Cal Poly Cross Country Announces 2025 Schedule
7/28/2025 3:30:00 PM | Cross Country
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — The Cal Poly cross country program, winners of three consecutive Big West men’s and women’s team titles, announced its full 2025 season schedule on Monday.
This fall, the Mustangs are seeking a feat no other school in Big West history has achieved — a fourth straight sweep of the Big West men’s and women’s team titles. Their pursuit for history starts on Aug. 29 when the team travels just over 30 minutes south on Highway 101 to open its 2025 campaign at the Bulldog Invitational hosted by Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria.
Cal Poly continues its season on Sept. 19 when the program takes part in the UCSB Invitational hosted by the Gauchos. The Mustangs will make their first trip outside the state on Oct. 3 when the team heads to Chicago to compete in the Sean Earl Lakefront Invitational for the second straight year.
On its final weekend of regular season action, Cal Poly will split the squad for the first and only time this year. The Mustangs are set to send their top runners to the NCAA Pre-Nationals meet hosted by Missouri on Oct. 18 at the Gans Creek Cross Country Course, the site of this year’s NCAA Championships. The rest of the team will descend upon Baylands Regional Park on Oct. 18 to take part in the Bronco Invitational hosted by Santa Clara for the fifth consecutive season.
This year’s Big West Championship meet will be hosted by Hawai’i on Friday, Oct. 31, at Queen Kapi'olani Regional Park in Honolulu. Hawai’i, who will be joining the Mountain West Conference following the 2025-26 athletic year, is set to host the conference meet for just the third time and the first time since 2016 when the Mustangs swept the Big West team titles. The men’s 8K will start at 10 a.m. PDT with the women’s 6K to follow at 11 a.m. PDT. Last year at UC Riverside’s Ag/Ops Course, Cal Poly swept the Big West men’s and women’s team titles for the third straight year, becoming just the second school in conference history to accomplish a three-peat and first since UC Irvine in 1989-91.
The NCAA West Regional meet will take place on Friday, Nov. 14, at Haggin Oaks Golf Course in Sacramento. The last time the meet was held at that course in 2023, Cal Poly placed eighth as a team on both the men’s and women’s sides and three runners secured USTFCCCA All-West Region honors.
The 2025 NCAA Championships will be held at Missouri’s Gans Creek Cross Country Course for the first time on Saturday, Nov. 22.
Redshirt seniors Michael Chambers and Spencer Pickren, and redshirt sophomore Rory Catsimanes are among the key returners for the men. Chambers is fresh off a breakout season on the track where he won Big West titles in the men’s 5,000-meter and 3,000-meter steeplechase, and qualified for the NCAA West Preliminaries meet for the first time. Chambers took 10th at last year’s Big West Cross Country Championship to earn All-Big West honors. Catsimanes captured sixth at last year’s conference meet to secure Big West Men’s Freshman of the Year honors and was the Mustangs’ third runner to cross the finish line at the West Regional.
Redshirt senior Isabel Sanchez and junior Kelli Gaffney are set to lead the women’s team this fall. Sanchez won the Big West title in the women’s 3,000 steeplechase this spring, while Gaffney qualified for the NCAA West Prelims for the first time in the 10,000.
