TSR Collaboration
Feb 25, 20219 min
The Stride Report is aware that the D3 indoor national meet is cancelled for the 2021 season. With many D3 schools opting to not compete this winter, TSR has decided to only rank athletes who are racing / have raced during the 2021 indoor track season. Some performances in these rankings may be converted.
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.
Laughner does not have any singular performance or result this year that sticks out in a big way, but her consistency and range is what gets her into these rankings. So far this winter, the Baldwin Wallace junior sits in the top-20 on the D3 national leaderboard in three events -- the mile (NCAA #10), 3k (NCAA #8) and 5k (NCAA #16).
While her indoor season has been impressive, she is primarily a steeplechaser, having finished 9th at the Outdoor National Championships in 2019. It will be interesting to see if she can use her momentum as a springboard into the spring and is able to run some fast times in her primary event.
Sydney Smith’s most impressive result this season was a 10:03 (3k) victory at the OAC Elite Meet where she beat two Baldwin Wallace women who currently reside in our top-15: Alyssa Laughner and Hastings Marek. That was good enough to move her to NCAA #4 on the current TFRRS leaderboard for the event.
Her mile and 800 races this year have also been solid, although not quite on the same level as that 3k performance. If she duplicates (or improves upon) her performance at the OAC Elite Meet, there is definitely a possibility of her continuing to move up in our rankings.
Dolan is ranked at NCAA #13 in the mile and NCAA #6 in the 3k on the national leaderboard this winter. What’s impressive about that 3k ranking is that she’s more of an 800 runner than anything else, having gone 2:15 during the 2019 outdoor season.
There is a lot of potential for Dolan to improve upon her season best in the mile, which she has only raced once, posting a mark of 5:12. She has displayed strength and range by running 10:05 in a battle to the line with Fiona Smith (TSR #7), and now the question becomes, what she is capable of running in shorter events?
Hopefully we get an answer to that before the season closes.
We expected a Trine athlete to be a fixture on these rankings throughout the season, but we didn't expect that Trine athlete to be Megan Theismann. Unfortunately, we have yet to see her teammate Evie Bultemeyer compete, and therefore she is not eligible to be ranked as of now.
Theismann, on the other hand, has raced, and she has run multiple significant personal bests so far this season, most notably an 18:01 (5k) mark which puts her at NCAA #5 in the country so far. The Trine veteran has also recorded a very solid mark of 10:19 (3k) -- which currently ranks at NCAA #10 in D3 -- as well as a 5:17 mile that was presumably on the backend of a double.
The senior has made great strides since last year to be at the level she is now. Few distance talents in D3 have seen the progression and have maintained the momentum that she has. So for that reason, we ranked her at TSR #12.
We usually expect at least one runner from UWL to be on this list and this year that spot belongs to Emma Malooly.
At the La Crosse vs. Stout dual meet, the veteran ran a 5:05 mile to be ranked NCAA #4 in D3. Her previous PR was 5:11, so this was quite a big jump for the senior.
Unfortunately, this is the only race she has been in this year. What’s holding her back in these rankings is that the women ahead of her have more versatility and most of them have top-10 times in more than one event.
Hopefully we’ll see Malooly at more meets, including the WIAC “Last Chance Meet” where she could potentially race against Zanzie Demco, our TSR #4 runner.
We finally have a runner who we had ranked going into the season and is still racing.
Aubrie Fisher has been outstanding since she arrived at Wartburg. The sophomore had a great cross country season this past fall, even though her racing opportunities were very limited. We had high expectations for her coming into the season and so far, she has delivered. She is ranked nationally in the 800 (NCAA #14), mile (NCAA #8) and 3k (NCAA #5).
Fisher is lucky as she gets to race teammate Carina Collet and conference rival Kassie Rosenbum fairly often. In fact, she recently had a great duel with Kassie Rosenbum at the Wartburg Friday Night Lights meet. That led to a 10:05 (3k) mark, which is just a second off of her PR that she set two weeks earlier.
The one place where Fisher can improve is the mile. Although her 5:07 has her ranked at NCAA #8, she actually holds a 5:03 PR from last season. So, believe it or not, we actually have good reason to think that she still has more in the tank in terms of her upside this winter and spring.
This may not be the Coast Guard athlete that we anticipated to have on this list, but Maeve Roach has made an impression in her only race this season.
At the Coast Guard vs Eastern Connecticut Duel meet the senior ran a four second PR of 2:16.63. After conversions, she has the third-fastest time in the division. That’s a great way to open your senior season.
What is stopping her from breaking into the top-eight of our rankings is that she has not raced before or since then. Roach rarely runs a race over 800 meters, but it would be interesting to see her race something a bit longer and potentially show off some range. Surely her mile PR of 5:17 would be reset if she gave it a try this year.
Sydney Jenko is another previously unranked athlete who has started this year out strong. The sophomore is ranked across the board in a handful of different distance events. She has top-20 times in the mile (NCAA #9), 3k (NCAA #19), and 5k (NCAA #4).
Her 5k time, 17:41, is probably her most impressive as it was a personal best by 28 seconds. She ran it at the OAC Elite meet and was way ahead of the field, finishing 23 seconds ahead of the runner-up finisher.
A product of the COVID-restricted season is that many top athletes aren’t racing each other unless they are in the same conference. This often leads to athletes like Jenko lapping the field they are in. Even so, on the bright side, Jenko still has potential to move up in our rankings when you consider that her 3k personal best of 10:20 came from last season. That's 13 seconds faster than what she has run so far this winter.
Can you imagine being a freshman and your first three races of your entire college career have you ranked top-six nationally in three different events? I can’t, but Fiona Smith has shown that it is entirely possible. Let’s run through them.
Starting with her first ever collegiate race, she ran a 10:03 (3k) mark which puts her at NCAA #3 in D3. She then ran a 5k in which she ran 17:31 to be ranked at NCAA #3. And finally, she ran a time of 5:06 in the mile to put her at NCAA #6. Her 5k and mile were solo affairs as she was head and shoulders above her competitors.
Not a bad first month of collegiate competition, huh?
To finish this off, I have two questions. First, what is her best event? Secondly, how fast will she run if she can start racing against other top competitors and not just time trialing? On paper, Smith still has a crazy high ceiling...
One trend you may have noticed by now is that we have a lot of previously unranked 800/mile runners entering our rankings for the first time. One of them is junior Alexandra Maddux from Hamline.
Maddux currently ranks at NCAA #3 in the mile (5:04) and NCAA #5 in the 800 (2:17.65). That mile run was a personal best by 12 seconds which is incredible. While her 800 time is very good, she has actually gone even faster than that previously in her college career.
In 2019, she ran a 2:14 and was ranked at NCAA #10 before the indoor national meet was cancelled. She had a good chance of being an All-American if the meet had not been shutdown for COVID.
If she is able to get back into 2:14 shape, she could sit at the top of 800 national rankings depending on the flat-track conversion.
We simply couldn't rank a national event leader outside of our top-five. Senior Josie Herrmann has showed up this year and has been excellent. She currently sits atop of the leaderboard at 800 meters (for now).
Her 2:13.68 at UND Tune-Up meet is almost two seconds faster than her previous NCAA #2 mark before conversions. Of course, Herrmann hasn’t appeared out of nowhere. Last year, she was ranked at NCAA #20 in the 800 meters with a 2:15.55.
What stops her from being ranked higher is that she is a short distance specialist. She rarely races in anything longer than 800. In fact, she even competed in the 200 meters last weekend. The women ahead of her are ranked in more than one distance event and, in some cases, are ranked in even three distance events.
Demco has taken her opportunities to compete this season, throwing down the second-fastest 800 time in D3 (2:15), as well as the second-fastest mile time in D3 (5:05), both of which were big personal bests run on flat tracks in dual meets.
She has also shown versatility with a 10:27 (3k) mark which places her at NCAA #14 on the TFRRS. There are a lot of new additions to these rankings, and part of that is because many of our early season top-15 haven’t raced, but credit must also be given where it is due. Athletes like Demco, along with others on this list, waited a year to compete collegiately, stayed patient and steadily improved, and the dividends are finally showing.
It seems to be a trend to drop personal bests like crazy this year and Hastings is no exception. The senior has posted new marks in the mile and 800 this season. Her 5:03 from this year is 13 seconds faster than her old personal best and puts her at NCAA #2 in D3 behind tour de force Kassie Rosenbum.
Marek also has the NCAA #4 time (after conversions) in the 800 meters with a mark of 2:17 which was nine seconds faster than her previous best that she ran as a freshman. And if that wasn’t enough, Marek is also ranked in the DMR at NCAA #2 as she ran the anchor leg for Baldwin Wallace.
Marek has run every distance from 800 up to 5k (including the 400 hurdles outdoors) and it looks like she finally found her sweet spot in the shorter distance races.
This sophomore has taken a giant leap forward after an abbreviated freshman season. Last year, she focused on the mile and 3k and made decent progress, but it seems like she has focused on the longer distances this year and that’s paying off.
She dropped 13 seconds off of her 3k personal best to run a division-leading time of 9:41. It also helped that that race was at GVSU and she had runners from the home team (and Northern Illinois) to chase. That was a great weekend for Tucker as the night before her 3k PR she ran her first college 5k in a time of 17:04 to trail only TSR #1 Kassie Rosenbum in all of D3.
Tucker is only a sophomore, so her potential seems to be sky-high right now.
Kassie Rosenbum has been on fire this indoor season. The senior from Loras has dominated the three races she has run this year. The most impressive has to be the 16:50 (5k) that she ran completely solo at Wartburg. That leads D3 by 21 seconds and is a huge personal best of 16 seconds.
Her other NCAA #1 time is her 4:59 mile which leads the division by four seconds. The only race she isn’t leading D3 in is the 3k which, when it is converted from a flat-track, is only two seconds behind TSR #2 runner, Anastasia Tucker.
In that 3k race, Rosenbum ran a PR of 9:48 and beat Aubrie Fisher (TSR #10) by 17 seconds. She has been quite dominant so far this year and she shows no signs of slowing down. For that reason, the Loras veteran gets the nod for our top spot.