Young, Distance Powerhouses BYU, NAU, Stanford, New Mexico, Washington to Conclude Fast Indoor Season at the Dempsey

By Keenan Gray of DyeStat

John Nepolitan Photo

The final meet of the 2025 indoor season at the Dempsey Facility welcomes its best competition of the winter to the Husky Classic on Friday and Saturday in Seattle.

BYU, Northern Arizona, New Mexico, Stanford, host-Washington and a handful of professional names headline the distance portion of the meet that begins Friday night with the 3,000 meter and 5,000 meter races.

Nico Young, representing adidas, returns to the track for the first time since competing for the United States in the men's 10,000 meter final at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The former NAU standout is scheduled to appear in the 3,000 meter and return for the mile on Saturday.

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Facing Young in the 3,000 meter invitational section will be a couple of his former teammates, Drew Bosley and Colin Sahlman,  along with the Lumberjacks' David Mullarkey, Washington's Evan Jenkins, Acer Iverson, Leo Daschbach, BYU's Casey Clinger and Joey Nokes, New Mexico's Habtom Samuel and Collins Kiprotich and Australian Jack Rayner of Melbourne Track.

Another Olympian, steeplechaser James Corrigan of BYU is scheduled to run in the second-fastest men's 3,000 meter section, as well as Stanford's Cole Sprout and Lex Young, Portland's Matt Strangio, Gonzaga's Wil Smith, Washington State's Evans Kurui and New Mexico's Luke Kiprop and Ishmael Kipkurui.

High school standouts Tayvon Kitchen and Josiah Tostenson of Crater OR will contest in one of six sections of the men's 3,000.

Stanford's Thomas Boyden, Washington's Tyrone Gorze and Utah Valley's Mohamed Guled are the featured names in the men's 5,000 invite section. New Mexico's Chirchir and Kiplagat and WSU's Kurui are also entered despite a tight turnaround with the 3,000 scheduled the same night.

Zafer Courcelle of Franklin OR and Aiden Le Roux of Cheyenne Mountain CO are the top prep athletes in the men's 5,000.

Doubling back for Saturday's mile invitational section with Young are New Mexico's Samuel and Kiprop, where they'll race Australian Jude Thomas and Irishman Brian Fay of Melbourne Track, Canadian Kieran Lumb of On, Americans Joe Waskom of adidas and Henry Wynne of Brooks Beasts, Washington's Thomas Diamond and Cal Poly's Aidan McCarthy.

Stanford's Boyden, Sprout and Young and Portland Strangio are also expected to double, too, returning to the mile in the section before the invitational race.

Owen Powell of Mercer Island WA will attempt another sub-4-minute effort after running 4:01.14 at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston on Feb. 2.

Washington's Kyle Reinheimer and Justin O'Toole, sixth and seventh in the NCAA in the men's 800 meter, respectively, are scheduled to take on NAU's Sahlman and On's Lumb Saturday in the 800 meter, alongside John Rivera of Brooks Beast and freshmen Tyler Mathews of BYU and Martin Barco of Washington.

Franklin OR's Brennan McEwen is entered in one of eight sections of the men's 800.

On the women's side, BYU's Lexy Halladay-Lowry and Riley Chamberlain are the top entries in the 3,000 meter invitational section, coming off school record performances two weeks ago at the John Thomas Terrier Classic. Halladay-Lowry ran 14 minutes, 57.63 seconds to post the fourth-fastest all-time collegiate indoor 5k and Chamberlain ran 4:26.19 for the fifth-fastest all-time collegiate indoor mile.

Halladay-Lowry and Chamberlain's teammate Carmen Alder from the women's national championship cross country team is entered, too.

Both NAU and Washington will also feature multiple athletes into the invitational section, with Karrie Baloga, Alyson Churchill, Nikita Moore, and Elise Stearns representing the Lumberjacks, and Mia Cochran, Julia David-Smith, and Amina Maatoug representing the Huskies.

Sophia Kennedy of Stanford, Nicola Jansen of New Mexico, Rosina Machu-Shuri of Gonzaga, Fleur Templier of Portland, Erin Vringer of Utah and Zenah Cheptoo of WSU are among other noteworthy entries.

The women's 3,000 meter invitational section is scheduled for Saturday, but Friday will feature the first five sections that'll include prep standouts Mercer Island WA's Victoria Rodriguez and Crescent Valley OR's Emily Wisniewski.

BYU's Jenna Hutchins is the top entry in the women's 5,000, alongside Stanford's Zofia Dudek and New Mexico's Nicola Jansen. Mercer Island WA's Sophia Rodriguez should be among the mix with the top college athletes.

Portland's Laura Pellicoro returns to the Dempsey two weeks to run in the women's 800 meter after running an NCAA-leading mile time of 4:25.60 at the Washington Invitational, ranking her third on the all-time, all-conditions list.

Pellicoro matches up against Paris Olympian and Stanford's own Juliette Whittaker, as well as BYU's Tessa Buswell, former Rider star Teagan Schein-Becker, now with the Brooks Beasts, and Rebecca Mehra of LA Fire.

U.S. Olympic Trials finalist Maggi Congdon of NAU headlines the women's mile invite section along with her teammates Alex Carlson and Agnes McTighe. Those three are set to go against Stanford's Amy Bunnage, adidas' Anna Camp-Bennett, Nike's Sadie Sargent and BYU's Carlee Hansen and Rohatinsky.

NAU is also expected to have Moore, Ali Upshaw and Ava Mitchell in the other sections of the mile, with New Mexico's Alice Seguin, Boise State's Kaiya Robertson and Washington's Maggie Liebich in the mix.

Chloe Huyler of Lakeridge OR and Alexa Matora of Lake Washington WA are two prep athletes to watch for in one of eight women's mile sections.

Friday night will include an NCAA Indoor Championships qualifying opportunity for distance medley teams.

The women's race will feature BYU, New Mexico, NAU, Stanford, Utah and Washington, while the men's race will feature California, Stanford and Washington.

Outside the distance window, decathlete Harrison Williams, who represented the U.S. at the Paris Olympic Games, is entered in three events: men's 800, pole vault and 60 meter hurdles.