TSR Collaboration
Mar 19, 202128 min
Any team that competed during cross country at least once this year, regardless of whether or not they competed at the indoor national meet, was eligible to be listed in these rankings.
KEY NOTE: Theses rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at the NCAA XC Championships.
Was not ranked in our last update.
First number indicates how much the team has moved in the rankings.
The second number indicates where the team was ranked in our last update.
There was a lot to like about the Portland Pilots this season. They opened up their cross country campaign with a strong win at the Oregon XC Open where they beat San Francisco and Oregon State by a good margin, two teams that ended up being better than we expected them to be this year.
At the West Coast Conference Championships, the Pilots put together another very solid race to finish runner-up behind the eventual national champions, BYU. Junior Anna Pataki had one of her best races that day, taking the individual win ahead of BYU’s Aubrey Frentheway and Anna Camp-Bennett. Her performance validated her as a true low-stick for a team that was becoming increasingly more competitive as the season went on.
After missing the national meet in 2019, Portland earned a trip to Stillwater in 2021 where they finished 22nd overall. That result fell in-line with how they had been performing this year and it capped off a solid season.
Anna Pataki once again led the Pilots, placing 31st to earn her first All-American honors. Fellow junior Stella Gillman also had an excellent race, coming in 57th place. Through two runners, Portland was actually substantially further ahead of the five teams that finished ahead of them, but they fell off sharply after that.
Their 3-4-5 runners scored 131, 143 and 177 team points, each. Those totals were significantly worse than four of the five teams directly below Portland in the overall results. For the Pilots to be competitive in future seasons, they will need to see significant improvement from the back-half of their lineup. The national meet was, after all, their first large nationally competitive race of the season.
Looking on the bright side, the Pilots fielded a relatively young roster that has plenty of room to grow. If Portland can continue to improve like they did from 2019 to 2021, then this is a team that could crack the top-half of the national field in future years, maybe as soon as this fall.
It's hard to drop a team like Duke so far in our rankings despite them having growing success since the fall. They finished a very close 4th place at the ACC XC Championships and later went to the FSU Winter XC Classic where they took down top teams like Iowa State, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and Liberty.
Of course, teams like Iowa State and Oklahoma State beat the Blue Devils at the always-more important national meet which is why we opted to rank Duke behind those programs.
Overall, the scoring potency just wasn't there on Monday. No one finished in the top-100, the large field created one or two gaps in their lineup and their bottom-three runners failed to crack the top-215.
In the end, it just wasn't a great day for the Duke women, but it's hard to dismiss all of the success that they had this year. The Blue Devils got better as the season went on and showed a lot of promise. They are certainly a Top 25 team and we feel fairly confident about that.
It’s a fair assessment to say the Cyclones start and end with Cailie Logue. Not to discredit the other members of this team, but if Logue is off her game, then the Cyclones don’t have much of a chance to stand out in a large national meet. That became abundantly clear on Monday when Logue fell back to 126th overall and the Cyclones dropped to 25th.
Even if Logue had run well, the Cyclones had a definitive ceiling this season.
Let's suppose that Logue had won the race. She would have scored one point instead of 98 points, which essentially puts Iowa State in a race with Georgetown, Indiana and Georgia Tech for the 18th place spot. Michigan, a team that finished 17th, was almost 100 points ahead of 18th place. So even if Logue runs her best race, Iowa State still had a fairly defined peak.
Between Winrose Chesang, Dana Feyen and Madelynn Hill, Iowa State has a solid group of young runners throughout the season and they at least held their own on the national stage. Brenna Cohoon and Janette Schraft were only about 10 seconds back of Hill, all placing in the top-200.
Looking ahead, the Cyclones are going to need to see some improvements from runners besides Logue. Their youthful backend certainly helps, but Iowa State still needs to see a stronger trend of improvement if they are looking to be competitive on the national stage. Luckily for them, they had overall improvement from this team compared to 2019.
Competing on their home course for the fourth time this season, Oklahoma State didn’t place as high as we had expected them to at the cross country national meet. That, however, was because their team couldn't afford one slip up from their low-sticks and needed to rely on an inexperienced backend to make up some of their scoring deficiencies.
Roe continued to impress in her breakthrough 2020-2021 academic year when she finished 2nd overall on Monday, only five seconds away from the individual title. She was a stud during the fall, continuously putting herself in position to win. Runner-up appeared to be Roe’s favorite place to finish as she placed 2nd on three separate occasions this year and placed 4th twice as well.
Born, an All-American in 2019 with her 16th place finish, didn’t begin competing again until early-February at the FSU Winter XC Classic and slowly made her presence known for the Cowgirls upon her return. At the NCAA Championships, she started out a little too far back to pick up an All-American honor, but she moved up nicely to ultimately finish 54th.
Between those two, the scoring potency was fairly balanced and the average finish between those two was 28th place, right on par with what we expected. Unfortunately, we didn't see their third low-stick matching expectations.
After such a strong breakout year, we had projected Hentemann to finish amongst the top-50. However, the sophomore had an "off"day and faltered to 250th place. This was her first NCAA Championship and she likely wasn't prepared for the overwhelming sea of talent.
Not only that, but the younger women on this lineup just didn't have enough experience to adequately support the latter-half of this varsity scoring. That, however, is something that we partially expected coming into Monday's race.
Oklahoma State ended their 2020-2021 cross country season with a 24th place finish at NCAA’s, far from what they were capable of. All seven members of the lineup will be back for the next cross country season and if Taylor Somers, a 2019 All-American, is healthy again, then the quartet of Roe, Born, Hentemann and Somers could be lethal to some of the nation’s best teams.
Illinois dropped substantially in our final rankings after coming up short at the national meet. Fueled by big hopes coming off the BIG 10 Championships, the Fighting Illini’ looked ready for a big day, but struggled all-around and slipped back to 21st place.
So what happened? Some of their struggles may have stemmed from overly ambitious expectations after their BIG 10 performance. Illinois took down Indiana for 3rd place in that meet and was only three points behind Minnesota. Things looked great…but there was a catch. Michigan was not in the field, condensing the front pack to look a bit tighter than things may have seemed.
That BIG 10 field also muted the scoring impact of top runners from teams like Michigan State and Minnesota which benefitted from having low-stick from in a larger race such as the NCAA Championships. And while Illinois was able to keep a tight spread on their top-five runners, they lacked a true front-running star who could give this team a scoring spark.
All of that ultimately led to Monday’s result. The Fighting Illini’ were once again led by Rebecca Craddock who earned a solid 68th place finish overall. At the BIG 10 meet, she was an average of just seven places behind the top runners from Minnesota and Michigan State. At the NCAA Championships, that average (understandably) jumped to 56 places.
That trend continued for a few supporting scorers. Allison McGrath and Ayah Aldadah finished four and six places back, respectively, at their conference meet. However, the gaps jumped to 64 places and 75 places on Monday.
Even so, when evaluating their season as a whole, it’s fair to say that Illinois was still a very solid team. Even if the dynamics between the BIG 10 meet and national meet were staunchly different, a 21st place team result was still one place better than where they finished in 2019.
Overall, we still really liked the depth that we saw out of this program and if they had raced on a more consistent basis, we like to think that they would have been one of the more consistent teams in the nation.
Indiana’s season felt very “status quo”. They ran a bit poorly at the BIG 10 XC Championships, finishing 4th overall. They then rebounded slightly at the NCAA XC Championships, finishing 19th, two places ahead of Illinois. Since the Hoosiers ended up finishing higher than Illinois at the more important meet, they ultimately get the nod to rank ahead of the Fighting Illini'.
When comparing the Hoosiers from 2019 to this year, not much has changed. Both squads finished 19th overall at their respective NCAA Championships, both led by Bailey Hertenstien. In fact, the teams only scored a difference of 15 points.
In some ways, it feels like Indiana has not made progress as a team. They only graduated one scoring runner from 2019, but essentially performed the same, with runners moving a bit forward or backward, but there were no major swings. Of course, when you consider that 2021 has been an anomaly in every way, the jury is still out on the Hoosiers' bigger picture of progress.
This season wasn’t much of a season to begin with, but when evaluating this roster back in 2019, it looked like IU was set to make big strides forward. So far, that hasn’t happened, but it's not like they have raced poorly. The fall months should provide a better gauge of progress when the Hoosiers are able to race a full season.
A big performance at the national meet brings the Oregon State women into the rankings as we wrap up the season. When the Beavers opened the year at the Oregon XC Open, they finished 3rd behind a good Portland team and an okay San Francisco team. The defeat to the latter squad was a bit concerning, but the Beavers bounced back in a big way to finish 4th place overall at the PAC-12 XC Championships a couple weeks later.
At their PAC-12 meet, Oregon State was only 15 points behind 3rd place Washington and were almost dead-even when you exclude the first two scorers on either team. While the Huskies proved to be the better squad, that race showed substantially more potential for Oregon State than their first meet of the year.
At the NCAA XC Championships, the Beavers finished 16th overall behind a big day from 20th place finisher Kaylee Mitchell. However, the true surprise performer was Batya Beard who came out of nowhere and secured a massive 37th place finish to give the OSU women some unexpectedly great scoring potency.
For context, the Beavers scored 375 points as a team. They were 101 points away from 6th place while also being 119 points away from 18th. Sure, Oregon State undoubtedly lost a handful of head-to-head battles that knocked them back a few spots, but for an inexperienced team that had a few inexperienced sophomores on their roster, this was a great result.
The Beavers ran well, even with 5k national qualifier Grace Fetherstonhaugh struggling. The sophomore ace was the team's seventh runner on Monday, but showed tremendous talent on the indoor track and was also doubling back from the indoor national meet.
All things considered, Oregon State had an exceptional season. This team was not on many, if any, people’s radars coming into this winter, but they showed why they can be a contender in seasons to come.
The North Carolina team that raced on Monday looked like a completely different squad than the one that finished 5th place at the ACC XC Championships back in October. The Tar Heels were able to turn the tables on their ACC competition this time around, besting three of the four teams that beat them at their conference meet.
That begs the question, what fueled this transformation?
In short, the resurgence of Paige Hofstad and the emergence of Kelsey Harrington.
Hofstad was one of the top prospects coming into the fall, but didn't always meet the All-American expectations that we had for her, finishing just 11th at the ACC Championships. Harrington, only a freshman, was relatively unknown, but had a solid run at the ACC meet to place 19th overall.
Fast forward a few months later and this team suddenly got so much better.
Between October and March, Hofstad righted the ship and came back on fire, finishing 29th overall for her first All-American honors. Close behind was freshman star Sasha Neglia, coming in 46th place. Neglia had been UNC’s top runner in the fall and her strong finish was closer to expectations.
However, what was unexpected was seeing Harrington come across the line only 15 places later. That performance was massive for UNC and she was the difference maker between finishing in the top-half or the bottom-half of this field.
The latter-half of UNC’s lineup could use some improvement, but given that their varsity group was largely composed of freshmen, the fact that they ran this well was super impressive.
Overall, this season should be viewed as a major success. UNC was a bubble team when it came to qualifying for the NCAA XC Championships, but ended their season in 14th place. They have a great group of young freshmen who have set the foundation for future success.
Attempting to rank Georgetown this season was a challenge when you consider that their schedule was essentially two dual meets against UConn. While yes, both meets had other teams, Georgetown and UConn clearly separated themselves from the fields in two races that came down to a total of two points.
At the Spider Patriot Classic, the Hoyas beat the Huskies on a tie-breaker. At the BIG East Championships, the race was separated by two points in the Hoyas' favor. Neither team was considered a top-ranked squad coming into 2021, so while both had looked solid, their racing environment was particularly isolated.
Monday proved to be the best gauge of the Hoyas’ talent as they finished 18th overall, besting Indiana on a tie-breaker at 494 points. Sophomore Maggie Donahue had a huge breakout season, finishing 32nd overall at the NCAA Championships, one place higher than where she finished at the BIG East Championships in her first season.
Junior Sami Corman was the other Hoya to crack the top-100, placing 89th. Colorado transfer Baylee Jones (sister of former Colorado star Dani Jones) was the third Hoya, coming across the line in 138th place. Fellow juniors Alyssa Alridge and Katie Dammer were close behind in 165th and 191st place as well.
The bright side for Georgetown is that this looks to be just the start. Their top-six from Nationals are all returning and with Donahue as just a sophomore, there should be plenty of room for growth in future years. If this team can follow a path similar to this season’s Minnesota squad, then they could be a factor in the fall.
Joining the rankings this week after a surprising 12th place finish at the NCAA Championships are the Ole Miss women. The Rebels scored 325 points and were only nine points out of the top-10, a performance that wasn’t expected at all. For a team that finished a distant 3rd place at the SEC XC Championships and didn’t earn any All-American honors on Monday, Ole Miss still held their own and earned a great finish.
The trio of Anna Elkin, Sintayehu Vissa and Loral Winn were part of the reason why the Rebels earned their 12th place showing. These three were only separated by seven seconds and kept themselves within the top-60. Vissa was the standout here as she was a recent transfer from D2 program Saint Leo. She went from 161st place after the 1000 meters to a remarkable 51st place by the end.
The rest of the lineup for the Rebels were consistently on the move throughout the race, especially over the back-half. Moving up was important for Ole Miss as they jumped up five team positions over the last 1000 meters. If the race had been a little longer, could Elkin and Vissa have cracked the top-40 and could Skylar Boogerd have beaten a few more ladies?
Ole Miss was not a team that we expected to finish amongst the top-15 team this week largely because they didn’t exactly have the necessary firepower at the front of their lineup. However, their depth and close-knit packs stood out. After finishing 21st at the 2019 national meet, earning a 12th place finish this season was remarkable and could bode well for the Rebels in the future.
The Yellow Jackets drop a spot in our final rankings after an underwhelming national meet performance. While Georgia Tech placed 20th on Monday, the team was closer to finishing 26th than they were to 17th place which gives a bit of insight as to how things went.
The Yellow Jackets were particularly aided by a strong season from Nicole Fegans who earned her first All-American honors with a massive 12th place finish on Monday. Of the teams that placed between 17th and 31st, only Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State had a runner finish in the top-20.
The flip side for Georgia Tech was that the rest of their team fell a bit short. After finishing runner-up at the ACC Championships in the fall, beating both Florida State and North Carolina, the Yellow Jackets finished behind both teams (by good margins) at the NCAA Championships.
Looking back now, it’s hard to truly gauge just how good Georgia Tech was. They beat Florida State numerous time, but the Seminoles weren't exactly the podium contenders that we thought they could be...which is a bit ironic considering that we jut moved them up six spots.
In reality, Georgia Tech had a very solid season, although it was hard to pinpoint a major performance outside of the ACC Championships. Their initial ranking may have been too high, but for a team that did not make the National Championships in 2019, finishing 20th overall this year should be considered a success. They were consistent, had numerous scorers show progress, had a balanced lineup and were led by a star low-stick in Nicole Fegans.
It’s hard to gauge where the Wolverines should rank following the national meet. Since the Michigan Athletic Department paused athletic events in late-January, the women from Ann Arbor didn’t get the chance to race at the BIG 10 XC Championships.
Michigan was eventually cleared to compete at the FSU Winter XC Last Chance and they completely dominated the field, scoring a perfect 15-point score. However, that race hardly offered any challenge to a distance program that was clearly better than every other team in that field.
Despite a lot of people being high on the Michigan women coming into Stillwater, they actually faltered, dropping to 17th place overall.
Low-stick Ericka VanderLende underperformed a bit in the 5k at the indoor national meet and later struggled on the grass, dropping down to 60th place. Meanwhile, teammates Kathryn House, Samantha Tran and Jena Metwalli were a solid 2-3-4 for the Wolverines, keeping their gap at a mere eight seconds. However, that group needed to collectively move up higher to make up for VanderLende's lost scoring spark.
However, what really hurt Michigan was Alice Hill not scoring and freshman Katelynne Hart recording a DNF. Hill had a respectable performance at Florida State a few weeks prior and has experience racing on the national stage. As for Hart, she was holding her own for most of the race, but then began faltering. She was expected to contend for an All-American honor based on her stellar high school resume, but inexperience may have gotten the best of her.
The Wolverines didn’t race All-American Camille Davre nor top-talent Anne Forsyth, two women who could have made a difference if they were able to replicate their success from 2018.
Michigan has a long history of strong team and individual performances at the NCAA Championships, but this just wasn’t their year. Still, on paper, they're a great team and the programs that they lost to like Ole Miss, North Carolina and Oregon State weren't previously in our rankings. As a result, the Wolverines don't drop too much in our Top 25.
Speaking of strange seasons, Florida State was certainly a unique team. The 'Noles were considered to be podium contenders after the 2019 championships, but struggled to meet expectations during the abbreviated fall season and then did not race during the winter (despite hosting multiple meets). Even so, the FSU women still came away with a strong 15th place finish in Stillwater on Monday.
So where does that leave the in our rankings Seminoles? Well, they improved their final ranking after a decent showing at Nationals, but fell a bit flat when looking at their overall season. They didn't race poorly in the fall, but they didn't meet expectations, either.
Maudie Skyring and Rebecca Clark both put together a good end to their seasons with 23rd and 40th place finishes. They both earned their first All-American honors in cross country and gave the Seminoles some much needed strength up front. However, after those two, we can began to see some pretty significant gaps develop in the latter-half of their lineup.
There are a lot of questions that we have when examining the Seminoles season, but maybe the biggest is why they held out a handful of top names at the national meet. Addison Coggins and Elizabeth Funderburk were the top two Florida State runners at the ACC Championships back in October, but neither raced on Monday. Lauren Ryan was coming off a slew of stellar track races in Australia, but it doesn't seem like she has returned to campus yet.
In some ways, it feels like this season was a missed opportunity for Florida State. In other ways, this actually turned out to be really impressive group that held their own despite having so many absences.
They had the talent to put together a great season, but between not racing during the winter and holding out some key names, the Seminoles didn't have the spark we thought they could. That, however, could certainly change in the fall when they revamp and haven Lauren Ryan as well as a few others back in their lineup.
The Washington women finished almost exactly like we had projected them to at the national meet. We expected the Huskies to be amongst the top-15 teams on Monday and they met that expectation with a 13th place finish.
Allie Schadler bounced-back well after taking a tumble in the 3k at the indoor national meet on Saturday to finish 26th overall in Stillwater. This was a big improvement from her 242nd place finish at NCAA’s in 2019. Schadler was double dipping in cross country and track this winter, so she had a slower start to her cross country season, only racing at the Battle Born Collegiate Challenge and placing 18th overall. She was the low-stick scoring spark on Monday that we thought we were going to see from Herberg.
PAC-12 champion Haley Herberg started the race out strong, leading the field through the early portion of the race before fading to 55th. She was a little ambitious taking the lead on a tough course, but this performance was still respectable for the senior after finishing 5th at the Silver State Collegiate Challenge and 20th at the Battle Born Collegiate Challenge earlier in the winter. If she had been more conservative early-on, Herberg could’ve done some damage in the top-40.
Freshman Naomi Smith had a strong season debut for the Huskies, playing a role in the team scoring. In her first NCAA Championship, she placed 53rd overall which seems to be on par for the young runner after she was 14th at the PAC-12 Championships.
Through those first three runners, the Washington women had some highly respectable scoring potency. However, Camila David-Smith and Kelly Makin left too big of a gap and that is ultimately where the team score began to inflate.
Even so, this was actually a great overall performance for a UW team that wasn't at full strength. We're not sure why 2019 All-American Melany Smart and top veteran Shona McCulloch didn’t compete this fall, but they would've completely changed the dynamic of this varsity lineup.
It was a weird year in the NCAA and Washington's performance this winter were just as odd.
The Lumberjacks continue to impress. With two 3rd place team finishes in Las Vegas and a dominating win at the BIG Sky XC Championships, these women were on the cusp of a strong NCAA performance.
Through the first 5000 meters, NAU held strong, but then faded late in the race. The Lumberjacks nearly matched their projected finish and settled for a solid 11th place result, only two points out from the top-10.
Front-runner Taryn O’Neill remained consistent throughout the course of the winter cross country season and that paid off when she finished 6th overall on a brutal course. She delivered on being the All-American scoring spark for this team while everyone else settled into supporting roles like they had all season long.
NAU veteran Delaney Rasmussen had a surprisingly great performance, crossing the line in 44th place and just missing out on All-American honors. Not too far behind her were Jessa Hanson and Bryn Morley who were only separated by six seconds and both finished in the top-100.
A tough drop from their fifth runner is what ultimately hurt this team as the Lumberjacks' point total began to inflate with 138 team points at their final scoring spot. Still, the consistency and reliability from the middle scorers of this lineup, as well as a massive race by Taryn O'Neill, seemed to balance out the scoring.
A big finish at the National Championships pushed the Broncos up in our final rankings. After putting together a solid season, Boise State looked like they were at their best in Stillwater where they scored 304 points, putting them at 9th place overall. In a tight team race that saw only 101 points separate 5th place and 13th place, the Broncos leaned on a lineup structure which featured two strong front-runners and good-enough depth.
Of the teams that finished in the top-10, Boise State was the least reliant on their top runner. The lowest finishing top scorer of the other nine teams scored 18 points. Tyler Beling, the Broncos first runner, scored 32 points.
Where the Broncos really thrived was at their 3-4-5 runners. Boise State outscored 8th place Alabama by 45 points across those three runners and outscored 10th place Arkansas by 16 points at the 3-4-5 positions. Boise State actually had the seventh-highest fifth scorer of any team in the meet despite finishing 9th in the team standing.
Behind Beling, Olivia Johnson came across the line in 52nd place with Ines Borba not far behind in 76th. Yukino Parle was the fourth Bronco to cross the line in 94th place while Sailor Hutton closed out the scoring with a 119th place result.
Boise State exceeded expectations in 2021, but there’s even more reason to believe that they can do big things this fall. Their lineup structure had the low-stick scoring that it needed last year. Multiple women continued to get better and they were consistent throughout the season.
The Alabama women have been on the rise since the abbreviated fall 2020 cross country season. They finished 8th overall on Monday which was their best team finish since a 6th place result in 1988. They were only six points behind 6th place New Mexico and a single point behind 7th place Colorado.
The Crimson Tide were led by the wicked 1-3 of Mercy Chelangat and Amaris Tyynismaa. While we certainly had high expectations, this duo blew us away, especially Tyynismaa who was only 26th at the SEC XC Championships in the fall. However, after a stellar indoor campaign where she ran personal bests of 4:33 (mile) and 9:03 (3k), she somehow became one of the nation's most elite cross country runners over the span of a few months.
Esther Gitahi (36th) continued to give this team the lethal scoring potency that allowed them to standout and earn a huge team finish. However, seeing Jami Reed place 242nd overall is what ultimately caused the Alabama women to fall out of podium contention.
This team mimicked the success that we saw out of the Alabama men a few years ago. They had a lethal top-three and as long as their backend scorers held their own, they were going to earn a top finish. Sure enough, that was what we saw from the Crimson Tide this year, although this team actually could've run so much better if everyone matched expectations which is pretty crazy to think about.
We want to say that the Colorado women had a tough outing on Monday, but they ultimately finished 7th overall and salvaged a solid result despite some underwhelming performances.
The winter cross country season started out well for the Buffaloes when they took down a Stanford team that was struggling with depth at the FSU Winter XC Classic. This performance turned some heads and put Colorado in the conversation to be on the podium.
A 5th place finish at the Battle Born XC Challenge wasn't ideal, but without Rachel McArthur in the lineup, it was understandable why the Buffs had barely fallen behind Northern Arizona and Boise State. Sure enough, we saw the Colorado women finish runner-up at the PAC-12 Championships, taking down Washington in the process.
However, things weren't great at the NCAA Championships as we saw McArthur not even score. Without McArthur upfront, the rest of her team had to pick up the pieces. Graduate transfer Abby Nichols stepped up and delivered a massive 18th place performance. That had to be the best race of her career.
The Buffaloes' next five runners, Elizabeth Constein, Madison Boreman, Micaela Degenero, Emily Covert and Camille Jackson, had a good pack and were spread out by only 11 seconds. That group all finished inside the top-100, leaving the Colorado women with some of the best depth and backend performance of the entire meet. Had McArthur matched our All-American expectations, then we're talking about this team finishing in the top-five.
Heading into the season, the Lobos were one of those teams that looked like they could finish in a pretty wide range of places at the national meet. They had lost a ton of talent from 2019, particularly NCAA champion Weini Kelati, but they also brought in transfer Anna Kostarellis, a handful of other talents and had a history of success on their side.
As it turned out, 2021 was not much different than years prior with New Mexico once again putting together a strong distance squad.
Led by senior Adva Cohen, the Lobos placed 6th at the National Championships in what became a tight race for the top-10. Cohen was a big name when she originally transferred from Iowa Central, but hadn't delivered an All-American cross country finish until Monday where she placed 22nd overall.
However, the bigger storyline for New Mexico this season was youth. The team opened their season at the Battle Born XC Challenge where they upset Stanford while having four underclassmen in the top-six of their lineup. That trend carried into the Mountain West XC Championships as they scored only 29 points, again carried by their youth.
Amelia Mazza-Downie (FR), Gracelyn Larkin (SO), Andrea Modin Enges (FR), Semira Mebrahtu Firezghi (FR) and Elise Thorner (FR) were a huge reason why New Mexico had so much scoring consistency. They were also the reason why the Lobos relied on depth this year rather than their traditional firepower.
Larkin had a huge race at the NCAA Championships to finish 25th overall, earning All-American honors in only her second season. Mazza-Downie, Firezghi and Thorner were the 3-4-5 runners who kept the scoring intact and didn't allow New Mexico's point totals to get out of control.
Considering how successful this season was for a young team, the future looks even brighter. That young core has plenty of years left and experience should only aid them in the future. For what this season could've been following so many top-tier departures, Coach Franklin salvaged a very impressive season.
Prior to the indoor national meet, Coach Lance Harter was anticipating to race his full roster at both the indoor and cross country national meet. However, things changed last minute. The Razorbacks ran a modified varsity group at the NCAA XC Championships, one that provided up-and-comers with the opportunity to race. Despite not having key names, that group ended up finishing 10th as a team.
Lauren Gregory and Taylor Ewert, two key members during the fall 2020 season, were absent from the lineup. However, Krissy Gear, Logan Morris and Abby Gray led the team and did not disappoint.
Gear, coming off two runner-up finishes at the indoor national meet, earned her first cross country All-American honor, placing a stellar (and surprising) 21st on a tough course. She was the only Arkansas runner in the top-60
Morris and Gray, two other indoor NCAA competitors, competed well after running the 3k on Saturday. If these ladies hadn't raced a few days prior, they both could’ve been capable of All-American honors following their accolades and time improvements over the course of the 2020-2021 academic year.
Overall, if the Razorbacks had fielded their SEC Championship team, they might have been able to contend for a podium finish. The fact that they dominated the fall and still posted a top finish at the national meet without their best runner and a top-five scorer is super impressive and it's what keeps them this high in our rankings.
After finishing 28 points behind Michigan State for the runner-up position at the BIG 10 Championships, Minnesota was able to trim that margin by a point, finishing 27 points back at the NCAA XC Championships. The Gophers ended up in 5th place, narrowly missing the podium, but substantially exceeding expectations.
Bethany Hasz remained the undisputed leader for the Gophers with her 8th place finish in Stillwater, but the overlooked story of the season may have been Abby Kohut-Jackson. The senior was 101st at the 2019 NCAA Championships and improved 56 places in 2021 to finish 45th overall, just five spots out from All-American status.
Kohut-Jackson made huge strides this winter and was the second runner for Minnesota at both the NCAA Championships and the BIG 10 Championships. While her impact may have been a bit masked by Hasz’s phenomenal year, Kohut-Jackson deserves some recognition.
Finishing as the third and fourth runners for Minnesota were Anastasia Korzenowski and Jaycie Thomsen. The pair reversed roles earlier in the year at the conference meet and put together a very strong showing at the NCAA Championships, coming in 59th and 70th. Those two were just as valuable as Hasz and Kohut-Jackson, ensuring that the Gophers team score didn't produce any excess scoring.
Megan Hasz didn’t have nearly the season that some expected her to, but she came through when it mattered most. Although she was only the Gophers' fifth runner, she placed 114th which secured 5th place for Minnesota. It may not have been a top-100 finish, but it was certainly close to that and she closed out the scoring far faster than the fifth runners' for other teams did.
It’s fair to say that this group exceeded expectations in 2021. Coach Sarah Hopkins has done an incredible job at developing runners like Kohut-Jackson and Thomsen who often fly under the radar, only to breakthrough when it matters.
This Minnesota team saw significant improvement across the board this year and that led to a big finish this winter. Despite only racing twice, this will be a season to remember for the Golden Gophers.
The Spartans sort of flew under the radar this winter due to the BIG 10 compressing their cross country season to only the conference championships. It had been almost a month and a half since they had last run cross country when they toed the line in Stillwater and it was fair to wonder what to expect out of the Michigan State women.
However, it quickly became clear that little had changed in that time. At the BIG 10 XC Championships, the Spartans dominated the race by placing five runners in the top-16 and scoring only 48 points. Jenna Magness and India Johnson finished 3rd and 4th overall, providing some star power that this team would lean on later in the season.
After some successful track racing, the Spartans came to Stillwater as a dark horse to make the podium. Led by a stellar performance from Jenna Magness, Michigan State capitalized on having a complete top-five. They finished 4th overall, only five points behind Stanford.
Magness earned her first All-American honors in cross country only three days after earning them on the track, finishing 16th overall. That was 30 places better than where she finished in 2019. Seniors Lynsie Gram and India Johnson also put together very strong races and finished 34th and 35th, giving the Spartans three All-Americans and the necessary firepower to outscore New Mexico, Minnesota and Colorado with relative ease.
The sophomore duo of Makayla Perez and Katie Osika rounded out the top-five with Perez finishing 75th and Osika in 101st. In fact, the Sparatns actually outscored Stanford’s fourth and fifth runners by a single point, 142 to 143. Those final two scorers probably the true star of this program.
Despite only racing twice, Michigan State walked away with a conference title and a podium finish at Nationals. For a team that had lost quite a few runners, this was a fantastic season and their development was impressive. They got better in only their second cross country race of the season, developed firepower that was actually better than last year and still had enough scoring support to contend with some of the top teams in the NCAA.
Stanford closed out the year with a 3rd place finish, but it’s hard not to wonder what could have been. The Cardinal were the early season favorites, but after some up-and-down performances at the FSU Winter Classic, Battle Born XC Challenge and the PAC-12 Championships, it was hard to know what to expect.
When you break down Monday’s race a bit more, there’s an argument that Stanford could have easily been the 2nd place team had Zofia Dudek finished similar to her previous results from earlier in the year.
The freshman had an outstanding first season, but unfortunately, was one of many women who struggled in Stillwater. On the bright side, Stanford still saw great seasons from both Ella Donaghu and Julia Heymach.
Donaghu was expected to be the team's top runner this season (and she was), but Heymach really exceeded expectations with her 13th place run at Nationals. In absence of some others, Heymach’s performance was critical for Stanford to stay on the podium. She got better as the season went on and became a wildly crucial scorer.
The remaining three scoring positions were filled by Jessica Lawson, Christina Aragon and Lucy Jenks. After finishing 11th back in 2019, Lawson struggled in 2021. She was often the third or fourth Cardinal scorer despite expectations that she would be running alongside Donaghu. The addition of Dudek certainly helped make up for that, but seeing women like Oakes, Archer and Roberts struggle wasn't super encouraging.
Aragon was the surprise of the season for this team. Going through multiple seasons of injuries and rarely competing, it was super encouraging to see her put together a solid finish to her senior season. She played a prominent role as the team's fifth runner during their PAC-12 victory and finished as their fourth runner on Monday.
After months of critiquing Stanford's depth, that was what actually kept them on the podium.
Although this season did not play out quite as we expected it to, there are plenty of reasons for optimism in Palo Alto. The Cardinal have a strong, young group that should be in the mix next fall and Dudek looks to be a future NCAA star.
The Wolfpack had a stellar 2020-2021 cross country season. Finishing 2nd at the national meet was the only blemish (if you can even call it that) for NC State.
Hannah Steelman and Kelsey Chmiel finished amongst the top-10 in 5th place and 9th place, respectively. Chmiel’s result is especially worth noting as it was a major rebound performance after she showed signs of struggling in the fall.
Of course, the biggest surprise from NC State was the debut of star freshman Katelyn Tuohy. The freshman phenom didn’t compete during the fall, but we did get to see her compete during indoors in the 3000 meters and DMR. She recorded a respectable flat-track converted 9:14 (3k) and earned All-American honors in the DMR, but we weren't super confident that she would be an All-American on the grass.
Of course, in her first cross country race, she put herself in a position to succeed and ultimately, she finished 24th. This was a key result for the Wolfpack who had a third All-American in their lineup despite Dominique Clairmonte faltering to 63rd place.
Would NC State have beaten BYU if Clairmonte had earned a top-10 finish? No, and truthfully, the race really wouldn't have been that close even if she did. With their fifth scorer dropping back to 98th overall, that also played a role in how the NC State fell behind the BYU women in the scoring.
The NCAA champions rightly deserves to finish the weird 2020-2021 fall and winter cross country seasons with a TSR #1 ranking. The BYU Cougars had a ton of momentum heading into the cross country national meet, but we had a major question mark surrounding Whittni Orton who was dealing with a foot injury all season long.
On Monday, the BYU women dominated the team race, winning the title by 65 points. Four women, Anna Camp-Bennett, Aubrey Frentheway, Whittni Orton and Sara Musselman, picked up All-American honors while McKenna Lee just missed out.
Camp-Bennett and Frentheway were flat-out excellent and the return of Whittni Orton was huge. Even if the BYU veteran faltered in the final moments of the race, her return is still a massive reason why the Cougars had enough scoring potency to convincingly take home the title.
But while many people will declare Orton the hero for coming back from injury and earning a top finish, it was actually McKenna Lee and Sara Musselman who far surpassed expectations.
They closed out the scoring far quicker than any other team and continued to add to the scoring potency of their top trio with Musselman earning an All-American finish and Lee finishing jut one spot out from the same honor. Very few people (with the possible exception of BYU) were expecting those two women to finish as high as they did.
Everyone on this lineup stepped up when they were needed the most. Their depth was incredible, there were no gaps within their top-five and their firepower ended up being far better than we expected it to be. That's why they won NCAA gold.
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