First Thoughts (Women): Cook's Statement Win, Breakout Performances From Utah Valley & Syracuse

Has there ever been an NCAA cross country meet in September as exciting as what the Cowboy Jamboree just gave us? I would argue not, but I’m also not the greatest historian when it comes to the history of September-time racing.

Regardless, yesterday’s performances were fascinating and there is now a TON to talk about. Below, we highlighted most women's team in the order that they finished and offered our major takeaways. And while we'll analyze most of these results, the top teams will naturally get a little more discussion (ya know, for time's sake).

And don't worry, our men's analysis is coming tomorrow!

Let’s begin…

Wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

What a race by Natalie Cook. I was VERY high on Cook coming into this season and we believed that she could be great. In fact, I even said that she could be better Tuohy, “when it’s all said and done.”

And while she still has a (very) long way to go before that conversation can be had, an individual win at the Cowboy Jamboree certainly leaves us wondering what she’s truly capable of later this fall.

What is her ceiling in 2022?

A top-10 finisher at the national meet?

A top-five finisher?

Could she maybe even challenge Tuohy and Chelangat for the national title?

I'm not sure I've ever felt the need to ask a question like that in the month of September, but Cook is simply that talented.

Behind her was Taylor Roe who was also fantastic, although that is roughly what we expected from her. It was very realistic to think that she could have won this race.

However, the most important drivers behind the Cowgirls' success this past weekend was their supporting cast. Even without Molly Born in their lineup, OSU still had Gabby Hentemann and Billah Jepkirui finish 12th and 15th, respectively. That is AWESOME scoring support, effectively leaving Oklahoma State’s final scorer (Sivan Auerbach in 40th place) to close out the team’s top-five. Jinane Mahi did run and finish 35th, but she wasn't counted in the scoring.

And frankly, as long as that final scorer didn’t completely collapse, Oklahoma State pretty much had this race won through four runners.

Now, admittedly, the depth on this roster will need to be addressed. Even if Molly Born returns at 100%, the Cowgirls will still be vulnerable-ish if just one woman has an “off” day.

But now I’m just nit-picking. Phenomenal performance by Oklahoma State. This was a true statement victory.

The Northern Arizona women may have had the most impressive performance relative to expectations. And yes, I’m talking between both the men’s and women’s races.

We knew that Ellie Stearns and Annika Reiss were solid and talented runners…but top-10 finishers? In this field? Well, I’m not going to lie, that was not what I expected. These are two HUGE breakout performances for these women and they make the Lumberjacks very scary this fall.

Not just because they ran so well, but because NAU could actually be better in the future.

Taryn O’Neill (22nd), Bryn Morley (27th) and Jesselyn Bries (28th) did a very nice job of closing out their team’s scoring. We knew that there was a lot of scoring supporting in this lineup, but I truthfully didn’t know that they would be this good as a collective whole.

However, more importantly, O’Neill was in the conversation to potentially win this race. Seeing her fade to 22nd and the NAU women still placing runner-up is wildly impressive. In fact, if she’s a 5th place finisher in this race, then she pushes back Oklahoma State by two points and the Lumberjacks actually tie with the Cowgirls.

Nice result! If I’m BYU, I’m really pleased with how some of these women raced.

 Aubrey Frentheway (4th) went from being a solid All-American contender to someone who looks like she’ll be one of most dangerous women in any race she toes the line for.

However, the most important result was arguably Lexy Halladay placing 13th overall, a great performance that we knew she was capable of delivering, but just needed to see on paper first. And with McKenna Lee in 18th place, the Cougars had a top-three that was chock-full of firepower.

The backend of this lineup was solid. It wasn’t necessarily the best in this field, but it was certainly better than most supporting casts on other teams. Carmen Alder (36th) and Riley Chamberlain (42nd) continue to show promise and there was a large handful of women behind them.

But honestly, I thought this team could have been better.
 

Anna Martin (78th), Lindsey Stallworth (87th) and Jenna Hutchins (197th) have all shown us that they can be better than they were on Saturday.

So if BYU was able to run this well with certain women not at 100%, then I’ll be very excited to see what could happen when the Cougars are firing on all cylinders.

The Colorado women ran well…but relative to expectations, they left some scoring on the table.

I thought Bailey Hertenstein and Emily Covert had the chance to be one of the better duos in the NCAA this fall – and that could still be the case! But with Hertenstein placing 11th and Covert placing 16th, I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed.

Of course, this isn’t to say that they ran poorly. Those are two very strong results.

However, maybe the best performance of the day was Ella Baran who placed 17th overall on Saturday. The former Division Three superstar ran 15:49 (5k) during her time at Johns Hopkins, but we didn’t know for sure how she would fare in this field and against elite Division One competition.

But she ran well! So much so that Baran may have put herself in the All-American conversation if she continues to get more comfortable with the Buffaloes.

From there, we saw a fairly significant gap. The final two scorers for this team finished 58th and 60th, respectively. And I'll admit, that's slightly concerning...until you realize that Hannah Miniutti was a DNF.

That's a big deal. If Miniutti was a top-30 finisher that we thought she could have been, then you're looking at a team score that is much closer to BYU, although the Cougars likely still would have gotten the edge.

Depth will likely be an area of emphasis if this team is going to put themselves on the podium in November...and that's not something that I thought I would ever say about a Colorado team.

The future for Stanford is very, very bright.

Finishing 5th place overall in this field despite not having Zofia Dudek is extremely encouraging. True freshman Riley Stewart (20th) looked phenomenal in her debut and Lucy Jenks (26th) held her own, somewhat validating her recent success from the track.

But what was so impressive about this team is that they essentially ran together and had limited lineup gaps. Audrey Suarez finished 33rd while Grace Connolly placed 39th, arguably the best two best performances of their respective careers.

And while Stanford's fifth scorer did finish 56th overall, the expected return of Dudek to this lineup would have likely put them ahead of Colorado in this race.

Overall, Stanford was just flat-out solid. They ran as a cohesive team and a lot of women who needed to step up did! Not only that, but this team is still super young. There's a very good chance that these women continue to get better, potentially capitalizing on their youth-based upside.
 

You gotta hand it to Syracuse, they were impressive this past weekend. We had legitimate concerns about this team coming into 2022. They had lost so many veteran scorers and many of these women were largely unproven.

And honestly, their postseason success hasn't exactly been great in recent years.

But after Saturday, it's undeniable that the Syracuse women are going to be a problem for their competitors this year. We really liked Savannah Roark going into this weekend, but we absolutely did not think that she could be 9th in this field.

Support scorers like Abigail Spiers (31st) and Sage Brooks (32nd) were great and the depth of this squad was largely not much different from some of the other top teams in this field.

I'm still cautious about Syracuse. They've burned us so many times over the last few years. Still, if they're going to have Roark race like that for the rest of the season, then I'm not sure if I can really be doubting this team in 2022.

Generally speaking, they've got a very complete lineup.

The Utah Valley women were certainly on our radar after a phenomenal year on the track. However, they were listed as an "Honorable Mention" team coming into this season.

That's not necessarily because of their talent, but more because of our uncertainty.

Last fall was far from great for the Wolverines. Even with their significant improvements on the track, we had major questions as to how this team would put together a full lineup and how they would translate their performances on the oval to the grass.

Well, as it turns out, they did pretty well!
 

Everlyn Kemboi (3rd) shattered expectations, Mazzie Melaney (23rd) continued to thrive after a great year on the track and Hannah Branch (51st) was solid as the team's third scorer. And with Madison Flippence (65th) and Maggie Zwahlen (69th), the former being a transfer, closing out this team's top-five fairly quickly, the Utah Valley women were simply better than a number of teams in this field.

And here's the best part: One of their top scorers was a DNF.

Caila Odekirk, who ran 16:05 (5k) this past spring, didn't finish this race. And if she did, then we're looking at a scenario where Utah Valley is beating Syracuse and likely Stanford as well.

Did anyone else have that on their Bingo cards?

The Utah Valley women still have a long way to go, but gosh, this was such an encouraging result and it's crazy to think that they could be even better.

All things considered, this was actually a really solid race for the Washington women.

They didn't have Madison Heisterman or Haley Herberg in this field. And yet, the Huskies still emerged with a very solid 8th place team finish. Anna Gibson was excellent with her 19th place result, and that's an important development. With all of these elite freshmen now on this roster, having firepower next to Herberg was important to have.

And while Gibson isn't necessarily on the same level as Herberg, having someone who can contend for top finishes in larger fields like this is encouraging to see.

We also have to give kudos to Sophie Sullivan who was 37th in this field. She is the perfect middle-lineup piece to bridge the gap between the front-running veterans and the rising youngsters in this team's varsity group.

As expected, Isabel Van Camp was fantastic with a 10th place finish, giving this team a major boost in low-stick scoring -- a necessity if the Razorbacks are going to have success this fall.

Behind Van Camp, we expected Thorvaldson or maybe even Ewert to be the team's second scorer. That, however, was not the case. Instead, it was true freshman Mia Cochran who recorded an outstanding 24th place finish.

Cochran's performance is encouraging, mainly because this Arkansas team needs more scoring potency next to Van Camp. And if Thorvaldson and Ewert weren't going to be that secondary scorer, then we weren't sure who would be able to step up.

But now Arkansas has a promising 1-2 punch and a very solid middle-lineup contributor in Thorvaldson who finished 44th. Depth, however, proved to be an issue for Arkansas on Saturday as their final two scorers finished in 80th and 93rd.

Admittedly, that was something that we expected to be a roadblock for the Razorbacks this fall, but their overall success this season will solely determined by how much better Ewert, Hyde and a few of their younger runners are over the next few months.

Not the best day ever for the Michigan women.

The core of this team is their top-three of Ericka VanderLende, Kayla Windemuller and Katelynne Hart. After those three women, the Wolverines simply needed their depth to hold up and limit any excessive scoring.

Windemuller was very solid in 14th place, delivering on our low-stick expectations that we had for her entering this season. Meanwhile, Samantha Tran held her own in 34th place and Hart settled for a 41st place finish.

For the most part, that was a solid top-three. Sure, Hart could have been a few spots better, but seeing Tran step up like she did was excellent.

What was not-so-great to see was VanderLende dropping all the way to 97th place. Her inconsistency continues to make this Wolverine star challenging to properly gauge and if VanderLende isn't at 100%, then the scoring structure of this team becomes far shakier.

That said, there are a few silver-linings from Michigan's result. Tran emerged as a very underrated scorer, VanderLende can much better, Hart can be a little better and the overall depth of this team wasn't that much worse than a handful of the other top teams in this field.

I expect Michigan to be much better moving forward.

Really nice run for the Kentucky women! We're big fans of both Perri Bockrath and Tori Herman here at The Stride Report, but we admittedly didn't know what to expect outside of those top-two women.

Bockrath continues her incredible year, finishing 8th overall and acting as a truly elite low-stick. Meanwhile, Herman held her own with a 21st place finish, giving the Wildcats a really solid secondary scorer who matched many of the top scoring duos in this field.

Mississippi State graduate transfer, Sydney Steely, finished 49th overall in what was a sneaky-great result for someone who is predominately an 800 meter runner. The veteran was a nice addition to this team, offering scoring support that made this lineup more reliant on their three front-runners rather than their backend cast.

Kentucky still had their final two runners well back in the results, each finishing outside of the top-100, but there's a really promising core of women on this team. Not only that, but beating Harvard and Ole Miss could yield a pair of Kolas points a few months from now.

The Harvard women settled for a 12th place team, a result that was admittedly expected. However, seeing Maia Ramsden finish 7th overall was huge! There are great individual pieces on this roster, but there are also plenty of gaps throughout their top-seven.

Luckily, having an elite scorer like Ramsden somewhat counters those gaps.

Ellaney Matarese was a pleasant surprise in 44th place and Annelies Quinton held her own in 74th place. And with Isabell Sager not racing this weekend, there's actually a lot of room for this team to improve throughout the rest of 2022.

Much like Arkansas and Stanford, this Harvard group is fairly young, so we would also expect them to make improvements as the season goes on. If someone catches fire, then the Crimson could be a dangerous team to battle.

Not the best race ever for the Ole Miss women, but it's also hard to look at these results and figure out who could have been better.

Ryann Helmers (25th) was really solid and continues to emerge as a very underrated front-runner. And while Loral Winn (38th) also held her own, the rest of this lineup just couldn't match the scoring from these other teams.

We should note that Eastern Kentucky graduate transfer, Laura Taborda, didn't race. She was sporting a boot this past summer, so it's understandable why she may not be racing in September.

But if she does race this fall, then Ole Miss will be still a fairly competitive group in 2022.