STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Wagner is set to kick off its 2026 season at Stevens' Back to the Bowl meet, held at Holmdel Park in Holmdel, New Jersey.
The Seahawks will compete in a six-meet regular season, with four races in New York, one in New Jersey and one in Pennsylvania. Wagner enters the postseason on Saturday, Oct. 31 then caps it off with the NCAA Regional Championships on Nov. 13 at Bethpage State Park.
Returning for 2026, Wagner has 10 student-athletes back. Wagner enters its second season under head coach Marvin Azor, finishing off the 2025 season with a second-place finish for the women at the NEC Championships. Then-junior Rylee Ferretti won the conference's individual title with a 22:19.50 time in the 6K to win Wagner's first individual championship in 24 years. Two student-athletes from the women's squad went on to represent the Seahawks at the NCAA Regional Championships.
The Schedule
It will be a familiar opener for the Seahawks this season, with the team returning to its opening meet from 2025. The Stevens Institute of Technology is hosting its second consecutive Back to the Bowl meet, kicking off the season on Saturday, Sept. 12 at Holmdel Park in Holmdel, New Jersey.
From there, Wagner competes in the LIU Fall Festival for the first time since 2023. No one on the 2026 roster competed in that meet. Held on Friday, Sept. 18 at LIU's Post campus in Brookville, New York, this meet will serve as solid preparation for the conference championships, which are set for the same course at the end of October.
Lehigh's Paul Short Run is third on Wagner's schedule, to be held on Friday, Oct. 2 on the Mountain Hawks' Goodman Course. This is the nation's largest intercollegiate cross country race.
The 117th annual IC4A and 43rd ECAC Cross Country Championships will take place Saturday, Oct. 17 at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
Returning to Brookville on October 31, the Seahawks will compete at the NEC Championships that Saturday at LIU's Post campus. Wagner looks to build on its second-place finish in 2025 where the team scored a combined 67 points, the most scored since the Seahawks won the title in 1993.
The postseason will continue in Farmingdale, New York at the NCAA's Regional Championships on Friday, Nov. 13 at Bethpage State Park. The meet will be hosted by Hofstra, one of nine regional sites for DI competition. Last season, then-freshmen Jaslene Merizalde and Rehanna Syed represented the Seahawks at the event.
The NCAA's DI championships will then be held in Terre Haute, Indiana at Indiana State's LaVern Gibson Championship Course on Saturday, Nov. 21.
The Roster
Azor returns 10 student-athletes from its 2025 roster, adding freshman Kayla Schnell to the squad for 2026. In addition to Ferretti, graduate Angelina Olah and seniors Magui Calvo-Jorge and Victoria Ann Dziubela bring a wealth of experience to the season.
The newcomer Schnell is a Staten Island native, graduating from St. Joseph's by-the-Sea before arriving on Grymes Hill. She joins sophomores Jessica Diaz, Anais Garcia Agullo, Maerizalde and and Syed as the five underclassmen on the roster.
Back to the Bowl
In its second year hosting the event, Stevens will welcome the Seahawks to the 2026 Back to the Bowl meet to open 2026. Held on Saturday, Sept. 12, the women will compete in a 5K at Holmdel Park in Holmdel, New Jersey.
The park has hosted New Jersey's high school state championship races since 1976, a familiar course to a number of Wagner athletes over the years. With both teams competing on the 5K course, the Seahawks will face a significant uphill climb in the first two miles then head downhill for the final mile.
In last season's 5K, the women's team won the meet with 23 combined team points. Senior Angela Cavalieri won the individual title with a 20:13.70 time, her first career win. Then-sophomore Kate Connolly took second, logging a 20:32.90 finish. Dziubela finished fifth, with Syed in sixth and Merizalde in ninth.
