TSR Collaboration
Mar 3, 202112 min
TSR contributors may value certain aspects and ranking criteria differently between men and women when constructing our Indoor Top 25...
Was not ranked in our last update.
First number indicates how much the individual has moved in the rankings.
The second number indicates where they were ranked in our last update.
The mile/DMR combo seems to be a popular choice this season and you can add McGrath to that group of women looking to attempt the double at the national meet. After finishing runner-up in the mile at the RMAC Championships and winning the DMR, McGrath earned her first mention in these rankings.
McGrath has dropped time in each mile race that she has toed the line for this season. Her recent 4:56 effort at the RMAC Championships converted down to 4:48, moving her to NCAA #9. UC-Colorado Springs also earned a converted mark of 11:37 in the DMR, moving the team to NCAA #5 and booking a trip to the national meet.
In her first real indoor season (she ran once in 2020), McGrath is putting down a string of solid performances. Championship racing can be challenging for younger runners, but her performance at RMAC's gives us reason to believe that the NCAA Championships could be a similarly successful showing for her.
Another name headed to the national meet in multiple events is Haley Streff. The junior from CSU-Pueblo ran a stellar mile at the Mines Front Range series, clocking 5:01 which then converted to 4:49. Her time moved her up to the NCAA #8 mark which solidified her NCAA Championship bid.
Along with the mile, Streff will also be looking to compete in the DMR. CSU-Pueblo is currently ranked at NCAA #2 in the event and could compete with GVSU if some of the big-name Lakers hold out for individual events.
There’s a lot to like about Streff, specifically the way she’s trending upwards heading into the NCAA Championships. The junior has been seeing consistent improvements across the board throughout 2021 and appears to be peaking at just the right time.
The other dynamic duo in our rankings comes from Augustana. PJ English and Nicolette Schmidt combined for three titles at the NSIC Championships this past weekend, with English winning the mile and 1000 meters while Schmidt brought home gold in the 3k and was runner-up in the mile.
Their performances in the mile were particularly important as they ran converted marks of 4:48.34 and 4:48.74, good enough for NCAA #4 and NCAA #6 on the national leaderboard. Both women are now set to compete in that event at Nationals and could also be toeing the line for the DMR when you consider that Augustana currently sits at the NCAA #7 position.
Both women should have a lot of confidence coming off of their best weekend of racing. They are less than four seconds off the NCAA leader for the mile and given their development of tactics in championship racing, they could be legitimate contenders to make some noise in this mile field.
The duo from Lincoln continues to roll through the 2021 season after a successful weekend at the MIAA Championships. May and Beckford both competed in the 800 meters, 4x400 and DMR where they came away with a slew of medals. In the 800, the pair finished 1-2 with May coming in just ahead of Beckford. Both of their relay teams won titles.
Looking ahead to NCAA's, both women are set to run the 800 meters and 4x400. They are ranked at NCAA #6 and NCAA #7, respectively, in the 800 meters and their 4x400 relay is ranked at NCAA #2.
With preliminary rounds and finals for both events, they should be set for a busy weekend. Of course, they have been running doubles and triples all season long, so it's not like that workload is something new for them.
Similar to her NSIC counterparts, Reindl’s solid weekend boosted her into this week's rankings. The Minnesota-Duluth junior finished runner-up in the 800 meters at the NSIC Championships, but her time was good enough to land her at the NCAA #4 on the national leaderboard and punch her ticket to the National Championships.
After conversion, Reindl’s mark from this weekend stands at 2:10.27. That time is roughly 0.7 seconds faster than the next-best mark on the performance list and should set her up well to make the finals at NCAA's.
If there’s one concern for Reindl, it would be her lack of racing this indoor season. She has only competed in three meets and has run in a total of two 800 meter races. Given her result this past weekend, that doesn’t seem to matter much, but it’s worth keeping in mind heading into the national meet.
Robles has been solid this season, but had a huge conference weekend that boosted her into our rankings. Her most impressive race from the RMAC Championships was her win in the 5k where she soloed a converted 16:42, good enough to nail-down the NCAA #4 mark and to win the race by 33 seconds. She was also the runner-up in the 3k, narrowly missing the win to Katie Doucette of Western Colorado.
Based on this weekend’s results, Robles’ sole focus for NCAA's will be the 5k. While she currently sits 15 seconds behind the NCAA leader, Lauren Bailey, so there is reason to think that Robles has a chance for a top finish if the race becomes tactical.
Her race this past weekend was a season best and came with essentially no competition. Given the chance to face top talent, what is she capable of doing? She is still on the younger side, but when you consider how well prepared Adams State athletes are for the postseason, we're not too concerned about Robles.
Acheson had a big weekend at the NSIC Championships where she won the 800 meter conference title with a new personal best of 2:11.24. With her mark coming on a flat-track, the time converted to 2:09.75 which now places her at the NCAA #2 position and sends her to Nationals for the first time in her career. The sophomore was also a member of the U-Mary 4x400 relay team which placed 3rd at the meet.
Poised to come into the national meet with the second-fastest mark, Acheson should be a real contender. She is one of only three women to have run a mark that converts to under 2:10.
The biggest question, however, will be whether she can replicate this performance. Although she has progressively gotten faster throughout 2021, she has only run two other 800s this season, clocking in at 2:15 and 2:12. That said, she opened her season with a 600 meter time of 1:34 which signals that she is ready for a big result at NCAA's.
Curtis-Collins had an underwhelming weekend at the G-MAC Championships. Despite sitting at NCAA #8 in the 3k and in the top-20 in the mile, she failed to come away with a win in either event. Although, to her credit, the mile was about as close as they come. Curtis-Collins was edged out by Rachel Sweeney of Cedarville by only 0.01 seconds. So while it wasn’t a win, it was still a decent performance.
The primary reason Curtis-Collins sees a big drop in her ranking this week was her performance in the 3k. She finished 4th place behind three unranked opponents and was 16 seconds behind the winner.
When you consider that the 3k is the event that she will run at NCAA's, things don’t look ideal for the Malone junior. She has only raced the 3k twice this season, so it’s a bit hard to know what she will look like come Nationals.
Brian is someone who has been difficult to gauge this season. She is certainly talented, sitting at NCAA #14 in the mile and NCAA #9 in the 3k and is entered in both events for this year's indoor national meet. She also just won the GLIAC mile title and was on the runner-up DMR team.
So what's the issue?
The hard part has been identifying where her ceiling lies. Her marks have qualified her for the NCAA Championships, but on paper, it's difficult to figure out how she will stack up against these elite talents at the national meet.
Given where she stands now, a bid for an All-American spot in one (or both) events should be a reasonable goal for the GVSU junior. Her win at the GLIAC meet inspires confidence for championship-style racing and should give her nice momentum heading to the big stage.
Honestly, Norton didn’t fare too well at the RMAC Championships. For whatever reason, even with Zoe Baker sitting out this weekend, Norton didn’t pull out the win and instead settled for 3rd place in the 3000 meters. With that being said, she is still one of the best runners in the RMAC and we can simply chalk this up to being an "off" day for her.
Her focus now turns to the national meet where she truthfully doesn’t have a lot of experience. Still, all things considered, she’s got a great chance of major success based on her times in both the 3k and the 5k. In fact, it's almost better that she had a poor race this past weekend rather than at the national meet.
The most predictable event at the GLIAC championships had to be the women's 800. Taryn Chapko flexed her middle distance prowess on the rest of the field, winning by about three seconds and taking home her first GLIAC title. She also ran on the 4x400 relay, leading the Lakers to gold as they took home the team championship for the 22nd consecutive season.
Having never raced at NCAA's before, it will be interesting to see how this freshman fares. However, if her earlier success is any indicator, then she should do just fine. Few women in the 800 meters have more momentum than she does.
We all know what Hannah Roeske is capable of. However, the newest GVSU star had an unfortunate performance in the 3000 meters at the GLIAC Championships as she was forced to drop out. She still ran in the DMR and scored points for the Lakers, so the whole weekend wasn’t for naught.
And of course, her season isn't over as she is dropping the mile to go all-in on the 3000 meters. That's an interesting decision, but it could pay dividends if that 3k turns tactical.
This may not have been her weekend, but don’t count out Roeske as she has plenty of championship experience at the Division 3 level. She will show up when it counts.
Hernandez has been a consistent middle distance presence for the Thunderwolves and although they didn’t compete at RMAC Championships, we still got to see the veteran post some fast times at the tail-end of February.
Hernandez and teammate Hailey Streff took it upon themselves to push the pace in their last meet and were rewarded with converted times of 4:47 and 4:49, respectively. Teaming up again for the DMR, they ran the NCAA #2 on the national leaderboard. Talk about a weekend!
Those were two big performances that likely gives Hernandez a ton of confidence (and momentum) heading into the national meet. Given her experience, that's probably the last thing that Hernandez's competitors wanted her to have.
Would you look at that. Layla Almasri is still undefeated this season.
Even after the RMAC Championships, the UCCS veteran has proven that she can rise to the occasion meet after meet this season. The last national-caliber distance runner who had a long winning streak like that (who we can think of) would be Bryce Hoppel (Kansas) who also happens to be middle distance oriented.
Consistency is important, but it has even more of an impact when you consider that Almasri is taking home some impressive wins. Yes, she may not have gone to a ton of big-time meets, but two RMAC titles (one coming in the mile and one coming in the DMR) deserves plenty of respect.
After her performance at the GLIAC Championships, Gockley is running extremely well. A nine-second personal best in the 3k, while only being two seconds behind someone who (in my opinion) is a D2 great in the making (Klaudia O’Malley), is definitely something to be proud of.
Gockley is in a unique situation as she is someone who has the luxury of running both the 3k and 5k at the NCAA Championships. And no, she's not on a DMR or a 4x400 team. She'll be in Birmingham to run two individual events. With each event on a different day, I really like her chances of being an All-American in both distance despite the top-heaviness of each field.
With Allie Ludge sitting out of the GLIAC Championships, all eyes turned to the next GVSU superstar in the making, Klaudia O’Malley. And right on cue, she took home the 3k conference title after finishing as the runner-up to Ludge just a year ago. I’d like to officially hop on the bandwagon.
The GVSU junior will be attempting the difficult mile/3k double at the NCAA Championships. That's not easy to pull off successfully, but O'Malley is one of the few women in D2 who could do it and still come away with multiple All-American honors.
Has not raced since our last update.
In our last rankings update, we predicted that Baker would eventually toe the line for the 3000 meters and that’s exactly what she did. However, she really impressed us by also running in the DMR and the 5k in the fourth race of the Colorado Mines Front Range series.
With her strong distance background, it was no surprise that Baker threw down a big 3k time, taking the win in a 9:31 converted effort. She'll be running the 5k/3k double at the national meet which seems to make the most sense.
Colorado Mines could have had her on their relay, and that could still happen, but it would be super unlikely given the limited amount of rest between the 5k and the DMR. Overall, that 5k/3k double seems to be the best logistical decision for her racing schedule at the national meet.
Cleyet-Merle raced the DMR at the last chance meet for Indianapolis this past weekend, but that largely didn't make much of a difference given Cleyet-Merle's prospects of being in the national title conversation for the 800 meters.
She currently leads the NCAA (D2) by over two seconds in the 800 meters. Her mark of 2:07 is nothing short of dominant this season and at this point, the title is hers to lose.
How to get noticed: Win all four events you are entered in at your conference championship meet. And that’s exactly what Florence Uwajaneza did at the Lone Star Conference Championships this past weekend, taking home wins in the mile, 3k, 5k and DMR.
Not only that, but she set new personal bests in both the mile and 5000 meters. That latter personal best ended up being a jaw-dropping converted time of 16:29. All of the sudden, we have a new contender for the D2 national title in the 5k.
Now our only question is...how will that converted performance translate to a far more competitive meet against experienced D2 elites?
Has not raced since our last update.
Not much to report from the U. Indy corner. Both Lauren Bailey and Bernice Cleyet-Merle ran on their DMR team at their last chance meet. They ran a respectable time, but that relay isn't going to be running at the national meet.
But let’s be real here. A relay wasn't really going to be the focus for these two anyways. Both Bailey and Cleyet-Merle firmly have their sights on their individual events and they both have really good chances at bringing home some individual hardware (Bailey in the 3k/5k and Cleyet-Merle in the 800).
These seniors will try to take full advantage of competing for a final time on the indoor oval when they travel to Birmingham in mid-March for the NCAA Championships.
My goodness, Celine Ritter. What a performance! The Lee superstar set a new D2 national record in the 3000 meters by five seconds at Camel City the other weekend. She ran 9:11 which converted down to a time of 9:06.
She also set a personal best by more than 25 seconds. Talk about a huge performance! That’s just what happens when you run on the fastest flat-track in the country (JDL Fast Track).
Based on this performance alone, she is now the clear title favorite in the 3000 meters and it looks like she recognizes that. Ritter has scratched out of the mile for the indoor national meet and will seemingly be all-in for the 3k. Considering the talent who will be chasing her, that was probably a smart decision.
Elizabeth Acheson (U-Mary)
Brianna Robles (Adams State)
Haleigh Reindl (Minnesota Duluth)
PJ English (Augustana (S.D.))
Nicollete Schmidt (Augustana (S.D))
Hailey Streff (CSU-Pueblo)
Riley McGrath (UC-Colorado Springs)
Aryelle Wright (Colorado Mines)
Jennifer Comastri (Southern Indiana)
Alexa Keiser (Saginaw Valley State)
Hannah Ellis (UC-Colorado Springs)
Chloe Flora (Lee (Tenn.))
Mckenna Cavanaugh (Southern Indiana)
Claire McCune (Drury)
Elysia Burgos (SW Baptist)
Claire McCune (Drury)
Toni Moore (Lee)
Aryelle Wright (Colorado Mines)
Delanie Dykes (NW Missouri)
Alexa Leppelmeier (Walsh)
Chloe Flora (Lee)
Alexa Keiser (Saginaw Valley State)
Jennifer Comastri (Southern Indiana)
McKenna Cavanaugh (Southern Indiana)
Molly Maksin (Colorado Mines)
Jennifer Comastri (Southern Indiana)
Hannah Ellis (UC-Colorado Springs)
Claire McCune (Drury)