TSR's 2022 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Rankings (Women): #1 Wartburg Knights

And here we are. We have finally arrived at our TSR #1 team.

The Wartburg women have made fantastic strides over the last decade, going from an unexciting national qualifying team that often finished in the backend of the results to a team that has sky-rocketed into podium contention.

Now, after years of rising through the national ranks, the fall of 2022 could be the pinnacle of Wartburg's ascent. With a large contingent of women capable of offering elite scoring potency and overwhelming depth, we believe that the Knights will favored for NCAA gold come November.

The Wartburg women began their 2021 cross country season by toeing the line for the John Kurr Invite in early September. That meet would essentially be a duel between the Knights and the Drake Bulldogs.

And while their D1 counterparts ran well, it was the Division Three powerhouse that was simply better -- with a non-varsity squad to boot. However, the Knights were led by Ellie Meyer who took home the win, a promising result that would eventually advance Meyer to the team's top-seven throughout the rest of the season.

After cruising through their competition at the Les Duke Invite, putting five women in the top-six, the Knights would face their first legitimate competition of the 2021 season at the Dan Huston Invite -- and what a battle that was.

Aubrie Fisher and Riley Mayer proved to be a fantastic 1-2 punch, taking the top-two spots in the field to give Wartburg a low-stick scoring edge over Washington U. And with veteran Carina Collet placing 5th overall, it looked like the Knights were going to run away with the win...literally.

However, the greatest strength of Washington U. last fall was their depth, something that was shown at the Dan Huston Invite. The Bears put five women in the top-10 while the Wartburg women had Trinity Borland and Shaelyn Hostager finish 11th and 14th, respectively. Ellie Meyer was the team's sixth runner in 15th place.

When the dust settled and the scores were tallied, Wartburg and Washington U. were actually TIED at 30 points each. And with the Knights clearly having the better top-three, they won the tie-breaker and effectively took home the win.

Defeating a top-tier program in Washington U., even if it was on a tie-breaker, had to be encouraging for a Wartburg group that would later found out that they had even more scoring to offer. Their depth, however, would need to be better in larger fields.

Luckily, the Washington U. women would be less of a challenge at Wartburg's final regular season meet of the year, the Augustana Interregional Invitational. There, the Knights would face numerous D3 powerhouses such as Washington U., Pomona-Pitzer, U. Chicago, Hope and Calvin.

To put it simply, this race was not going to be a walk in the park for Wartburg.

But the Knights still held their own with Mayer leading the way via a huge 6th place finish. Her scoring was complemented by Borland who finished 11th overall in what was her best race of the season up and to that point. Meanwhile, Carina Collet closed out the team's top-three with a 15th place finish of her own.

Through three runners, Wartburg was actually at a disadvantage compared to a few other teams. But while the Knights' depth nearly cost them the win at the Dan Huston Invite, that same lineup aspect actually salvaged the team's final score at Augustana.

Natalie Paulson placed 20th overall while Aubrie Fisher settled for an underwhelming 22nd place finish. With Hostager (25th) and Lexi Brown (26th) emerging as the final two runners of this seven-person lineup, the Knights were able to get an edge on most of the teams in the field...except for Pomona-Pitzer.

The Sagehens would get the edge by scoring 68 points, a margin that was seven-points better than Wartburg. But truthfully, the Knights could have been so much better in a variety of different areas.

Fisher, Hostager, Ellie Meyer (who placed 35th) and maybe even Collet all had the potential to be significantly better than where they finished. In fact, if just Fisher or Hostager had met their full potential, then the Knights would have comfortably come away with the win.

So despite the loss, Wartburg had a ton to be proud about. If they were able to take down the teams that they did despite so many women not having their best races, then what could this program do when they were firing on all cylinders?

After breezing through the American Rivers XC Championships, the Wartburg women were once again tasked with taking down Washington U. and the U. Chicago Maroons at the Midwest Regional XC Championships.

And sure enough, they did exactly that.

The combination of Fisher, Collet, Mayer went 2-4-5 in the overall results, once again giving Wartburg the best firepower in the field. And while Washington U. did crowd the results after those three women, the Knights' final two scorers (Paulson and Hostager) capped the point accumulation in 11th and 12th place.

As a result, the Knights took home the regional title with a score of 34 points, nine points better than the Bears.

Wartburg would conclude their highly encouraging season at the NCAA XC Championships, ultimately matching the lofty expectations that we had set for this group throughout last fall.

In her season finale, Aubrie Fischer was fantastic, having the best race of her season with a monster 6th place finish. That huge low-stick result was complemented by Mayer who placed 27th overall for another excellent (but expected) All-American finish.

That would ultimately be the end of the individual All-American finishes for Wartburg, but just like we had seen at Augustana, their supporting cast continued to deliver in the most crucial of moments.

Collet finished 43rd overall while Brown had the best race of her season by placing 61st overall. Hostager closed out the scoring in 71st place.

In the end, the Wartburg women took home a 4th place podium finish, their first podium honor since 2012 when they finished runner-up. And the best part? The Knights were only 10 points back of 3rd place SUNY Geneseo.

Some people may look at last year's national meet results and wonder, "What is the argument for the Wartburg women to be ranked at TSR #1?"

And that's a fair question to ask.

After all, this team loses a highly valuable third scorer in Carina Collet as well as Trinity Borland. Not only only that, but Wartburg's scoring as a whole was a good bit behind the top podium contenders from last fall.

But in our eyes, this team didn't even have their best race at last year's national meet. Truthfully, we think they could have been even better. And while Collet is a tough loss, she is the only scorer from last year's national meet lineup who isn't returning in 2022.

However, maybe more importantly, there are numerous women on this roster who had monumental breakout years on the track. On paper, many of these backend returners should be significantly better this fall than they were in 2021.

We could talk about Aubrie Fisher's accolades for the entirety of this article. But highlighting all of her times and national meet finishes won't change the most important aspect of her resume: She's just really darn good.

In terms of cross country scoring, Fisher can only get so much better. Even if she wins the individual national title this fall, then she would only be improving Wartburg's team score by three points at most.

Instead, it's the rest of this lineup that could play a larger role in 2022.

Mayer was phenomenal last fall. She was super consistent throughout the entirety of last season and she offered great scoring next to Fisher in most of their races. We expect to see the same kind of performances from her this fall, but Wartburg's chances of a national team title could come down to how much she improves on her 27th place All-American finish.

In our eyes, a top-15 national meet result seems plenty reasonable for Mayer. In fact, we have her listed at TSR #9 in our preseason individual rankings. That's because she ran 16:55 for 5000 meters on the outdoor oval and placed 9th in that same event at the indoor national meet.

Paired with her cross country success, Mayer is due to be more of a superstar talent this fall than she already is.

It's a similar story for Shaelyn Hostager, our TSR #18 runner in our preseason rankings.

Last fall, Hostager showed plenty of promise, placing 14th at the Dan Huston Invitational and then holding her own at the Midwest Regional XC Championships (12th) and the NCAA XC Championships (71st).

But after emerging as one of Division Three's better distance talents this past spring, we have every reason to believe that Hostager can be a top-30 All-American and a more consistent low-stick throughout the regular season.

After all, this is someone who ran 17:16 for 5000 meters and 35:53 for 10,000 meters this past spring. Hostager would later venture to the NCAA Outdoor Championships and place 7th overall in the 10k for her first All-American honor of her career.

Between Fisher, Mayer and Hostager, we're looking at Wartburg realistically having two women in the top-10 with another woman in the top-20. And if you think that those projections are too aggressive, then two women in the top-20 and another in the top-30 of the individual rankings doesn't sound too bad, either.

And then there's Ellie Meyer, a respectable backend contributor who didn't offer much scoring for the Wartburg women last fall. And yet, she still sits in the "Just Missed" portion of our preseason individual rankings...but why is that?

Well, that's largely because Meyer had a massive breakout year on the track.

Not only did she run 17:36 for 5000 meters and help Wartburg win a national title in the DMR, but she also ran an outstanding time of 10:38 in the steeplechase to place 4th overall at the outdoor national meet.

Wow.

Meyer is undoubtedly a better runner now than she was last fall. Seeing her have that kind of steeplechase success almost guarantees that she's going to be an All-American this fall.

In fact, over the past five years of the D3 women's steeplechase competition (excluding 2020), we found that everyone who ran under 10:40 in the steeplechase and then returned for the following cross country season ended up being an All-American on the grass.

To put it simply, we would very surprised if she wasn't a top-30 All-American this fall.

We just listed four women with the chance of being upper-tier All-Americans at the conclusion of this 2022 cross country season. That alone should be enough to defend our argument that Wartburg is the top team in Division Three.

But if you still don't believe us, there are a few more names to ponder.

Lexi Brown rarely jumped off the page like a few her teammates did last fall, but she was steady and consistent throughout most of last season. Her 61st place national meet finish was very underrated and she continued to build on her momentum during the spring, running 17:50 for 5000 meters.

Brown doesn't need to be an elite scorer or even an All-American threat. If she can maybe improve her national meet placement 10 points, then that would be more than enough to keep Wartburg as the title favorites.

Of course, having varsity runner Natalie Paulson return to the team this fall is also a good sign. She held her own on the grass, but seeing her run 17:24 for 5000 meters this past spring could be huge. If someone on this roster has a poor race, then the scoring of this team could collapse if there isn't a reliable sixth or seventh runner in this lineup.

But running 17:24 is pretty darn good, especially for someone who isn't even expected to be. a scorer this fall. In fact, there likely aren't too many teams around the country who could find scoring support as accomplished as Paulson.

Be sure to also keep an eye on Anna Hertz who has shown plenty of promise as of late.

We'll admit, the basis of this ranking depends on a lot of things going right for Wartburg.

Certain women need to be more consistent, Hostager and Meyer need to prove that they can be All-Americans on the grass and the team's fifth runner needs to make a few minor improvements as well.

And yet, when you look at the resumes of each of these returning women, it's hard to see how any other program in Division Three would be able to match that scoring potency.

The Knights have been climbing towards this point in their roster lifecycle over the last few years. Now, in 2022, they could fully deliver on their potential and walk away from this season with a national title in hand.