Pol Domenech enters his fifth season as the Wingate University head cross country coach in 2025. During the 2024 season, Domenech led the Bulldog men and women to identical South Atlantic Conference and Southeast Region titles for the third consecutive year. On the national scene, the Wingate men finished second and the Bulldog women placed eighth at NCAAs.
In 2023, Domenech was voted the NCAA Division II men’s XC national Coach of the Year, as named by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). Domenech led his Bulldogs to the NCAA Division II men’s cross country national championship on November 18, 2023 in Joplin, Missouri.
Wingate defeated two-time defending NCAA Division II national champion Colorado School of Mines 70-79 to take its first D2 men’s cross country title. Two Bulldogs finished in the top 10: Hamza Chahid (fourth, 29:15.3) and Soheil Boufrizi (10th, 29:34.2). Wingate was the only team with five All-Americans.
In addition to his cross country head coaching duties, Domenech serves as an assistant coach for track and field. During the last three XC and T&F seasons, Wingate has swept six-of-six South Atlantic Conference titles. The Bulldogs won the SAC men’s and women’s XC crowns in the fall of 2022, 2023 and 2024. Wingate claimed first place in the SAC men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor track and field championship meets in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
On the national level, Wingate has won one relay and five individual national championships at either the NCAA Division II indoor or outdoor meet. Hamza Chahid had a hand in the first three, starting with Wingate’s victory in the men’s Distance Medley Relay (DMR) at the ’23 NCAA indoor meet. The next day, Chahid earned his second gold in the men’s 3000 meters. Chahid completed his triple crown with a triumph in the men’s indoor 5000 meters in 2024.
Titouan Le Grix picked up the torch, winning two outdoor national championships and one indoor national title. He sandwiched two outdoor 3000-meter steeplechase victories in 2024 and 2025 around a triumph in the 2025 men’s indoor mile. Le Grix and his teammates helped Wingate finish fourth in the ’25 NCAA outdoor championship meet in Colorado, the Bulldogs first podium finish in track and field.
Pol Domenech quick hits
USTFCCCA NCAA Division II men’s XC Coach of the Year (2023)
4x SER men’s XC Coach of the Year (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)
3x SAC men’s XC Coach of the Year (2021, 2022, 2023)
2x SER women’s XC Coach of the Year (2023, 2024)
2x SAC women’s XC Coach of the Year (2021, 2022)
- Led Wingate men to ’23 NCAA D2 XC national championship
- Bulldog men finished second at ’24 and ’22 XC national meets
- Mentored WU women to an eighth-place showing at ’23 and ’24 XC nationals
- Coached both WUXC teams to SAC and SER titles in ’22, ’23 and ’24
- Both WUXC won ’21 SAC titles; Bulldog men won’21 SER XC crown
- Helped men’s XC team finish second in the ’23 Paul Short Run at Lehigh
- Forty-three teams competed in the PSR Gold Division as WU defeated 34 D1 teams
What They Are Saying about Pol Domenech
Wingate director of cross country and track and field Matt van Lierop
“The Wingate University XCTF staff is honored that the rest of the nation agrees with how we already see Pol…the best of the best. The first thing I said to Pol as the results revealed themselves to us after the nationals’ finish…was how proud I am of him. What the nation doesn’t see is how hard he works, tirelessly recruiting and meticulously grinding out the perfect individual training program week-after-week for each and every one of his 75-plus runners.”
“Pol cares about every single one of his runners and I know they care about him as well. This XC team is a family and we cannot wait to see what Pol has planned for indoors, outdoors and the next XC season. When we arrived at Wingate in 2019, I made a guarantee to the team and the administration that the University would win a national championship under my watch. I could not be prouder of Pol leading the men to fulfill this destiny.”
