The Group Chat: D2 NCAA XC Championship Reactions

Written by John Cusick, Grace McLaughlin & Garrett Zatlin

Additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin

John:

Grace:

Garrett:

John: No, I don’t think that the Wingate men ran up to their full potential.

And yes, I’m saying that after they had four athletes finish as All-Americans on Friday. They are the only other team outside of Colorado Mines that is able to say that!

Yet, I am now sitting here ready to argue that the Bulldogs left points on the board yesterday. It's not that those extra points would have mattered given how dominant the Orediggers were, but the idea that this team could have been better than what their final score ultimately was is crazy to think about!

The Bulldogs went 22-27-32-34-92 to score 177 points. Going into Friday, we had the Bulldogs at our TSR #4 spot, but knew that if things clicked on the same day, then they could exceed expectations. Their time-spread was 56 seconds.

Earlier this season, we often highlighted how the Wingate men outstanding time-spreads of just 17 seconds at the Southeast Regional XC Championships and 20 seconds at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase.

So, yes, I do think that Wingate could have performed even better than they actually did, essentially because some backend guys could have closed the gap on their top All-Americans. Of course, that should not gloss over the fact that the Bulldogs are legitimately one of the best teams in the country.

Grace: I think that, as a team, Wingate definitely ran to their full potential and I would call their runner-up performance an upset over Grand Valley State.

Were there maybe some points left on the board? Sure, but not many.

One or two individuals could have had a slightly better day and their pack could have been a little closer together, but they still would have been the runner-up team behind Colorado Mines in that scenario. It's also hard to say that they didn't run to their full potential due to the fact that they had essentially been unchallenged this season prior to Friday.

Garrett: I'm with John. I think Wingate probably left a few points on the table given their outstanding time-spreads from earlier in the season.

Of course, none of that is to take away from how good they were on Friday. The Bulldogs were flat-out fantastic, but I did think that Soheil Boufrizi and Yonas Sauers could have finished much closer to their All-American teammates instead of settling outside of the top-90.

And just like John said, I think that's the most impressive part about Wingate's performance. They secured a huge runner-up result without putting together their absolute best outing...which is really hard to do!

Oh, and Bastian Mrochen? A guy who was 77th in the Paul Short "Gold" race and placed 12th at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase? Yeah, he was a DNF during yesterday's race, making Wingate's runner-up finish that much more impressive.

John: This was definitely the biggest surprise of the day.

Earlier this season, we saw Illinois-Springfield finish 2nd at the Lewis Crossover, just 33 points behind Colorado Christian. That was a strong result, but a 4th place finish at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase and a 5th place result at the Midwest Regional XC Championships didn’t inspire a ton of confidence going into yesterday’s national meet.

In a field as deep as this, you need two strong runners to help put this team over the top -- and that’s exactly what the Prairie Stars had in brothers Wyatt McIntire (26th) and Noah McIntyre (43rd). Their performances helped this squad maintain a great position for their backend scorers who were able to finish the job.

Christopher Cherry, Cortland Ross and Ryan Jones 78th, 99th and 120th, respectively, to score 64, 80 and 99 points for their team. While Cherry was an average third scorer, Ross and Jones were better fourth and fifth scorers than 27 other teams in this field!

Those bottom-three scorers were able to pair their stability with the frontend firepower of their lineup, culminating in a perfect storm for Illinois-Springfield to perform well.

Grace: I think this was the biggest pleasant surprise of the day. Grand Valley State dropping to 4th place was probably the biggest surprise of the day in my opinion, but Illinois-Springfield certainly exceeded expectations.

As John said, the Prairie Stars didn’t display this level of firepower throughout the season prior to Friday's race, but they managed to put together a very successful lineup with two low-sticks and three others in the top-100.

Illinois-Springfield may not have had the most consistent or impressive season overall, but they performed to the highest level when it mattered most and ended their fall campaign with a 6th place finish at the national meet.

Garrett: I guess it depends on what you thought about Illinois-Springfield to begin with.

Yes, they definitely exceeded expectations, but this is a team that finished runner-up at the Lewis Crossover meet and didn't really falter in any dramatic way throughout the season (although some could argue that their Midwest regional meet was underwhelming).

Were they ever a top-10 team leading up to the national meet? No, they weren't, but it's not like they were horrible or never on our radar.

I think you could make an argument that Michigan Tech was the biggest surprise.

The Huskies were 4th behind Colorado Christian, Illinois-Springfield AND Western Washington at the Lewis Crossover meet. They also lost to Grand Valley State and Saginaw Valley State at the GLIAC XC Championships before faltering behind those same two teams AND Walsh at the Midwest Regional XC Championships.

There really wasn't a whole lot to suggest that Michigan Tech would be a top-10 team despite all of our writers suggesting that they'll be a top-15 team via our predictions.

John: I want to talk about Missouri Southern.

First, I’m frustrated because they have three of the best distance runners in the country and they didn’t show that yesterday. JP Rutledge was 47th, Ryan Riddle was 63rd and Gidieon Kimutai was 82nd!

All three of those runners had been in our individual rankings for most of this season. I understand that the conditions could have played a role in their performances, but I never thought that zero top-40 results would be the outcome for these three standouts.

Second, this team finished 9th, but they didn’t have a single All-American!

So much for the “concern” over their depth this season...

Riley Simpson was 87th and Jaden Deaton was 115th. We fully expected this team to be a top-five team when the season began simply because of their upfront talent. But instead, it was their two backend scorers who saved the Lions and kept them in the top-10.

I would have never guessed that the Lions would finish this season without an All-American, let alone finish inside the top-10 teams if that was the scenario that you had presented to me.

Grace: Yeah, I'll say ditto on Missouri Southern, but I also want to discuss the Charleston (WV) Golden Eagles for a moment.

The highest prediction that we had for their national meet performance was 9th (shoutout to Garrett), with the majority of us predicting them to be around 16th. We owe them an apology after their 8th place performance.

The Golden Eagles had two All-American runners in Joao Pereira and Thomas Termote who recorded finishes of 21st and 33rd, respectfully. We also saw Alejandro Abellaneda place inside the top-50 with his 48th place finish.

That's a really underrated top-three!

The Golden Eagles won the Mountain East Conference XC Championships and the Atlantic Regional XC Championships, but those results did not give us much insight about their actual talent level. They were 3rd at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase, but Lee (Tenn.) finished ahead of them...and the Flames were 16th yesterday.

We partially overlooked the Golden Eagles, but they also had a fantastic effort and outperformed even what we thought they could do on their very best day.

Garrett: I really wanted to talk about Charleston (WV) since I was so high on them coming into the national meet and was the only one who saw their potential as a top-10 team...but Grace took their analysis from me.

Honestly, I don't really think that there is a whole lot more to talk about. We've already addressed our initial expectations for Illinois-Springfield, John did a deep dive into the bizarre scoring structure of Missouri Southern, Grace already highlighted one of the biggest stunners of the national meet in Charleston (WV) and I already noted Michigan Tech's success.

I don't know if there's really much more for me to talk about, at least not on the men's side.

John: In our latest set of rankings, I mentioned that if Powell were to win by 30+ seconds, then we would have to start having a conversation about where he stands in the D2 all-time distance running hierarchy.

While his title victory was "only" by 19 seconds on Friday, I still think that there is a legitimate conversation to be had.

Powell has now won an individual title in cross country while Gidabuday never did that in his four years racing for Adams State. The debate about who’s a better cross country runner is almost certainly over after yesterday.

But for Powell to be a better overall athlete than Gidabuday was, I think we need to see him win some indoor titles. He’s won the outdoor 10k once (2022) and was 2nd in both the indoor (2022) and outdoor (2022) 5k races, meaning that Powell only has two individual titles to Gidabuday’s seven.

I don’t think that he has to outdo the Adams State legend in terms of national title count in order to pass him, but I do think that we have to start wondering how many NCAA gold medals Powell might be able to win over the course of his final two and a half years in a Colorado Mines’ uniform.

Grace: I agree with John here. Powell is the better cross country runner, but Gidabuday is still king of the track and that might give the Adams State legend a better overall resume.

Powell needs to win more titles on the oval for him to surpass Gidabuday. Luckily, Powell has plenty of time to earn the D2 G.O.A.T. status given his extended eligibility.

Garrett: Yeah, Grace and John pretty much took the analysis from me. Powell is probably better on the grass even if he has fewer All-American honors and "only" one national title. However, the Colorado Mines star probably needs a few more national titles on the indoor and outdoor ovals before we can put him in the same territory as Gidabuday.

But I also agree with John that Powell doesn't need to match all seven of Gidabuday's national titles. Let's not forget that Powell has an NCAA record (in the indoor 5k) while the Adams State legend doesn't hold any collegiate records.

Of course, Gidabuday does rank higher in the all-time lists in a handful of events compared to Powell, but now we're splitting hairs.

John: I’m going to take both routes on this question.

The first runner who I want to talk about is Ransom Allen of Wayne State (MI). Allen was 25th at the national meet last year...but he just finished 9th on Friday.

Allen traveled to Seattle without a team in 2022, but his top-10 performance validates him as one of the country’s best runners on the grass. His ability to race at a high-level against practically any kind of competition speaks to his talent level. The next step for him is to make a breakthrough on the track.

Given that last year’s academic year was his best in a Warrior uniform, we should expect him to be a problem on the indoor oval in the coming months.

The second runner who I want to talk about is Isaac Russo of Colorado Christian.

Russo was the Cougars’ fourth scorer on Friday, but he’s the main reason why the Cougars were able to finish 3rd overall as a team. He finished 57th place overall, but that was 13 spots better than Grand Valley State’s fourth runner, Koby Fraaza.

Russo was four seconds up on the GVSU freshman at four miles. Fraaza then knocked that lead down to just three seconds at the 7.2k mark. Another kilometer later (8.2k), Russo had made the gap five seconds and maintained that gap through 9k.

Russo proceeded to add two more seconds to that gap as he finished 13 spots ahead of Fraaza. That was good enough for a 10-point swing in favor of the Cougars and Alexander Vance was able to finish the job off as the team’s fifth scorer.

If Russo doesn’t beat Fraaza, then there’s a good chance that the Cougars slip to 4th place in the team standings instead of securing a top-three finish.

Grace: I agree with John’s pick of Ransom Allen of Wayne State (MI), so I'll choose him as my first pick, but I think Andrew Amor of New Mexico Highlands also needs to be mentioned for the same reasons.

Like Allen, Amor was without a team yesterday, but had an excellent day as an individual.

Amor finished 20th overall, improving upon his 30th place finish from last year's national meet. However, what is most impressive about this performance is the fact that he was 22nd at the RMAC XC Championships just a few weeks ago and 12th at the South Central XC Regional Championships!

To go from 22nd at his conference meet to 20th at the NCAA XC Championships is pretty unheard of...and really hard to do at this level!

In our predictions, we had Amor finishing 34th, 34th, 29th and 25th, and he exceeded those expectations in tough conditions.
 
 Garrett: Those were probably some of the best answers that we've had in this article. I like all of those names.

Can we talk about Duncan Fuehne? I think some people might dismiss his performance given the fatigue of talking about how great Colorado Mines is, but NO ONE thought he would finish 3rd overall this Friday.

Sure, three out of our four writers had him as a top-10 name, but seeing Fuehne place 3rd overall was massive and it suddenly puts him in very different territory despite what his regular season results (which were still very strong) suggested.

I feel like Harry Louradour of West Texas A&M also deserves some respect. He had a slow start to his season, but then rallied to win the Lone Star Conference title, finishing 11th in the always-loaded South Central Regional XC Championships and then dropping a monster 18th place result at the national meet.

This French distance runner had a fantastic race and really shattered expectations. Kudos to him on one helluva race this past Friday.

John:

Grace:

The team title:

Stephanie Cotter looking for the rest the field after crossing the finish line:

Garrett: *me to Coach Damon Martin*

John: I really do believe that this was one of the easier seasons to predict.

As the season unfolded, it was clear that there were talent gaps in certain team’s scoring lineups. Obviously, Adams State boasted the most talent out of all of the teams at the national meet, but when you look at Grand Valley State, Colorado Mines and UC-Colorado Springs, there was a spot that we identified with each of those groups that would be a problem when trying to match the Grizzlies.

For Grand Valley State, it was their fourth and fifth scoring options. Sure, we didn’t anticipate Natalie Graber falling to 30th place, but even an individual victory from her wouldn’t have put the Lakers’ ahead of the Grizzlies. There were also questions about the Orediggers' 3-4-5 spots of their lineup and that remained true even after yesterday.

The Mountain Lions are an interesting team as they had four All-Americans on Friday. In theory, that should have been enough to make them a top-three team, but one bad run can change the trajectory of a team and that’s what we saw in yesterday's grand finale.

The UCCS women probably should have been better than 4th as a team, but part of our concern was the youth of their backend and that was plenty evident on the national stage.

Grace: I also think this year was the easiest season to predict, but 2019 is pretty close.

Adams State has consistently boasted an incredibly talented group of women with their low-sticks almost always in the hunt for the individual national title. However, this year, I think their depth was the best that it ever has been since I’ve been with TSR.

In 2019, we saw Cotter and the Flanagan sisters sweep the medal stand and Adams State recorded the lowest point total in Division Two history, but I don’t think that was quite as predictable as this year’s title chase. I remember being quite surprised by the display of their dominance, but this year I fully expected what they just pulled off.

Throughout this season, we saw the Grizzlies test out various varsity lineups and dominate races. The backend of their lineup was interchangeable and the gaps between their runners was shorter with (almost) every passing race. There was not another team close to having the level of talent and depth that the Grizzlies had, especially in larger fields such as the national meet.

And when you look at the rest of the programs, our initial rankings pretty much tell the story. Sure, we weren't 100% perfect but...we certainly weren't far off. In fact, our pre-national meet rankings accurately listed the top-four podium teams in order.

So yeah, this was a super predictable year.

Garrett: I started this site in March 2017. Within that calendar year, we slowly began to introduce D2 content. Since then, our growing team of writers have consistently shown the ability to refine and improve our prediction methodology while better gauging which teams and individuals deserve to be at the top of our rankings.

And this year was probably the most spot-on that our D2 crew has ever been, at least on the women's side.

The top-four teams in our rankings all finished in the top-four of the national meet...in order. All four of our writers (myself included) all had those same four teams in that same order. In fact, John and Eric perfectly predicted the entire top-five with Augustana placing 5th.

Plus, our ranking of Cedarville also perfectly matched their national meet finish, 7th place.

Sure, our rankings weren't 100% accurate for a handful of teams that we listed, but there are some exceptions that deserve context.

If Aria Hawkins had run, then the Lee women are likely closer to their TSR #10 ranking, maybe around 12th or 13th, than where they actually finished (19th).

We didn't have the Western Colorado women ranked in our top-10, but all of our D2 writers had the Mountaineer women finishing inside the top-10. They ultimately placed 8th.

The CSU-Pueblo weren't talked about much this season, but they finished 6th in what was a huge race for the Thunderwolves. None of our writers had them placing lower than 11th which, based on their seasonal expectations, is pretty decent foresight (although we still underestimated them).

So yes, this was probably the most predictable national meet I have seen on the Division Two side, at least for the women and for the top teams in the nation.

John: Just like the Illinois-Springfield men, I think it’s safe to say that the Wayne State women placing inside the top-10 at the national meet was the biggest surprise of the weekend.

And what makes their collective effort even more impressive is that their usual low-stick, Reagan Justice, only finished as the third scorer for her team yesterday! Instead, Ashley Defrain led the Warriors in 51st place overall with Briana Voljinov (73rd), Justice (75th) and Thailyia Christensen (85th) all finishing inside the top-100. Charlene Yarema finished in 110th place.

The time-spread between that top-five?

Just 38 seconds.

Given that their next-best time-spread in a highly competitive setting this season was 56 seconds, it’s truly a surprise to see them dip under the 40-second threshold in the biggest meet of the season. We didn't even have them listed in our top-10 rankings or in our "Just Missed" section or in our "Honorable Mentions" list!

Grace: I think Wayne State had a phenomenal day and I was surprised to see them place in the top-10, but I do think that we at least saw glimpses of their potential throughout the season and the wintery conditions likely played into their favor.

The Warriors earned bronze at the Midwest Regional XC Championships behind Grand Valley State and Cedarville, two highly talented teams that ended up beating Wayne State yesterday. Let's also not forget that the Warriors and were the runner-up finishers at the GLIAC XC Championships behind the Lakers.

Oh and don't forget about their solid results at the Lucian Rosa Invitational behind Cedarville and Minnesota State!

In those prior performances, and during Friday’s race, they significantly benefited from their pack-running. As John said, their 38-second time-spread between their top-five was incredible and it was the biggest factor in their surprising top-10 result.

Garrett: I think it's abundantly clear that the Wayne State women were the biggest winners of the "Wow, where did they come from?" award. However, in a year where everything was fairly predictable, the Warriors didn't really have much competition for this made up honor.

But truthfully, I'm kind of with Grace on this one. The Wayne State women didn't exactly give us too many reasons to dislike them this fall -- it just so happens that their conference and regional opponents, Grand Valley State and Cedarville, were two of the best teams in the nation.

Taking down Saginaw Vally State twice was encouraging and Minnesota State's defeat of the Warriors earlier in the season wasn't entirely shocking.
 

Was this an exceptional performance for the Wayne State women? Yes, it absolutely was. I was the only one who had them cracking the top-20 in this meet, but even then I only had them finishing 18th place overall. And truthfully, other rankings were fairly similar.

Kudos to Wayne State. They didn't give anyone a legitimate reason to doubt them as much as we did coming into Friday's race and they made everyone pay for that mistake as a result.

John: The West Texas A&M Buffaloes.

Yes, the duo of Florance Uwajeneza and Eleonora Curtabbi was impressive by finishing in 5th and 6th place, respectively. However, Betty Bejaki also had a nice race as she finished in 70th place overall while Raquel Chavez was 151st.

This team settled for 5th at the South Central Regional XC Championships, but we were not sure how their depth would hold up in such a large field.

I think a 13th place team finish was a very good result for this team given the drop-off in scoring potency after Uwajaneza and Curtabbi.

Grace: I think Winona State in 11th place had a great day.

They had Lindsay Cunningham as the individual runner-up, Kaylee Beyer earning All-American honors in 36th place, McKenna Taylor securing a promising 52nd place finish and Sophia Taaurd was really solid as well in 97th place!

I'll be honest, I did not predict them to have four runners in the top-100 or that they would finish higher than 15th place, but they really came together and pulled off a phenomenal performance.

Coming from the cold state of Minnesota, I think the sloppy conditions really gave the Warriors an advantage. But regardless of the climate and environment, they still had an unpredictably good race.

Just two weeks ago, they placed 5th at the Central Regional XC Championships behind Pittsburg State, Minnesota State and Nebraska-Kearney, three teams that they beat by over 100 points on the national stage.

Minnesota State also beat them at the NSIC XC Championships and the Mavericks performed on par with what we were expecting from them. That just shows us how absurd this performance was for the Winona State women.

If their fifth runner was closer to Taaurd, then I think this team would have shockingly good. With Cunningham as a low-stick, Beyer and Taylor as a duo and Taaurd improving with each race, the Winona State Warriors just need to close the gap between their fourth and fifth runner to be a legit contender.

Garrett: I'm not going to spend much time on this section with my analysis, mainly because I'm late to respond to this article which means that Grace and John took the only two teams worth mentioning (in my opinion).

I really did take a deep dive into these results, looking for any non-top-10 team to highlight that wasn't West Texas A&M or Winona State. But truthfully, everyone else either (roughly) matched expectations or simply had a tough day.

I don't know if we really want to say that a 25th place finish for Palm Beach Atlantic was a "great race" after no one had them finishing higher than 28th, but the other options for this question that haven't already been taken are pretty slim.

And for the record, if you had to make me choose one, I would have said Winona State.

John: Honestly, this is about a 9/10 for me.

I picked Cunningham to win this race and I felt confident in doing so. While I didn’t think that she’d necessarily run away with the title, I also thought that she’d at least put up a fight.

That was not the case.

After two miles, this was race was seemingly over as Cotter glided to a 42-second victory.

And to be clear, I think my surprise factor was more based on how much Cotter won by rather than her actually winning. While I did have Cunningham taking home gold, it wasn't inconceivable that the Grizzly distance ace could win it all.

Grace: I would say 5/10.

I only saw this race playing out in two ways...

Due to the fact that Cotter had only raced twice this season prior to Friday, and that her South Central regional meet performance was not indicative of her actual fitness level, I really had no idea what to expect from her.

But I also knew better than to doubt her.

While I did choose Cunningham to win over Cotter, largely due to the fact that I had more information and data to analyze for the former, choosing a winner was still a very tough choice to make.

Prior to this race, I kept remembering glimpses of the 2019 NCAA XC Championships in which Cotter used the same strategy...which was simply to run away with the win. I was curious if she could do it again with the increased talent level in this year's field, but sure enough, she definitively showed us that she could replicate the caliber of her 2019 performance.

Garrett: I think I would put myself at an 8/10.

It's not that Cotter won that surprised me.

It's not that Cotter ran as fast as she did that surprised me.

It's not that Cotter beat Lindsay Cunningham for the national title that surprised me.

It's the fact that Cotter aerobically dominated one of the best front-runners in the NCAA by gapping her (substantially) before the two mile mark. This race wasn't even close! And after a South Central regional meet showing where the Adams State women didn't look great at all, it was hard to have any confidence in the idea that Cotter was going to breeze by her competition on the nation's biggest stage.

But she did exactly that. And even though I picked her to win, I didn't think it would be nearly this dominant. That's probably because, like Grace said, I only had so much information to work with this season.

John: At some point, you have to say that enough is enough...and that time is now.

Stephanie Cotter is the greatest D2 runner we have ever seen. Her level of consistency, dominance and range make her one of the scariest runners to face. She should have left no doubt in anyone’s mind that she belongs at the top.

Grace: How is this even a question?

Stephanie Cotter is the best D2 distance runner of all-time. Period.

I’ll admit, she goes about racing and winning in a unique fashion, but when you win two national titles (and that's just on the grass) in the fashion that she did, you have to give credit where credit is due.

And when you consider her essentially-perfect tactical execution on the track, I don't see how anyone in D2 can say that they've been consistently better than her.

Cotter is the D2 G.O.A.T.

Garrett: It's funny, because if you strictly look at the D2 record books, you would never think that Stephanie Cotter was/is in the D2 G.O.A.T. conversation, much less the leading member in that club house.

On the indoor oval, she is not listed in the top-10 of ANY (official) all-time lists for the distance events (I ignored relays). It's the same story for the outdoor track with the exception of the 1500 meters where she sits at NCAA #6 all-time.

But with two cross country national titles, both of which were won in an overwhelming display of dominance, and numerous national titles on the track (four individual, one relay) which showcased her elite tactical prowess, we are now forced to ask if Cotter is the best to ever do it at this level.

I think Grace makes a good point that the defining edge in this G.O.A.T. conversation may be the fact that Cotter was winning national titles as far back as the winter of 2019. Her ability to maintain this level of excellence is unreal.

However, I still think that Neely Spence has a legitimate argument to be considered the D2 G.O.A.T. The former Shippensburg superstar won eight national titles across all three seasons of competition (two of which were in relays) during her time in college. She also still holds the official NCAA indoor 5k record and is currently sitting at NCAA #2 all-time in the outdoor 5k, all of which pertains to the D2 level.

I wouldn't argue with anyone who chooses Cotter as the greatest ever, but I would encourage us to give Neely Spence a bit more respect.

John: Allison Beasley of Western Colorado showed up once again and she’s the main reason why Western Colorado finished 8th as a team.

We fully expected Katie Doucette to lead this squad as she had done all season long, but she faded to 38th place overall. Instead, Beasley’s efforts saved her team's chances to be nationally competitive as she served as their low-stick for the second-straight season, snagging a sneaky-strong 19th place finish in the process.

Megan Means is the other name who I want to mention. We had not been convinced that she was truly back to last year’s form and Augustana was hurt in our rankings leading up to the national meet because of that.

But once again, we’re talking about how Means led this team. The Vikings finished 5th on Friday and that is largely because of her return to form as she posted a huge 11th place result.

Grace: Since John gave examples of team scorers, I’ll recognize several “unsung heroes” on the individual side of the race.

Amanda Montplaisir of Minnesota State had the race of her life as she moved up six places in the last 1k to finish 9th overall. She's always been good, but we simply didn't expect this kind of result. Her teammate, MaKenna Thurston, also surprised us with her huge 17th place finish.

Kendall Kramer of Alaska-Fairbanks had a shockingly good day with her 8th place finish. We expected Naomi Bailey to lead the trio of Nanook women, but Kramer showed us that she excels in championship races.

Lara Murdock of Pittsburg State emerged as a top name moving forward with her 13th place finish. Much like Montplaisir, we knew that Murdock was talented, but you'll find that NO ONE at TSR predicted to Murdock to even be an All-American.

Marissa D’Atri of Chico State built some of the best momentum in the NCAA throughout the season and ended her fall campaign on an extremely high note with her 14th place finish.

Elise Leveel of Charleston (WV) proved herself as the real deal with her 18th place finish on Friday following her runner-up performance at the Atlantic Regional XC Championships.

All of these women outperformed talented veterans and several of them earned their first All-American honors in the process. Kudos to these ladies.

Garrett: What about Helen Baybrook? No one had the CSU-Pueblo women finishing as high as they did and a large part of that was because Baybrook had the race of her life.

Prior to Friday, she had finished 29th at the RMAC XC Championships and 22nd at the South Central Regional XC Championships. Those were fine results, but there was almost zero indication that she was going to be an All-American this year.

And then she finished 23rd overall at the national meet.

Man, this sport can really make us look stupid...

Also, I feel like everyone is just assuming that the predictability of the podium teams means that their lineup structures also played out like we expected them to -- but I don't think that's the case for Colorado School of Mines.

All season long, we have been fixated on Zoe Baker, Jenna Ramsey, Clare Peters, Holly Moser and Molly Maksin -- and rightfully so!

However, we need to be talking about redshirt freshman Grace Strongman who just snagged a fantastic 39th place All-American finish after an admittedly quiet year on the grass. Her 16th place finish at D2 Pre-Nationals was pretty solid, but after placing 30th at the RMAC XC Championships and then sitting out of the South Central Regional XC Championships, we thought her season had potentially come to a close.

But nope! She was actually preparing to be in All-American form. If you had removed her from the national meet results, then the UC-Colorado Springs women actually get the edge for 3rd place instead of Colorado Mines.

In other words, a second-year rookie is probably the reason why the women from Golden, Colorado won a bronze medal on Friday.