Milaina Almonte achieved a significant milestone for the Santa Clara University women’s cross country team by becoming its first all-region honoree in 16 years. Competing at the 2025 NCAA West Region Championship held at Arcade Creek Cross Country Course in Sacramento, Almonte finished 20th with a time of 20 minutes, 15.8 seconds. This marks the best individual finish by a Bronco since Stephanie Wilson placed sixth in 2009 and is the team’s first all-region honor since that year.
Almonte was also recognized as the sixth individual from the West Coast Conference to finish, matching her placement from two weeks prior when she earned all-WCC recognition. “Almonte made her move at the three-mile mark, passing five runners over the final 0.6 miles to crack the top-20,” according to event details. Her performance at this meet was her second-fastest of the season, following her win at the Bronco Invitational on October 18 with a time of 20:06.5.
Sarah Guralnick contributed another strong result for Santa Clara, finishing in 89th place with a time of 21:35.8, giving the Broncos two athletes among the top-100 finishers. Sydney Lim finished as Santa Clara’s third runner in 125th place (22:04.4). Julia Russo (183rd, 22:37.9) and Alyssa Wyatt (208th, 23:09.1) completed the scoring for Santa Clara.
Additional competitors for Santa Clara included Aliyah Yearian (227th, 23:29.1) and Heidi Green.
The Broncos scored a total of 625 points as a team and narrowly missed out on placing in the top-20 by just three points behind Utah Tech (622). The team managed to outperform conference rival Portland as well as Power-4 programs Arizona and USC. Their final standing—21st place—was their best since finishing twentieth in 2023 and marked an improvement of six places compared to last year’s results.
Stanford secured victory in the NCAA West Region Championship with a total of 66 points while Oregon took second place with 75 points, both earning automatic qualification for nationals. Rosemary Longisa from Washington State won the individual title with a time of 19:08.3.
