The Bulldogs head to Virginia for the 2026 BIG EAST Cross Country Championships, which are slated for Friday morning.
 
The Butler men look to defend their 2025 title as the Bulldogs have captured four of the last six BIG EAST championships.
 
The women's 6k race at Pole Green Park in Mechanicsville, Va., begins Friday morning at 10 a.m., and the men's 8k will follow at 10:50 a.m. The championships will be streamed on ESPN+ and live results will also be available.
 
William Zegarski won the 2025 race, becoming the fourth Bulldog male to win the BIG EAST cross country title since Butler joined the conference in 2013. If Zegarski can defend his title Friday, he would become the first Butler runner to win multiple BIG EAST cross country individual championships. Already this fall, Zegarski has earned BIG EAST weekly honors on two occasions, highlighted by a Top 20 finish at the Nuttycombe Invitational earlier this month, a race that included 21 nationally-ranked squads.
 
Zegarski will be joined in coach Matt Roe's line-up by Sean Byrnes, Kyle Grove, Simon Jeukenne, Connor Latouf, Seth Mahony, Asher Propst, Matteo Rosio, Brendan Thomas, and Graham Tomori. It will mark the season debut for Thomas. He, Rosio and Grove were alongside Zegarski as members of the Butler contingent in the 2025 BIG EAST race.
 
The Bulldog men are ranked No. 26 in this week's USTFCCCA national coaches poll. The BIG EAST race also includes No. 11 Georgetown and No. 12 Villanova among the nine-team field.
 
Hannah Moore leads the Butler women into Friday's championship race. Moore has been the top Bulldog finisher in all three competitions this fall and earned BIG EAST Athlete of the Week honors following her Top 50 finish at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational earlier this month.
 
Moore missed the 2025 BIG EAST race due to injury as the Bulldogs placed sixth as a team. Mckenna Mazeski and Carys Glyn-Jones are part of the 2026 line-up after also racing in the 2025 event. That trio will be joined by sophomore Ella Olthof and first-year runners Callie Bentley, Emily Berger, Hana Boggess, Poppy Healy, and Caterina Perego.
 
Providence, currently ranked No. 30 in the national coaches poll, headlines the women's field that includes all 11 BIG EAST institutions. Georgetown has won six consecutive BIG EAST women's titles.
 
The Butler women won the 2019 BIG EAST title and finished second in 2021.