Kevin Fischer
Sep 7, 20226 min
Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin
Over the last couple years, the name Ana Tucker has become synonymous with Hope cross country -- and rightfully so.
The superstar low-stick has consistently been one of the best distance runners in Division Three ever since her arrival on campus, accumulating a total of seven All-American honors.
Having a runner of Tucker’s caliber cannot be understated as far as her scoring value goes.
But for as exceptional as she has been in the results, the Hope women as a whole do not get enough credit for having a very good team surrounding Tucker.
However, in 2022, all eyes will be on the overall success of this team.
The Flying Dutch women began their 2021 season at the MSU Spartan XC Invite, an early-season meet that held some top-tier competition in the form of Michigan State, Grand Valley State, Toledo and a handful of highly respectable Division Three teams.
Trying to properly gauge the performances from a Division Three program like Hope College was admittedly a challenge in this oddly-balanced field. That, however, didn't stop Ana Tucker from throwing down an undeniably impressive 6th place individual finish.
Behind her, Rebecca Markham held her own, finishing 52nd overall as the team's second scorer. But with Anna Mason, Ellie Jankowski and Heleyna Tucker closing out Hope's scoring by going 90-95-109, the Flying Dutch just didn't have enough backend support for their top women.
A 10th place result, finishing behind Division Three programs like U. Chicago (6th) and Calvin (9th), wasn't exactly ideal. But in a unique field that was unlike any Division Three meet that Hope would later attend, it was hard to put too much weight into their mid-September effort.
Of course, things didn't any easier to analyze at the Louisville XC Classic.
In the "Gold" race, the most competitive field of the meet, Hope once again toed the line against numerous Division One programs. This time, however, there were far more teams in the field.
Tucker would secure a very solid 28th place finish, but the Flying Dutch would falter to 23rd place overall in the team standings with no one other scorer finishing in the top-125 of the results.
However, the only other D3 team in the field to beat the Tucker-led squad was national powerhouse Johns Hopkins.
Again, we were left with limited reference points.
Luckily, things began to pick up for the Hope women in the second-half of the season. At the Augustana Interregional Invitational, Tucker took home the individual win. Her teammates crossed the line going 13-23-30-32 in the overall results to finish 5th as a team.
That string of performances gave Hope a 34-point edge over Calvin and put them only three points behind U. Chicago.
Then, at the MIAA XC Championships, Hope would once again get the edge on Calvin for the conference title. And the best part? All five of the Flying Dutch's scorers finished in the top-12.
With five Hope women finishing in the top-40 at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships, the Dutch earned the regional title to pair with their conference meet victory.
Fast forward to the national meet and the momentum just didn't seem to stop for the Hope women. Tucker secured a huge 11th place finish while Mason and Markham finished 74th and 83rd overall, respectively.
And with their final two scorers both finishing inside the top-140, the Hope women had done enough to limit excessive scoring and finish their season as the 9th place finishers at the NCAA XC Championships.
Hope's 9th place national meet finish may have been tied for their best program finish since 1993, but that result was no fluke. They caught fire in the second-half of the season and propelled past some of the best Division Three teams in the nation when it mattered the most.
The Dutch were legit in 2021, and they will be just as good in 2022.
Admittedly, the graduation of Jacinda Cole, who was Hope’s third or fourth scorer for much of the season, as well as a national qualifier in the 1500 meters last spring, will by no means be a trivial loss.
While Cole wasn't the necessarily the low-stick star that Tucker has been, or the consistent secondary scorer that Markham is, she still brought excellent value to the middle portion of this lineup. After faltering in the larger invitationals, she rallied against the competition that mattered and she was a major reason why this team convincingly took down the Calvin women.
The good news, however, is that everybody else from that national meet lineup is back.
Anna Mason and Rebecca Markham both finished well within the top-100 at last year’s national meet and they both recorded sub-18:00 (5k) times during the outdoor track season, going 17:37 and 17:43 respectively.
The NCAA XC Championships was Mason’s best race of her 2021 cross country season, but in Markham’s case, she finished 8th at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships as well as 4th at the MIAA XC Championship behind only Evie Miller, Tucker and Sadie Heeringa.
One could argue that an 83rd place finish was not representative of what Markham can truly do. And we would agree! We think there is the potential for to her make a somewhat significant improvement upon that national meet finish later this year.
Ellie Jankowski also returns to this squad in 2022 and is coming off of a great year on the track.
The veteran returner may be a bit of a wild card for the Hope women this fall as she ran 2:17 (800) and 4:40 (1500) this past spring. However, she hasn’t raced anything over a mile on the track.
It will be interesting to see how effectively Jankowski translates those middle distance times to the grass. However, we know that she is, at the very least, capable of being a varsity contributor to this team in 2022 just like we saw in the fall of 2021.
Also coming back from last year’s top-seven are Heleyna Tucker and Elizabeth Gorman, two women who were the sixth and seventh runners for the Dutch in 2021.
With Jacinda Cole’s departure, and barring a breakout year from someone else, one of these athletes will enter a top-five scoring role for Hope in 2022. And when they do, one of these returners will need to improve in order for the Dutch to maintain their postseason success from last year.
While that may seem like a daunting task, the track times that we saw from both Tucker and Gorman earlier this year suggest that they are capable of stepping into that scoring role.
Heleyna Tucker, who is Ana Tucker's sister, holds a 1500 meter personal best of 4:50 and a 3000 meter personal best of 10:43. Gorman, meanwhile, posted a time of 18:12 for 5000 meters during the spring of 2021.
As with any team, there are several athletes who did not make the trip to last year's national meet who will likely be eager to change that.
At the top of that list is Olivia Quillan.
Quillan did not come close to contributing to Hope's varsity scoring in 2021, but she had a breakout track season where she took her personal bests from 5:10 to 4:58 (1500), 19:30 to 18:42 (5k) and 40:45 to 39:29 (10k). Her momentum from this past spring puts her in a position to play a bigger role on the grass over the next few months.
As far as potential impact freshmen go, Madison Stern will be the one to look out for.
In high school, she ran 18:31 for 5000 meters during cross country as well as 4:59 for 1600 meters. Based just on those marks, she could immediately challenge for a top-five scoring position on this team by November.
This Hope team, on paper, isn't necessarily a flashy group.
In all likelihood, they won’t have a second All-American runner behind Ana Tucker and they won’t be a contender for the podium. But what they do have is a consistent, reliable and deep group that could maybe even surpass last year's fantastic second-half push.
Will Ana Tucker continue to dominate the headlines for the Hope women?
Yes, most likely.
But when it's all said and done, this team will almost certainly end their season worthy of the same praise and attention that their low-stick ace has garnered over the last few years.