TSR Collaboration
Oct 4, 202221 min
Written by Maura Beattie & Scotty Loughlin, additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin
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.
The Ducks, under the new guidance of coaches Jerry Schumacher and Shalane Flanagan, are seeing some success right off the bat. The women of Oregon have recorded a 2-0 winning record this season just before things start to ramp up with big-time meets.
Starting small at the Lewis & Clark Opener Chase Race, veteran Melissa Berry led the Ducks to a perfect score of 15 points, easily taking down PAC-12 and in-state foe Oregon State which was admittedly not running anywhere close to a full squad.
However, a key takeaway from this race was that the Ducks top-five time-spread of 59 seconds needs to decrease considerably if they want to make some noise when racing against the nation’s best.
Luckily, the Ducks did just that when hosting the Bill Dellinger Invite. Reference their 39 second time-spread if you don’t believe us.
Still not great, but still an improvement.
Berry wasn’t the leader this time around, but rather sophomore Harper McClain who finished 4th overall. The pack of Emilie Girard, Malia Pavic and Izzy Thornton-Bott finished well together, crossing the line in 11th, 12th and 13th. It was the scoring of these three that helped carry Oregon to the win, along with the fact that their remaining three varsity runners were amongst the top-18 finishers.
Oregon is a solid starting position heading into their next meet, the Nuttycombe Invitational, but none of their recent results posed a challenge and there are some points of concern for the Ducks.
Expected front-runner Alessia Zarbo posted on Instagram that she is recovering from a bone edema. Depending on if (or when) she returns, Zarbo will surely need a rust-buster to build some confidence before being able to contribute to the team scoring as a low-stick.
We also should note that Thornton-Bott won this race (unattached) last year, but settled for outside of the top-10 this time around. Was that seemingly conservative effort intentional? Truthfully, we don't really know, but she'll be a key name to watch later this fall.
Even though they have posted two top-three team finishes this fall, the Providence Friars drop back a few spots in our first rankings update.
At the Providence Friar XC Invite in early September, the Lady Friars won not only the team title on their home course, but also got the individual win from Lily Tuck. It was a respectable start for a young Providence team before heading to Paul Short, but the Lehigh-hosted meet didn’t exactly go as planned.
In their first true test of team cohesion at Lehigh, the entire order for the Friars was flipped around. Freshman Jane Buckley stepped up big time to finish 9th amongst a field full of UNC and Georgetown runners. That was a massive result, effectively giving her team a new low-stick star to rally around.
However, after Buckley, there was a fairly big drop-off to Tuck and Laura Mooney back in 37th and 38th place, respectively.
The team total of 176 points for Providence, well off UNC’s 63 points and Georgetown’s 67 points, definitely needs to see a decrease if the Friars want to achieve success on the national stage (or even qualify for the national meet).
Looking forward, the women need to see Mooney closer to the front near Buckley and the rest of this roster needs to form a consistent scoring lineup which dramatically minimizes scoring gaps.
We're not going to overemphasize one meet, but it likely could have been better for the Friars.
The Liberty Flames have lived up to their name, catching fire in the early portion of the 2022 cross country season.
The expectation for this team was a strong veteran duo up front of Calli Doan and Adelyn Ackley, followed by a young backend that had potential, but also carried questions of how they would measure up against national-caliber competition.
After winning two small meets to kick off the season, the Liberty Challenge and Virginia Tech Alumni Invitational , the Flames headed to South Bend, Indiana and notched a massive 6th place finish against some of the best teams in the nation.
As expected, Calli Doan was an elite low-stick up front, finishing 7th place individually, but it was the middle lineup support of Ava Gordon (23rd), Kayla Werner (28th) and Anna Hostetler (59th) who broke out and validated the Flames as a legitimate force in the NCAA.
While their fifth scorer faded to 74th at Joe Piane, the Liberty women are a team we’d bet on having a higher chance of improving than diminishing in performance. That's because Adelyn Ackley has yet to toe the line this season. If she returns, then the Flames will have a proven front-four with a solid fifth scorer that will be a force to reckon with come November.
The Rams are a sneak-good team structurally, but they certainly left room for improvement a couple of weekends ago. After winning a small meet at Wyoming, they took on a relatively deep field at Griak and left Minnesota with a 4th place finish, only two points behind Michigan State.
On a tough course, the Colorado State women saw two packs form amongst their top-five runners. Teammates Sarah Carter, Lily Tomasula-Martin and Annabel Eastman crossed the line within seven seconds of each other.
Those three women went 8th, 9th and 12th, respectively, a scoring trio that was flat-out excellent in a field that featured a few underrated individual talents.
Quinn McConnell and Claudia Burgess crossed the line together in 37th place and 38th place, respectively. And to make things better, the Rams saw their sixth and seventh runners only about two to four seconds back of their final two scorers.
The depth on the roster is respectable, but the backend women will need to close the gap on the top-three scorers in their lineup. For as good as the Rams' front-runners are, they can't completely counter the low-stick talents on other teams.
If these seven ladies can build upon this showing, then they see a rise in the rankings during our next update.
Everlyn Kemboi entered our preseason rankings as a “Just Missed” name and now, almost out of nowhere, she’s running like an All-American lock for the Utah Valley women.
Finishing 3rd at the loaded Cowboy Jamboree and later taking home gold at the Paul Short Invite are results that build a resume that few women in the entire NCAA can compete with.
And thankfully for the Wolverines, Kemboi doesn’t have to carry the team alone.
While the next phase of the lineup hasn’t shown the same level of firepower that Kemboi has exhibited, their 2-3-4 scorers have done a commendable job of pack-running which limited an excessive scoring in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
At the Cowboy Jamboree, a strong 23rd place finish by Mazzie Melaney was followed by a 50-60-63 scoring spread by their backend runners to deliver a shocking 7th place team finish against elite competition.
However, the following week at Paul Short, Kemboi’s win was accompanied by a less-than-ideal scoring spread of 50-56-60-67 for a 5th place finish against noteworthy, but not as strong competition.
If Melaney can step up as a consistent low-stick to compliment Kemboi, and if the Wolverines backend can continue their close-knit scoring that we saw at the Cowboy Jamboree, then Utah Valley will move up in our top-25 rankings.
However, trying to balance their Cowboy Jamboree result and their Paul Short result isn't easy to do. Where do we rank a team that was phenomenal one week and then underwhelming the next?
For now, we’ll cautiously land the plane at TSR #21.
With their 3rd place finish at the Griak Invitational, Michigan State hops up two places in the rankings, although we still have numerous questions pertaining to this squad.
Before looking at their showing in Minnesota, the Spartans opened up their season with a 3rd place finish at the Jeff Drenth Memorial with a lineup that didn’t include mayn of their top guns, but rather many of their underclassmen.
The experienced and program veterans waited to make their debut at the MSU Spartan Invitational and did so in a big way, defending their home turf.
Kaitlyn Hynes, Katie Osika, and Makenna Veen created a formidable trio for Michigan State, sweeping the top-three places and keeping themselves within 15 seconds of one another.
Two weeks later at Griak, these three women again led the team on a much bigger stage. The only difference though was the order of that trio as Osika finished 6th, Veen was 14th and Hynes was 19th.
That was a very solid trio of front-runners for a Michigan State team that left us with major questions surrounding their firepower coming into this fall.
Those top-three Spartans, paired with the duo of Grace Molloy (31st) and Lauren Freeland (32nd), created a cohesive-enough lineup that allowed the MSU women to get by a quietly deep field.
However, in order to ensure success moving forward, Michigan State must work to run as a pack at the backend of their lineup and continue to move up. While Osika is a solid low-stick, the backend support of this team still needs to improve.
Luckily, this is just the start for a young Spartans team and there is still so much running left in the season for them to fine-tune the scoring lineup.
The Florida State women were conservatively ranked at TSR #24 in the preseason due to the losses of Lauren Ryan, Maudie Skyring, Amanda Beach and Erin Phelps from last year’s lineup.
Gone was firepower and depth, replaced by questions and inferences.
However, the answer to these questions were answered with a resounding rejuvenation of scoring by way of a 5th place team finish at the Joe Piane Invitational, two places better than last year when they had those aforementioned veterans.
At Joe Piane, the 1-2 punch of Emmy van den Berg (17th) and Alyson Churchill (22nd) is a duo to keep an eye on throughout the rest of the season. Those two women, coupled with their solid backend scorers, form a very complete lineup that suddenly is knocking on the door of the top-three or four teams in the ACC.
At the same time, we also want to see more from FSU in their next race. While their performance at Joe Piane was encouraging, they also didn't beat any team that was ranked ahead of them.
For now, a TSR #19 ranking seems fair.
The Syracuse women have exceeded expectations during their first year of the post-Amanda Vestri era. Rising star Savannah Roark has seamlessly filled the role of the Orange's elite low-stick by way of a win at the PSU Spiked Shoe Invitational followed by a groundbreaking 9th place finish at the Cowboy Jamboree.
That level of scoring potency opens up the possibilities of where this iteration of the Orange can go, but it’s their middle-lineup runners underpinning Roark who truly give this team enough value for a TSR #18 ranking.
With Abigail Spiers and Sage Brooks finishing 31st and 32nd, respectively, at the Cowboy Jamboree, followed by a backend group that recorded marks of 45 and 58 points, the Syracuse women were able to finish 6th in Stillwater, Oklahoma and take down three teams that had been ranked in the top-12 of TSR’s preseason rankings.
But for as good as that result was, it’s time for the Orange to showcase their depth with a model of consistency, while Roark continues to tear up the grass up front. If we can see greater stability in their results this season, then they'll continue to rise up our rankings.
The Badgers were just simply not good at the Griak Invitational two weeks ago as they not only finished 6th overall with nearly a full lineup, but also lost to two BIG 10 rivals in Michigan State and Ohio State.
There will need to be some regrouping by the Badgers in the coming weeks before they compete at Nuttycombe to show that they continue to belong in the top-20 of our rankings.
Shea Ruhly took over as the team’s top scorer Minnesota, running herself to a very strong 5th place finish in a fairly deep field upfront. If Ruhly can remain consistent with that low-stick status as the season progresses, then she will be in a good spot heading into the championship portion of the fall months.
However, this rising ace is going to need some reinforcements in veterans Samantha Stieve and Lucinda Crouch. This isn’t the first rodeo for either of those two and yes, adjusting to the new coaching of Coach Lindsay Crevoiserat will take some time, but to ensure qualification to the NCAA XC Championships, the upperclassmen have to take charge.
Wisconsin has the potential to challenge for the BIG 10 title later this fall and for a spot to the national meet. And frankly, we think both of those possibilities are still realistic once Gillman, Orie and Westley return.
But when they do, other women on this team will just need to be flat-out better if this team is going to race to their full potential.
Though they are still a new face in the Division One cross country scene, the California Baptist Lancers have shown early-on that they are a legitimate threat at this level of competition.
Their 2nd place performance at the deep Griak Invitational was highlighted by Yasna Petrova securing bronze individually and sending a statement to the rest of the NCAA.
The top-four teams in this race were decided by less than 20 points, so the development of CBU’s middle lineup scoring 16-20-21 through four runners and closing up shop with a serviceable 35th place finish was vital to their success in a race where every point mattered.
That was highly promising depth and scoring stability that should, in theory, favor them in other large, national-caliber meets. Luckily, we won't have to wait too long to see if that theory is true.
The Lancers are scheduled to compete next at Pre-Nationals in a field stronger than any that they have toed the line for yet. They’ll have an opportunity to see if their middle-lineup scorers are able to to hold firm while also testing Petrova’s abilities against multiple All-American contenders.
The Wolverines have not yet performed up to their full potential, but it’s way too early to write them off completely. If they want to crack the top-10 of our rankings, the Michigan women will need Ericka VanderLende, Kayla Windemueller and Katelynne Hart to all exhibit their best performances on the same day.
Windemueller has been exemplary thus far, showcasing the steeplechase fitness that we saw from her last spring into a 14th place finish at the Cowboy Jamboree. Hart was a solid 41st place in that race, but admittedly, the expectations are higher for her given the elite success she experienced in high school.
VanderLende faltered to 97th place, but given her 2nd place season-opening finish at the Michigan BIG 10 Preview, it’s safe to chalk up her Cowboy Jamboree race as an “off” day.
One bright spot for the Wolverines as they attempt to assemble a full lineup has been the emergence of Samantha Tran who finished in 34th place at the Cowboy Jamboree.
If Tran can continue riding her momentum by performing at the same level as the talented Michigan trio, and Hart and VanderLende match Windemueller’s recent success, then the Wolverines will be back on the path towards a potential top-10 finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
A 9th place finish at the Cowboy Jamboree was actually fairly solid for a young team that was far from perfect in Stillwater, Oklahoma. While they were certainly upset by a few rising programs like Syracuse and Utah Valley, the Razorbacks still put together a solid effort.
Isabel Van Camp (10th) was as good as we had hoped she would be while freshman Mia Cochran (24th) was a pleasant surprise at the second scoring spot in this lineup. However, with Thorvaldson, Hyde and Ewert going 44-83-90 in the final results, respectively, it was clear that depth on this team will need to improve.
That scoring drop-off, paired with the impressive performances of other teams around the NCAA, is mainly why we have the Arkansas women faltering four spots. However, if this group is able to rally at the backend of their lineup, then they could be a scary-good team later in the season.
Utah’s upward movement in our rankings is directly linked to their performance at the Griak Invitational where they defeated multiple teams expected to qualify for this year’s national meet.
When healthy, we know that Emily Venters is one of the most elite distance runners in the country, and her talent was on full display at Griak as she notched the individual win. Because of Venters' various accolades prior to this season, one could argue that Keelah Barger’s 4th place finish was the Utes’ top breakthrough performance on the grass thus far in 2022.
Both women are in the second year of the Utah program after transferring in from other universities, and it appears that Coach Kyle Kepler’s training is clicking for them in a major way. The backend’s ability to limit excessive points by adding scores of 17-29-34 offers tremendous value to support the efforts by Venters and Barger.
With two All-American-caliber candidates leading the charge, and a foundation of depth behind them, the Utah women are primed to make some noise at Nuttycombe and contend for a top-10 spot in our rankings the next time around.
Depth will still need to improve, but for now, they look great.
The Fighting Irish drop a few spots after a serviceable, but underwhelming, result at their home invitational, Joe Piane. While 4th place as a team was more or less the expectation for the Notre Dame women entering the meet, the margin between their point total and the top three teams was much larger than anticipated.
Fighting Irish superstar Olivia Markezich picked up where she left off from her phenomenal 2021 campaign, crossing the finish line with an 8th place finish at Joe Piane against top-notch competition while fellow All-American Maddy Denner settled for 35th.
Katie Thronson (25th) was formidable in her first big meet donning a Notre Dame singlet and Annasophia Keller (24th) put together a very encouraging race of her own. However, as a whole, the Irish’s results weren’t up to par with what we’d expect to see from our TSR #7 team.
The Nuttycombe Invite will be an inflection point for this squad as Denner will look to recapture her 2021 form and the Notre Dame women will also seek to pin down more reliability at their fifth scoring slot.
We saw them galvanize late in the season last year.
Will they be able to replicate that luck of the Irish again?
Even without Herberg and Heisterman in the mix, the Huskies are sliding up two spots in our rankings this week following their 8th place showing at the Cowboy Jamboree.
Anna Gibson, more of a middle distance specialist, took a big step up at Oklahoma State when she finished 19th in a deep field. On her way to this finish, Gibson and teammate Sophie O’Sullivan led a group of freshmen to respectable finishes.
The freshmen group of Sophia Nordenholz, Chloe Foerster and Ella Borsheim were the Huskies' third, fourth and sixth runners across the line in their uniform debuts. As high school studs, these three didn’t even appear to need an adjustment to college racing.
Hopefully by Washington’s next competition (Nuttycombe), Coach Maurica Powell will have Herberg and Heisterman suit up and join a lineup that has a lot of potential to turn some heads.
Their unique combination of veteran firepower and high-upside youth could make this a very good team in 2022.
We really like what we've seen from the Georgetown women so far this season. Their firepower has been second-to-none and we still haven't seen their full lineup yet.
At the IU Coaching Tree Invite, the Hoyas saw Sami Corman (3rd), Chloe Scrimgeour (4th) and Maggie Donahue (5th) put together a phenomenal scoring trio while Grace Jensen finished 10th. The fifth scoring spot is what ultimately held Georgetown back from the upset over UNC, but Katy-Ann McDonald and Andrea Claeson didn't even run at Indiana.
At Paul Short, it was a similar story as the Hoyas settled only four points behind UNC. And while McDonald did race, Claeson did not. If she had run, then we have good reason to believe that Georgetown would have pulled off the upset.
Depth continues to be a point of uncertainty for the Hoya women, but the rise of Scrimgeour has been wildly exciting. She gives Georgetown some of the best overall firepower in the NCAA this year.
If they can find a fifth runner, very few teams will be able to stop the women from D.C.
The North Carolina women have been tasked with staving off the Georgetown women not once, but twice this season. And they’ve secured wins in both instances.
Despite being a generally young team, the Tar Heels have shown composure through all five of their scorers (and beyond to their sixth and seventh runners) in a fashion you’d typically expect from a more veteran group.
Even so, they aren’t lacking in the firepower department as Brynn Brown was able to defeat Georgetown’s lethal scoring trio at the Coaching Tree Invitational and finish within two seconds of the Hoya stars at Paul Short to notch a strong 6th place finish.
There hasn’t been much of a drop-off after Brown as Taryn Parks and Kelsey Harrington have both finished top-12 in each of those meets.
North Carolina is feeling more and more bulletproof as the season goes along. A quiet day at Paul Short by Sasha Neglia, usually a middle lineup scorer, was shrugged off by two top-20 finishes from Fatima Alanis and Natalie Tyner.
That type of depth through seven runners (including Carlee Hansen among all others mentioned) has to make other teams jealous.
And the scary part? This group could still be together in 2024.
At this point of the season, the Cardinal have validated themselves as a formidable team with upside, but have not yet shown enough firepower to make a bid for a top-five ranking.
Their young core ran very effectively at the Cowboy Jamboree with just a 21-second time-spread separating their front four of Riley Stewart (20th place), Lucy Jenks (26th), Audrey Suarez (33rd) and Grace Connolly (39th). Those finishes ultimately culminated in a 5th place team finish.
Stanford’s expected ace, Zofia Dudek, did not compete at the Cowboy Jamboree and if she had, then the Cardinal likely would have taken down Colorado and been closer to BYU.
Stewart just had a breakout race as a freshman and solidified herself as a true scoring threat for the Cardinal. We knew the prospects of her talent were there, but seeing her manifest that potential this early in her career has been very encouraging.
If Dudek is able to come back to full strength and run like the low-stick that we know she is capable of being, all while this young core continues thriving as a cohesive unit, then the Stanford women will have the potential to overtake a few veteran teams in our rankings.
However, for now, they’ll stay at a well-earned TSR #8 spot.
Outperform expectations and you’ll find yourself moving up like the ladies of Northern Arizona.
Aside from getting a taste of what they will expect on the Oklahoma State course, the Lumberjacks returned home with not only a 2nd place finish, but the emergence of Elise Stearns and Annika Reiss as top national-caliber low-sticks.
There were a few questions to be considered before the start of the season for NAU after Jessa Hanson opted to move on from NCAA running and Taryn O’Neill’s hiatus from racing, but those hesitancies were quickly shut down.
This team didn’t need Hanson to elevate them and O’Neill didn't have to be the superstar that we thought she most certainly had to be.
On a challenging Oklahoma State course, the NAU women got things rolling with Stearns and Reiss having breakthrough performances en route to massive 5th and 6th place finishes, respectively.
How many people were anticipating those two women to lead the Lumberjacks?
O’Neill, an extremely strong cross country runner, contested her first race since the indoor track season and ripped off the bandaid with a 22nd place finish. That, however, was a result that we thought had the potential to be so much better.
Things only got better from there for Coach Mike Smith’s group as Bryn Morley, Jesselyn Bries and Meagan Van Pelt practically crossed the finish line holding hands. Those three women went 27th, 28th and 29th, respectively, and were separated by a mere four-tenths of a second.
The depth on this roster is ridiculous and the firepower is so far beyond what we could have imaged. The Lumberjacks are surely on the cusp of something big this season, now we just need to see them do it again.
The first cross country "meet" that the Buffaloes participated in this fall was a time trial on their own course. Not much needs to be focused on with this time trial as the real challenge came at the Cowboy Jamboree.
En route to their 4th place showing, Indiana transfer Bailey Hertenstein led Colorado with her 11th place finish. Hertenstein was closely followed by program veteran Emily Covert in 16th. And then to make this team stronger, John Hopkins transfer Ella Baran was immediately behind Covert in 17th place
That trio was lethal (as expected), but truthfully, we expected both Hertenstein and Covert to be a few spots higher. Baran, however, was fantastic relative to our expectations.
Part of the reason why Colorado moves back in the rankings is that their expected top-five runner, Hannah Miniutti recorded a DNF result. The Buffaloes will need the sophomore to finish within 10 places or so of their aforementioned scoring trio as the season progresses.
The back-half of their varsity seven is also far from established, so depth will also need to improve if the Buffaloes want to be the podium contenders that we know they can be.
The BYU women have done just enough to retain their ranking as a top-five team.
Their front-three looked incredible at the Cowboy Jamboree as Aubrey Frentheway (4th place) had a dynamite race that substantiated her as one of the top runners in the NCAA, not just a latter-half All-American.
Similarly, fellow veteran McKenna Lee showed us that she’s firing on all cylinders with a powerful 18th place finish. However, it was Lexy Halladay's 13th place finish that really solidified this group as one of the best trios in the nation.
Halladay has shown glimpses of scoring potency in competitive meets in prior seasons, but has not always maintained consistency. This result is one of the best of her entire career and shows that Frentheway and Lee have an additional scoring spark up front to team up with.
While perhaps not as vigorous as their trio up front appears to be, the Cougars have a deep pool of runners to plug into their remaining scoring slots. This type of depth acts as an “insurance policy” where it’s highly unlikely for BYU’s score to grow excessively out of control.
The Cougars have a blueprint for a team that feels like a lock for a top-10 finish at the NCAA XC Championships. If one of their talented runners outside the dynamic trio can rise to the front, then they’ll be on their way to yet another podium finish under Coach Diljeet Taylor.
The ceiling only keeps getting higher and higher for the Alabama women. They have a few wildcards that not many were anticipating to be scoring valuable points, but that’s the joy in running -- we see breakthroughs when they're least expected.
Mercy Chelangat did Mercy Chelangat things at Joe Piane. Although she wasn’t able to defeat NC State’s Katelyn Tuohy, recording a runner-up finish is still no walk in the park.
Amaris Tyynismaa and Flomena Asekol didn’t place as high as we thought, crossing the line in 15th and 18th, respectively. However, those are still respectable results that have the potential to be even better! And that's a scary thing to think about if you're a fellow podium contender.
Luckily for the Crimson Tide, JUCO transfer Hilda Olemomoi made up for the points that Tyynismaa and Asekol missed out on with her 3rd place finish.
The front four of Alabama’s roster is arguably the best in NCAA (maybe NC State), but the real hero of their race was Elka Machan who had a very respectable showing with her 32nd place finish to helped Alabama land a 3rd place finish, only two points behind 2nd place New Mexico.
For the first time in a while, Alabama looks like they have a complete top-five with some of the most overwhelming firepower in the country. If 9:55 steeplechase Jasmijn Bakker eventually makes her debut this fall, then the Crimson Tide could maybe, just maybe, give a Chmiel-less NC State squad a run for their money.
Although the Oklahoma State Cowgirls remain at TSR #3, make no mistake, this team’s stock has risen since the preseason.
The Cowgirls have two legitimate individual national title contenders in Natalie Cook and Taylor Roe (well, in a world without Tuohy that is) who wasted no time putting the rest of the NCAA on notice as they won gold and silver at the Cowboy Jamboree on their home course.
We thought Cook’s ceiling this season would be a strong secondary scoring complement to Roe this fall. However, we did not see her putting her potentially cracking the top-five of our individual rankings…at least not this early.
But that’s what a signature win against well over a dozen athletes in our top-50 will do.
What arguably raises the Oklahoma State women’s stock just as much, however, was seeing Gabby Hentemann perform up to expectations with a 12th place finish and the arrival of another star-in-the-making, Billah Jepkirui, finishing in 15th place in her NCAA debut.
The Cowboy Jamboree was a trademark win for the Cowgirls and they were able to pull it off without Molly Born! If she is able to return to this lineup and compete up to her full potential, then the Oklahoma State women have a legitimate shot to take down New Mexico.
And maybe, just maybe, with some home course magic…they could give NC State a run for their money, too.
The New Mexico pretty much ran up to expectations on Friday at Joe Piane, but it just wasn’t enough to take down NC State.
This past weekend, we got to see what New Mexico had to offer after racing their top runners at the Texas Tech Open. However, in South Bend, the likes of Gracelyn Larkin, Amelia Mazza-Downie, Emma Heckel and Elise Thorner took to the stage and brought two young Lobos along for the ride.
Two women in the top-10 and all five women in the top-20 highlighted the weekend for this team. They showed their wildly impressive pack-running effort by earning a stunning 13-second time-spread between their top-six runners.
Larkin, Mazza-Downie, Heckel and Thorner have been names thrown around numerous times for the Lobos, but the real stars this past weekend were Samree Dishon and Danielle Vester.
Dishon had the race of her life when she crossed the line as her team's third scorer, finishing 13th overall. For someone who didn’t even run at the NCAA XC Championships last year, Dishon is showing that she’s All-American talent.
As for Vester, the freshman may not have been a scoring contributor, but she was ready to fill in if any teammate ahead of her had faded.
One can only wonder what the score would’ve looked like for New Mexico if Abbe Goldstein had finished higher than 29th place, but that’s a question for another day.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
The NC State women have wasted no time continuing Coach Laurie Henes’ dynasty with wins at the Adidas XC Challenge and the more important Joe Piane Invitational.
Katelyn Tuohy looks as dominant on the grass as she did on the outdoor oval and after taking down the 2021 NCAA Winter XC Champion, Mercy Chelangat, by 12 seconds, she may have just become the individual national title favorite in her own right.
Despite top-ranked teammate Kelsey Chmiel and sub-15:40 (5k) runner Savannah Shaw not toeing the line in South Bend, the Wolfpack still managed to get four women across the line in the top-12.
Tuohy was joined by Samantha Bush (5th place), Sydney Seymour (6th) and Marlee Starliper (12th). And although a gap opened up slightly with Gionna Quarzo finishing in 31st place, her result was still strong enough to avoid any excessive scoring and effectively clinch the victory for NC State.
The Wolfpack were able to hold off our TSR #2 ranked team (New Mexico) without arguably their second best runner and maybe another varsity runner as well.
With Chmiel’s potential return on the horizon and Tuohy’s leap forward this fall, it feels more inevitable with every leaf that falls that NC State will be hoisting another team trophy in November…and maybe an individual one, too.
Utah Valley Wolverines
California Baptist Lancers
Liberty Flames
Syracuse Orange
Toledo Rockets
Villanova Wildcats
Ole Miss Rebels
Utah State Aggies
Toledo Rockets
Villanova Wildcats
Ole Miss Rebels
Utah State Aggies
Illinois Fighting Illini
Virginia Cavaliers
Furman Paladins
Kentucky Wildcats
Oregon State Beavers
Florida Gators
Connecticut Huskies
Iowa State Cyclones
West Virginia Mountaineers
Princeton Tigers
Ohio State Buckeyes
Harvard Crimson
Elon Phoenix
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