TSR Collaboration
Jun 16, 20229 min
Written by Hannah Thorn and Kevin Fischer, additional contributions by Garrett Zatlin
Click here to see our Just Missed and Honorable Mention names.
Listed eligibility takes redshirts and Covid-related extensions into consideration.
TFRRS is used as a general guide when determining eligibility.
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.
Clara Mayfield ran a tough race in the national meet 10k, leading for chunks of it and hanging on to a good position when a few of the top runners broke away.
Ultimately, that approach earned her a 5th place finish, her fourth time earning All-American honors, three of which occurred during this academic year.
While coming back in the 5k didn’t go quite how she envisioned, the outdoor national meet as a whole was still a very solid showing for Mayfield. The Carleton ace proved that she can compete with the nation’s best anywhere from the indoor mile to the outdoor 10k.
The next step, however, will be seeing if she can start to flirt with the national title conversation. Mayfield has proven to be one of the more reliable and complete distance talents in D3, but finding that edge over women in the highest tier is her next objective.
Even though she was unranked in the last installment of our rankings, Heeringa was always on our radar. And truthfully, her national meet performance matched every expectation that we had for her, if not more.
A pair of 5th place finishes in the 1500 meters and the 500 meters is already a huge achievement. However, when you take into account that she achieved those finishes by running a PR in both events on the same day, it makes her national meet all the more impressive.
Peaking in the postseason, delivering All-American finishes and effectively doubling on the biggest stage of the season makes Heeringa a high-value name in these rankings.
Delaney Sall had a very good 800 meter preliminary round at the NCAA Outdoor Championships where she comfortably earned herself an automatic qualifier to the finals. On the way to the finals, she ran an impressive lifetime best of 2:09.17.
But one personal best for the weekend wasn’t enough for her.
In a blazing 800 meter final, where the 2nd through 8th place finishers ran personal bests, Sall stepped up to the challenge brought on by a fast and deep field to finish 4th overall in an excellent time of 2:08.23.
With Esther Seeland and Cassie Kearney leaving the D3 ranks, Sall may be Emma Kelley’s biggest threat to the national crown next year. If this rising Calvin star continues to build on her already incredible progress that she flexed at the national meet, then NCAA gold isn't out of the question for her next year.
Between the prelims and finals, Demco raced four times in a three-day span thanks to her efforts in both the 1500 meters and the 800 meters. And yet, despite the grueling double, she looked sharp and competitive every time she toed the line.
Demco was locked-in all weekend long and she was ultimately rewarded with a 4th place finish in the 1500 meters and a 7th place finish in the 800 meters, flexing her range, tactics and reliability all in a single weekend.
Demco is someone who always seems to put everything together for the postseason, so much so that she earned All-American accolades five times at the D3 level. Her eventual move to the D2 level next year will be very intriguing to follow.
Coming into the outdoor national meet, Hope Murphy was the second-best seed in the 1500 meters. There were, however, still a couple of question marks, though.
Not only had she not finished in an All-American spot before, but the last national meet final she had run was the indoor mile where she admittedly wasn't competitive and ran 5:21.
How would she fare this time around?
Apparently, pretty darn well.
Murphy showed that any doubts of her abilities to perform at the highest stage of Division Three were merely speculative. The Baldwin Wallace star was in contention to win the 1500 meters right until the end, and ended up with a very respectable 3rd place finish.
Overall, Murphy showed that she was one of the best high-momentum stars in the Division Three world this year. She improved, earned key wins, flexed great range and was just flat-out excellent. She never truly had a poor race this spring.
Now that she has this bronze medal performance under her belt, Murphy should have a great deal of confidence approaching future seasons, especially given that she is the highest placing 1500 meter returner in the country.
We saw Alex Ross have a breakout year in 2021, but that momentum has extended into the outdoor track season. The Johns Hopkins veteran came into the outdoor national meet ranked at NCAA #7 in the 10k and NCAA #8 in the 5k.
However, what sets her apart from her competitors is her strength, so it was not a shock to see her doubling in Ohio.
In the 10k, when Ari Marks made her move, Ross was a part of the group that broke away to chase her down. In the end, it came down to Kassie Parker, Fiona Smith and Ross trying to catch Marks.
Ross was not afraid to lead that chase pack and it was her and Parker who were really pushing to catch Marks. It was a brave move and it ultimately paid off for her with a 3rd place result.
Ross did have the 5k later in the weekend and admittedly, she just looked a little gassed. She finished 9th in that race in a time of 16:51 which, all things considered, was still a fairly solid result.
Overall, it was a great weekend for her and it betters her placements of 12th in the 5k and 9th in the 10k from last year's outdoor national meet.
Ross deserves to be rewarded for that progression and her aggressiveness in the 10k, so we moved her into our rankings to end the year.
It was going to be hard for the reigning steeplechase national champion, Aubrie Fisher, to retain her national title. After all, Evie Miller came into the NCAA Championships with a seasonal best that was 15 seconds faster than her.
Even so, Fisher showed great poise to finish a solid 2nd place in a time of 10:20 which is a PR for her. Only a sophomore eligibility-wise, we could see Fisher become a four-time All-American in this event, something that is not very common in a discipline as technical and as endurance-heavy as the steeplechase.
Fisher was also able to double back in the 5k to finish 12th overall. Admittedly this was always going to be a hard double as the final for the steeplechase happens on the same day as the 5k final.
Regardless, the Wartburg ace had a great season, scoring new personal bests in the 800 meters, 1500 meters, 5000 meters and the steeple. Her overall consistency was just as strong as her range and although she didn't win NCAA gold, her reliability as a national silver medalist should be commended.
Fiona Smith has been so. darn. impressive. ever since she came to Saint Benedict and this spring season was no different. Smith came into the outdoor national meet with personal bests of 34:33 (10k) and 16:16 (5k), both marks being ranked at NCAA #5 this spring.
In both races, she was in the chase pack, trying to reel in Ari Marks. And while that effort was ultimately unsuccessful, she did finish 4th in both races. That’s some serious high-level consistency for someone who is only a sophomore.
Overall, Smith was excellent this season. She may drop in our rankings, but she was far closer to the highest tier of Division Three than the next-highest tier. She took down standout names multiple times and proved to be reliable.
On paper, that's all that you can ask for.
Cassie Kearney had a heck of a double at the NCAA Championships.
First, she finished 2nd place in the 1500 meters in 4:28.06. She was right on Esther Seeland’s heels in that final and came within 0.6 seconds of winning that race. Then, she bounced back beautifully to place 3rd in the 800 meters in a very fast PR of 2:07.92.
These result were outstanding improvements for the Middlebury veteran. On the indoor oval, she only ran in the DMR and at her last outdoor national meet, she didn’t make the final in either the 800 meters or the 1500 meters.
Kearney will now depart the D3 ranks for Michigan where she will (hopefully) ride her newfound momentum into the ultra competitive D1 ranks. Her wicked versatility and ability to effectively double in the middle distances could make her a tactical nightmare in the BIG 10.
Emma Kelley was often overshadowed by Esther Seeland this season, but let’s remember that she is only a sophomore. Luckily, we still have plenty of time to appreciate her talent.
At the NCAA Outdoor Championships, she finished an outstanding 2nd place in a time of 2:06.69, a new PR. That result was better than her 11th place finish last season.
I think Kelley has a lot more upside than we realize as she is always willing to take a race out fast and not just rely on her kick. With Seeland moving up to D1 next year, Kelley will come in as the fastest returner from both the indoor national meet and the outdoor national meet.
With an 800 meter PR that now sits on the fringe of truly elite territory, it's hard to say that Kelley wasn't one of the six best women in Division Three this spring.
Ella Baran scratched, what many considered to be, her best race (the 1500 meters) to focus on the 5k at the NCAA Championships. It was an interesting strategy that admittedly didn’t play out favorably for her.
Of course, if Baran did run the 1500 meters, then she would have had to go through the prelims and then face Esther Seeland, Cassie Kearney, Hope Murphy, Zanzie Demco and plenty of other fast women in the finals.
So it’s not like a 1500 meter title was a given...but it did cause a lot of us to scratch our heads.
Instead, Baran focused solely on the 5k which many thought was going to be a battle between her and Kassie Parker. Ari Marks obviously had something to say about that. Baran ended up finishing 3rd, running 16:20.
To be clear, a bronze medal does not dilute Baran's otherwise excellent season. She did, after all, run the NCAA #2 all-time 5k mark in D3 history this spring with a monster time of 15:49. In an era where multiple distance stars are assaulting the record books, that performance needs to hold some significant level of weight.
Making the switch to the steeplechase this year was an outstanding decision for Evie Miller. But more than that, she used this last season to the benefit of her entire resume, running personal bests in the 1500 meters, 5k, 10k and the steeplechase.
Miller had one of the most commanding wins of the NCAA Championships, taking home the steeplechase title in 10:07, 13-seconds faster than the runner-up, Aubrie Fisher.
That win was also less than a second off of Miller's personal best and the third-fastest time ever in Division Three history. The only knock that we have is that she was unable to finish the 5k.
Of course, it’s a little hard to be bummed about that after winning your first national title and establishing yourself as one of the fastest D3 steeplechasers ever...
It is a little hard to believe that Kassie Parker did not win a national title this outdoor season. After running 33:03 (10k) and 16:09 (5k) earlier in the season, betting odds suggested that she would win at least one race.
Instead, in both races, she wasn’t able to respond when Ari Marks made her move, but was still able to hold off the rest of the field to finish 2nd (twice).
Parker should be back next year as she said in November that she was going to use the rest of her eligibility (one cross country season, one indoor season and two outdoor seasons) at Loras.
And with Ari Marks soon leaving the D3 ranks, the amount of damage that Parker could do to the record books in 2023 could be jaw-dropping.
Ari Marks was sick of getting runner-up to Kassie Parker, so she came to the NCAA Outdoor Championships and changed that.
With new national titles in the 5k and the 10k, Ari Marks deserves to catapult up our rankings. Not only did she secure double gold, but she just took down two all-time superstars in Kassie Parker and Ella Baran.
In fact, she took down Kassie Parker twice!
Marks flexed incredible aerobic fitness as well as a simple ability to outrun the one woman we didn't think she could outrun.
Kudos, Ari Marks.
Esther Seeland retains her TSR #1 ranking as she was just dominant this season in her main event, the 800 meters, and even in her secondary event, the 1500 meters.
The only time she was beaten by D3 competition was in prelim races, and in both cases, she looked like she was in complete control.
It’s almost hard to find something to say about Esther Seeland. She’s just that good.
If a race goes out slow, she has the tactics and kick to win.
If a race goes out fast, she is usually the fastest in the field and still wins.
How do you beat that?
Well the answer is...you can't.
She finishes her D3 career with two more national titles, one in the 800 meters and one in the 1500 meters. Seeland will now venture to Virginia where she will join one of the better middle distance programs in the nation.
Sadie Heeringa (Calvin)
Alex Ross (Johns Hopkins)
Margaret Trautner (Caltech)
Kathleen McCary (SUNY Geneseo)
Margaret Trautner (Caltech)
Elizabeth Donnelly (Gustavus Adolphus)
Molly Fitzgibbons (Williams)
Ana Tucker (Hope)
Nicky Johnson (Middlebury)
Kathleen McCarey (SUNY Geneseo)
Rachel Hirschkind, SUNY Geneseo
Alyssa Luaghner (Baldwin Wallace)
Annika Urban (Emory)
Regan Janzen (Nebraska Wesleyan)