ST. LOUIS, MO – The 2025 SLIAC Cross Country Championships were held at Buder Park on Saturday as the Panthers men's and women's teams each came in with different goals for the meet. The Prin women came in looking to see where their first team score of the season would stack up behind the heavily favored women from Greenville, while the Prin men had a legitimate shot to dethrone the men from Greenville and win their first conference title in 12 years.
The women ran their 6K first and all five Principia runners had strong races. The Panthers top runner, senior
Sophia Green, finished 4th in a personal best time of 24:48.97 to break up a Greenville sweep of the top 5 and earn First Team All-Conference honors. Freshman
Danielle Vargas also ran a personal best time of 26:55.61 and finished in 15th to earn Second Team All-Conference honors. Sophomore
Nina Martinez (27:49.88) and senior
Sarah Erickson (28:35.18) each ran a season-best time and finished in 18th and 19th, just outside of the all-conference places. Finally, freshman
Nekoda Burnett ran her first race of the season to ensure the team had five runners to receive a team score and finished 42nd which gave the Panthers 95 points – good enough for second place!
The men then took the course for their 8K in what was shaping up to be a three-way battle for first between Principia, Greenville, and Webster. The Prin men were coming off a win over Greenville two weeks ago at GU's home meet – Greenville's first loss to a conference opponent since 2017 – so everyone knew that anything was possible in this race. Principia was in strong position to win for most of the race, but unfortunately gave up a few places in the final kilometer. This proved to be costly as Greenville would edge Prin by just four points (51 to 55) to earn their 10th straight conference championship. Webster finished a close third with 59 points.
Despite the disappointing ending, the Panther men still ran really well and have a lot to be proud of since this was the closest a team has ever come to ending Greenville's reign. Senior
Zach Proctor was Principia's top finisher as he ran in the lead pack the entire way and finished in 5th to earn First Team All-Conference honors for the second straight year with a time of 27:18.23. Sophomore
Holland Thomas finished 7th with a personal best time of 27:22.98 to take home First Team All-Conference honors for the first time. Junior
Kennett Rampley finished 9th to earn Second Team All-Conference honors in back-to-back years with a personal best time of 27:24.91. Freshman
Amos Ostler also earned Second Team All-Conference honors in 12th with a personal best time of 27:46.70. All four of Prin's top runners finished ahead of Greenville's #3 runner.
The question for Principia was always going to be who would step up as their #5 runner and how close would they finish for that final place that earn points. Junior
Dominic Mueller was the answer as he stepped up for the team and left it all on the course with a season best by 37 seconds (30:16.17) to finish in 22nd. Freshman
Mark Nutwell (28th) and sophomore
Owen Hofman (32nd) rounded out the top seven for the Panthers. Other personal best 8Ks came from
Augustine Magembe,
Kendarrious Love, and
Drew Chapman, as well as season best 8Ks from
Bradley Forrest and
Luke Berberich.
After the races, the Principia men were chosen by the coaches for the SLIAC Team Sportsmanship Award, while
Nekoda Burnett and
Drew Chapman took home All-Sportsmanship Team honors.
The Panthers top seven men and women will now move on to NCAA Midwest Regionals at Wartburg College in Waverly, IA on November 15th.
