:04.8 minutes on Oct. 25 in Billings, Mont. It will mark the second straight year with a Falcon competing at the national meet, after 2024 senior Annika Esvelt finished in fourth place.
 
Watkins was the conference’s top performer at last week’s regional championship in Monmouth, Ore., cruising to a time of 20:34.1 minutes to finish fifth and secure her second-straight national championship berth. That came after she took third place at the conference meet with a time of 21:28.4 minutes. The reigning All-American and two-time all-conference performer will look to improve upon last year’s 35th-place NCAA Championship finish, as SFU will have a women’s representative at the national meet for the second straight season.