NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Yale men's cross country seniors
Owen Karas (Columbus, Ohio) and
Kenan Pala (San Diego, Calif.) are headed to Missouri to represent Yale at the NCAA Cross Country Championships on Saturday. The race, which is 10K, starts at 10:10 a.m. CT/11:10 a.m. ET at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo.
How They Got Here
Karas and Pala earned their spots following the NCAA Cross Country Northeast Regional Championships last Friday at Hopkinton State Fairgrounds in Contoocook, N.H. Karas placed 11th and Pala placed 12th. They wound up in the top four among individuals in the Northeast Region on teams that did not advance to the NCAA Championships. From the Northeast, No. 4 Syracuse and Iona earned automatic berths in the Championships as teams. No. 29 Harvard was selected at-large. That meant that Karas and Pala, along with Hofstra's Fredrick Kipkosgei (who finished first) and UMass Lowell's Jan Wouter Van Den Akker (who finished 10th) advanced individually from the Northeast.
Owen Karas
Senior
Owen Karas (Columbus, Ohio) led the Bulldogs home at NCAA Regionals with an 11th place finish (29:27.2). That marked a significant improvement on his finish at Regionals in 2024 (22nd). He received All-Region recognition again for finishing in the top 25. Karas has been Yale's top finisher in all four races he has run this year. His third-place finish at Heps earned him All-Ivy League honors. He also was an Academic All-Ivy League selection.
Kenan Pala
Senior
Kenan Pala (San Diego, Calif.) (12th, 29:31.1) was Yale's second finisher at NCAA Regionals, earning All-Region recognition for the second year in a row (he finished 25th at Regionals in 2024). This marked the eighth time in his last nine races that Pala has finished among the Bulldogs' top three.
The Field
No. 8 BYU is the defending NCAA team champion, while Oklahoma State enters this race ranked No. 1 nationally. New Mexico's Habtom Samuel is the top returning individual from last year's race, in which he finished second to Harvard's Graham Blanks with a time of 29:38.9.
Bulldogs at Regionals
Yale finished fifth (170 points) at the NCAA Northeast Regional. The Bulldogs matched last year's fifth-place finish at Regionals, giving the team its first back-to-back top five finishes at Regionals since 2003 (fourth) and 2004 (fifth).
NCAA Championships History
The last Yale individual to advance to the NCAA Men's Cross Country Championships was
Sean Kay '24 in 2023. He placed 13th at Regionals to earn his spot in the championship race, where he went on to finish 177th.
Yale's top 25 individual finishes at the Championships, which started in 1938, are:
| Year |
Place |
Runner |
| 1942 |
3 |
LeRoy Schwarzkopf '44 |
| 1960 |
19 |
William Bachrach '61 |
| 1968 |
19 |
Frank Shorter '69 |
| 1989 |
12 |
Jim Gibson '91 |
| 1991 |
9 |
Rick Wemple '92 |
| 2004 |
18 |
Lucas Meyer '05 |
USTFCCCA XCRI
New for 2025, the USTFCCCA has developed the
Cross Country Ratings Index (XCRI) – a comprehensive ranking system that evaluates athletes based on head-to-head race results and strength of schedule. Rankings are based solely on current season performances and are objective and deterministic (no simulations used). In those rankings, senior
Owen Karas (Columbus, Ohio) is 85th nationally.
NCAA Championships
- NCAA Championships selections were announced Saturday on ncaa.com.
- The NCAA Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships provide for a maximum of 32 five-to-seven-person teams and 38 individuals per gender.
- Eighteen teams automatically qualify for the championships races by finishing as one of the top two teams at any of the nine regional races.
- The remaining 14 at-large teams are selected by the NCAA Division I Cross Country Subcommittee.
- Thirty-six individuals automatically qualify for the championships races by being one of the top four regional finishers not on an advancing team.
- Two additional individuals are selected at-large by the committee.
