The field is set and travel plans are made, with all sights set on Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, Fla., for the 2025 NAIA Women’s Cross Country National Championship. Earlier this week, the full field of 36 teams was revealed on YouTube.

To view that list, visit the 2025 NAIA Women’s Cross Country Qualifier Announcement, which includes the full list of the championship’s Individual Qualifiers.

The No. 1-ranked team in the NAIA Women’s Cross Country Coaches’ Top 25 Rating, Taylor (Ind.), is led by the returning individual champion from the 2024 meet in Columbia, Mo., Jaynie Halterman.

The Trojans did give up their seat as a unanimous No. 1 in the final rating, as second-ranked Milligan (Tenn.) picked up three first-place votes and earned its place in the championship by winning the Appalachian Athletic Conference. The AAC was one of four conferences to receive two automatic bids to the championship, also sending Montreat (N.C.), who ended the year at No. 25 in the final rating.

The Great Plains Athletic Conference, the Heart of America Athletic Conference and the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference will also send two automatic qualifiers to the championship, as No. 15 Benedictine (Kan.) and Mount Mercy (Iowa) qualified from the Heart. Mount Mercy was one spot outside the top 25, with the 26th-most points in the final rating.

The GPAC will send both Dordt (Iowa) and Morningside (Iowa), and in the KCAC, No. 11 Kansas Wesleyan ended a run of conference championships for No. 12 Saint Mary (Kan.), who had won seven of the last eight KCAC crowns going into last week’s league meet.

Taylor’s conference, the Crossroads League, shared the conference lead in qualifying teams with the Cascade Collegiate Conference. Both conferences will send four teams to the championship, including the third-ranked College of Idaho, from the Cascade.

Last season’s national champion, The Master’s (Calif.), is also in the field, entering the championship at No. 5 in the final rating.  The Mustangs captured last year’s title by one point over Taylor.

Individually, Halterman will be joined by four more runners who finished in the top 10 last season, including Katie Woods of Marian (Ind.), Montreat’s Heather Murphy, Milligan’s Ellen-Mary Kearney, and Emma Nelson, from The Master’s.

The 2025 NAIA Women’s Cross Country Championship gets underway at 8:30 a.m. ET, with awards scheduled for approximately 11 a.m. ET. The championship and awards ceremony will air live on NAIA Network and Urban Edge Network, with links, apps, and information on smart TV viewing at www.naia.org/watch.