Hannah Thorn
Sep 15, 20227 min
Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin
SUNY Geneseo is one of the rare teams at the top of Division Three who return all seven runners from their 2021 national meet lineup. And make no mistake, this isn't a program with a few average and unexciting distance talents -- the Knights were one of the best cross country squads in the nation last fall.
Now, with a varsity group that is expected to take another step up in 2022, the women from upstate New York could do more than just be a podium squad come November.
In fact, they could be national title winners when the season is done and over with.
Throughout last fall, the Knights rallied to dominate their competition and thrive in the postseason, putting together one of the most complete fall campaigns of any program at the Division Three level.
After a couple of comfortable rust-busting wins, the SUNY Geneseo women would face their first legitimate challenge of the 2021 season on their home course at the Mike Woods Invite. There, the Knights would battle against the likes of Case Western, Middlebury, RIT and Saint Lawrence.
But truthfully, none of those programs stood a chance against SUNY Geneseo.
Superstar low-stick Kathleen McCarey took home the win while teammate Rachel Hirschkind was runner-up. With Windsor Ardner and Penelope Greene placing 4th and 6th, respectively, the firepower of this team essentially locked-down the win before their fifth runner even crossed the line.
Ciara Knott would place 14th overall to close out the scoring, giving the Knights an outstanding total of just 27 points, dominating a runner-up Case Western team that was 91 points behind SUNY Geneseo.
That victory was likely a massive confidence booster for the Knights going into the rest of their season, but their competition would be far stronger at the Rowan Inter-Regional Border Battle two weeks later.
The SUNY Geneseo women had their work cut out for them at Rowan as they attempted to take down a juggernaut Johns Hopkins squad. That, however, didn't happen.
McCarey (4th) and Ardner (5th) were solid low-sticks while third scorer Penelope Greene (12th). However, even through three scorers, it was clear that the Blue Jays were simply better.
The Johns Hopkins women put five runners in the top-10, closing out their scoring before the Knights even had their third woman cross the line.
Hirschkind would place 15th while Marcie Hogan closed out the scoring in 19th place. In the end, Johns Hopkins took home the win with 28 points while SUNY Geneseo settled for a still-solid runner-up finish with 55 points.
The silver lining for SUNY Geneseo, however, is that this team could have been even better. Hirschkind was likely a top-seven finisher in that field and this team, in theory, was likely better in larger invitationals.
While we could detail the results of the SUNYAC XC Championships and the Niagara Regional XC Championships, there is truthfully not much to talk about. The Knights crushed their conference and regional competition with ease, going under 20 points in each of their championship showings.
The NCAA XC Championships, of course, were the greater priority.
On the nation's biggest stage, cross country fans discovered just how talented the SUNY Geneseo women truly were.
McCarey's 14th place All-American result, while super impressive, was also somewhat expected. In fact, some of us thought that she could have been a top-10 talent. Not far behind the SUNY Geneseo star was Ardner who ended her breakout season with a monster 23rd place finish.
While those two women would be the only All-Americans that the Knights would have that day, the final three scorers did have their best races of the season (and in some cases, their careers).
The combination of Greene (44th), Hogan (55th) and Hirschkind (59th) put together one of the best scoring close-outs of the entire meet. In fact, only Johns Hopkins had their entire top-five across the line before SUNY Geneseo.
With one of the most complete scoring lineups of the entire national meet, the Knights were able to land on the podium with a fantastic 3rd place finish. With 169 points, they were able to take down a talented Wartburg group by 10 points and be within reasonable striking distance of the top-two teams in this field.
Oh, and one more thing: All seven of SUNY Geneseo's varsity runners from the national meet held freshman or sophomore eligibility according to TFRRS.
There are so many places to start when it comes to analyzing this team. However, let's begin with Kathleen McCarey, one of the top returners that Division Three has to offer this fall.
McCarey had a breakout year during the 2021 cross country season. Placing 4th at Rowan, winning SUNYAC XC Championships and then finishing 2nd place at the Niagara regional meet were all highly impressive results. She went into the NCAA XC Championships with high expectations for someone who had never raced at a national meet before, and she delivered.
The superstar Knight runner also had a great indoor track season, running personal bests in the mile, the 3000 meters and the 5000 meters. She chose to double up at the indoor national meet in the 5k and the 3k. In the former event, McCarey posted a huge time of 16:41 to finish 3rd overall behind only Kassie Parker and Ari Marks.
On the outdoor oval, McCarey shut down her season right after running a massive 10k PR of 34:26. We'll admit, that's a bit of a concerning development, but we don't see why she wouldn't be able to toe the line this fall.
In our eyes, McCarey is someone who got even better on the track than she was on the grass. She feels like a comfortable pick to be a top-10 finisher at this year's national meet and maybe even a top-five runner as well.
And while that kind of improvement won't yield a ton of points, it certainly wouldn't hurt, either.
We then come to Windsor Ardner who has been a big part of SUNY Geneseo’s roster over the last three years. In 2021, she place 5th at Rowan, 2nd at the SUNYAC XC Championships and then won the Niagara regional meet.
Ardner was always running with McCarey throughout last year. Together, they were a fantastic 1-2 punch for the Knights. Placing 23rd at the national meet was a solid All-American performance, and it even left room for Ardner to improve upon her scoring in 2022 as well.
Much like McCarey, the point-scoring improvements that we could see from Ardner at this year's national meet will only be somewhat limited given that she can only go so much higher. However, based on what she did on the oval, we certainly believe that she'll be a top-20 talent.
At the NCAA Indoor Championships, Ardner placed 10th in the 3000 meter finals and was part of SUNY Geneseo’s 9th place DMR team. On the outdoor oval, she ran everything from the 800 meters up to the 10,000 meters.
Talk about range...
Ultimately, Ardner decided to focus on the 1500 meter at the outdoor national meet where she finished 10th overall after coming into the meet as the third-best seed in the field. But maybe that tough ending to her spring season will make her even hungrier for another great fall campaign in 2022.
Behind McCarey and Ardner, the returners are Penelope Greene, Marcie Hogan and Rachel Hirschkind. As mentioned earlier, that trio finished 44th, 55th and 59th respectively, at the 2021 cross country national meet.
Those three women were only separated by 14 seconds and that tight grouping really paid off for SUNY Geneseo when it came down to the team standings. After all, they only finished 10 points ahead of the Wartburg women.
In our eyes, Hirschkind could be noticeably better in 2022 than she was last fall.
Why is that?
Well, that's because Hirschkind took a few steps upwards in her fitness this past spring as she finished 4th in the steeplechase at the outdoor national meet. With a new personal best of 10:36 in that event, it's clear that this veteran should be a top-40 All-American in November. In fact, history suggests that she'll even be a top-20 finisher.
And while Hirschkind did have a challenges with consistency last fall, let's not act like her top-50 national meet finish was a fluke. This is someone who was the runner-up finisher at the Mike Woods Invitational, a fairly competitive early-season meet.
If Hirschkind pops like we think she will, then this team could undoubtedly battle for the national title. In theory, that kind of improvement would give the Knights enough depth to take home gold in November.
As for Greene and Hogan, we liked what we saw out of them last fall. They peaked perfectly for the postseason and continued to thrive on the track, earning numerous personal bests and securing very encouraging 5k times.
At the very least, the Knights simply need to Greene and Hogan to replicate last year's national meet performances once more in 2022 to be podium locks. But if one (or both) of these women continue to carry their improved momentum into this fall, then maybe this TSR #2 ranking is actually too low for the SUNY Geneseo women...
We would also be remiss not to point out that the Knights are very lucky that their entire top-five all had very good days at last year's national meet. If one of those women had faltered, then the sixth and seventh runners in this lineup were simply too far back to keep this team on the podium.
Luckily, both Greta Flanagan and Kaitlyn Grossman showed tremendous improvement this past year, especially Grossman who ran 17:41 for 5000 meters this past spring. Neither of these returners need to be scorers, but considering how young they were in 2021, we think that they could be some of the best scoring insurance that any team has by the time the postseason rolls around.
It is really hard to find a flaw with this team.
They have multiple low-sticks, one of the most complete scoring-fives in the country, plenty of room to improve and sneaky-good depth. In fact, we're not sure if we even highlighted all of the women who could realistically crack this varsity lineup over the next few months!
Could this team win a national title come November?
Yes, absolutely. They certainly have a lineup structure that has shown the potential to do exactly that. Admittedly, a lot of things need to happen in order for that dream to become a reality, but it is absolutely a reasonable possibility.
The only bad part is that we'll need to wait two more months to see if that happens.