CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi cross country team announced its schedule for the upcoming 2026 season on Friday morning, revealing the meets to come on the road toward a return to the top of the Southland Conference.
"It is that time again!" Islanders head coach
Bryan Jackson said. "The fall is quickly approaching, and the team has been working hard all summer to prepare. Every year, no matter how similar the teams are to the previous year, is a new team and a new journey. This group will have to establish what type of team they want to be, from both a training and a competition perspective. I can't wait to get the 2026-27 journey started with cross country, but I am equally as excited about all three seasons."
The Islanders will begin their season up the road, traveling to the flagship to take part in the Aggie Opener at the Watts Cross Country Course at Texas A&M on September 4. After this, their next meet takes them to Columbia, Missouri, where they will compete in the Gans Creek Classic, hosted by the University of Missouri, on September 25. The team then closes out the regular season back in College Station for the Arturo Barrios Invitational, which will be held on October 16.
From there, A&M-Corpus Christi transitions into postseason action, starting on October 30 with the Southland Conference Championships, which will be hosted by McNeese in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The NCAA South Central Regional Championships will then be held on November 13 in College Station, and should anyone qualify, the season would culminate at the NCAA Championships on November 21 at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Indiana, hosted by Indiana State University.
The Islanders will be looking to improve on a very strong 2025 campaign, in which both the men's and women's teams took home second place at the Southland Conference Championships before then going on to place sixth on both sides at the South Central Regionals. The group will once again be led by star junior
Elizabeth Khatevi, who returns for her third year on the Island fresh off of the best individual women's season in program history, having won both her second straight SLC individual title and the South Central Regional individual title while also becoming just the seventh Islander to ever qualify for the NCAA Championships. At nationals, she logged a finish of 46
th out of 262 competitors, the highest ever for an A&M-Corpus Christi woman and third best overall.
On the men's side, the team returns a pair of standouts in senior
Mathayo Bundotich and junior
Dominic Kiptum. Bundotich -- the 2023 SLC individual champion -- was named to the All-SLC First Team and the South Central All-Region Team in 2025, while Kiptum -- a qualifier for the NCAA Championships in 2024 -- joined his teammate on the All-Conference First Team at the end of his season last year.
Click here to view the full 2026 schedule
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