Hannah Thorn
Aug 5, 20228 min
Additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin
Ana Tucker has only missed out on being an All-American during one season throughout her entire college career. That is an incredible stat for someone who is listed as an experienced senior this fall.
The Hope College star brings consistency every time she toes the line and that is a big reason why she lands in the top-five portion of our rankings.
Last fall, Tucker was coming off of a great 2021 outdoor track season. With that momentum, she decided to toe the line against some D1 and D2 athletes early in the 2021 fall season at the MSU Spartan Invitational and at the Louisville XC Classic.
And to put it simply, those races are competitive.
Very competitive.
But after 6th place and 28th place finishes, respectively, at those two meets, Tucker was likely riding high on confidence going into the rest of her cross country season -- and it showed.
Tucker entered the national stage and had her best-ever finish, securing an outstanding 11th place finish on the nation's biggest stage.
On the indoor oval, Tucker was not one to race every single weekend. She raced once in December and then took a break until February. Still, even when she started back up, she wasn’t racing a ton, ultimately grabbing an individual national qualifying result and then trying to help her teammates qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships in the DMR.
While we don't have any insider knowledge, one has to wonder if something was awry late in the winter months as Tucker didn’t accept her 3k entry to the indoor national meet and later recorded a DNF result in the 5k.
But whatever was going on seemed to clear up by the spring as Tucker rolled through her races, eventually running new PRs of 16:36 in the 5k and 35:19 in the 10k. Those times led her to top-eight finishes in both events at the outdoor national meet -- the first successful double All-American attempt of her career.
With five of last year's top-10 national meet finishers not returning in 2022, Ana Tucker has a great opportunity to move up and truly become one of the household names who people follow throughout the entirety of a season.
She is extremely experienced, has faced top-level competition, has had past instances of postseason success and, maybe most importantly, is still improving in the latter stages her collegiate career.
It feels like we have been talking about Aubrie Fisher since she was a freshman...and maybe that's because we have. After all, this Wartburg veteran has been a consistent star almost every time she has toed the line and this year is likely going to be no different.
The pandemic did disrupt Fisher’s college career, but if you look at her cross country national meet placements over the years, she has finished 42nd in 2019, saw the national meet cancelled in 2020 and later placed 6th in 2021.
Last year, the only meets where Fisher did not place top-two was the Augustana Interregional meet and the cross country national meet. Although, in fairness to Fisher, her performance at Augustana seemed to be a fluke. Fisher finished 22nd place overall, falling behind women whom she would go on to beat for the rest of the season.
Then, at the national meet, Fisher was unable to make a hard move with about 4000 meters to go and that really was the difference between her and a top-four finish on that stage.
Regardless, her 6th place result was still an excellent showing for the Wartburg star as she ran a PR of 21:00 over 6000 meters and led her team to a 4th place finish.
Fisher's national meet success on the track is even more scattered because of the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have the necessary experience or accolades to be an elite D3 distance talent.
Last year, Fisher went to the NCAA Indoor Championships where she finished 13th in the 3000 meters and helped her team win the DMR national title. At the NCAA Outdoor Championships, she placed 12th in 5000 meters and was the runner-up finisher in the steeplechase.
Fisher has an extensive resume filled with accomplishments, proving to us that she has been a top contender every year. However, more importantly, that history likely signals that she will be a major name yet in 2022.
Fisher is also the leader of this Wartburg program, a team that is looking to win a team title this fall. With extra motivation likely fueling the fire behind Fisher, one has to believe that she'll be all-in for a stunning cross country campaign over the next few months.
These wouldn’t be proper D3 rankings unless there was a woman from Johns Hopkins in our top-10.
And sure enough, Alex Ross is next up in that tradition.
The Blue Jay veteran took a giant step forward last fall. She earned a huge 3rd place finish at the Rowan Inter-Regional Border Battle and later earned 4th and 2nd place finishes at her conference and regional meets, respectively.
Ross would go on to place 20th at the NCAA XC Championships. That was a very strong result, but in retrospect, knowing what we know about her now, it feels like she could have been even better if she was in the prime of her fitness.
Even so, there were signs of promise before her 2021 fall campaign. At the 2021 NCAA Outdoor Championships, Ross placed 12th in the 5000 meters and 9th in the 10,000 meters. Sure, they weren't All-American results, but they weren't necessarily bad, either.
Luckily, Ross only got better as the 2022 indoor and outdoor track seasons came and went. During the winter months, she set personal bests in the 3k (9:43) and the 5k (16:41), qualifying for the indoor national meet in both events.
At the 2022 NCAA Indoor Championships, Johns Hopkins star went on to earn a strong 5th place finish in the 5k, but wasn’t able to bounce back as well in the 3k, finishing 17th overall.
On the outdoor oval, Ross set even more personal bests, this time in the 1500 meters, the 5k and the 10k. Her best race was likely the 10k at the NCAA Outdoor Championships where she ran with Ari Marks, Kassie Parker and Fiona Smith, breaking away from the group and challenging them for the win.
Ross would ultimately come up a bit short and finish 4th, but that was still a very good result for the Blue Jay star. She later came back and placed 9th in the 5k.
Ross comes into her last year of cross country eligibility for Johns Hopkins looking to be the low-stick star who will lead the Blue Jays to yet another team title. Her experience mixed with her constant upward trajectory makes her look very scary as a competitor this fall.
And if her performances on the outdoor oval are viewed as an uptick of her fitness from the fall, then the potential upside of Ross over the next few months is theoretically limitless.
Fiona Smith has been a major player on the national stage ever since she came to Saint Benedict.
But in 2022, this could be her year to not just be an All-American, but to challenge for a national title.
Last year was Smith's first cross season, but she raced like a true veteran. Going into the national meet, Smith had only lost to one other D3 runner that season (Kassie Parker). Smith would go on to become the MIAC champion as well as North region champion.
Those results, however, were hardly surprising when you realize that she secured numerous wins throughout last fall, as well as a 4th place finish at the loaded Lewis & Clarke Invite.
The Saint Benedict star would end her cross country season by having a brilliant performance at the cross country national meet, running a new PR of 20:57 and finishing 5th overall.
And while Smith had certainly proven to us that she was a top-tier talent prior to that race, that top-five national meet result put into context just how good she truly was.
Smith’s trajectory continued to go up during the winter months as she qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in both the 3k and the 5k. In the 3k, she finished 3rd overall in an excellent time of 9:45. She also ran the 5k beforehan, posting a mark of 16:48 to finish 4th overall.
It was a phenomenal end to a productive season for Smith who had set personal bests in the 1k, the mile, the 3k and the 5k.
During the spring, Smith decided to double on the national stage once again, this time in the 5k and the 10k, a common, yet challenging double.
Luckily for her, Smith’s greatest asset is her strength.
The Saint Benedict ace came into the outdoor national meet with personal bests of 34:33 (10k) and 16:16 (5k) and ended up finishing 4th in both races. That gave her five All-Americans honors for the year.
Whether it be on paper or actually watching her race, Smith is hard to dislike. She is probably one of the most consistent and reliable D3 distance talents that the country has to offer. In terms of her national rank, Smith has grown closer to the tier that Kassie Parker and Ari Marks are/were in rather than the tier below her now.
In 2022, Smith will look to take all of the experience and the knowledge that she has earned over the past year and translate that to even greater results in 2022.
And at that point, she may need a tier of her own.
The reigning cross country champion is back in 2022 and all eyes will be on her as she attempts to defend her crown.
And frankly, it's hard to imagine her not doing so.
Last fall, we saw Parker dominate almost every race she was in. The only race she lost was the Notre Dame National Catholic Invitational where she came in 6th behind Notre Dame’s top-five runners.
Remember, the Irish were a top-five team at the D1 national meet last year.
Parker later cruised through the American Rivers Conference XC Championships and the Midwest Regional XC Championships, winning the latter by over 40 seconds. Parker was then the heavy favorite coming into the national meet and she delivered. She was one of four women who broke away from the pack and then slowly pressed on the gas until she was the only one left.
That, however, was just the start of what would be an unbelievable display of fitness on the indoor and outdoor ovals.
At the NCAA Indoor Championships, Parker was half a second away from pulling off the miraculous 5k/3k/DMR triple victory. She won both the 5k and the 3k, but settled for 2nd place in the DMR.
Parker also set the "All-Conditions" best time in the indoor 5k when she ran 15:58 at Iowa State. She also ran the D3 indoor national meet record in the 5k (16:15) and was only 10 seconds off of the D3 record. The Loras star also set the second-best D3 "All-Conditions" mark in the 3000 meters with her time of 9:13.
Parker's hot streak cooled off a bit during the spring, but not by much. She ran 16:09 in the 5000 meters and then 33:03 in the 100,000 meters. She finished runner-up in both events at the outdoor national meet, bested only by Ari Marks.
Parkers is the overwhelming favorite to earn back-to-back cross country titles for a reason. However, trying to detail every aspect of her resume that makes her great would be an exhausting effort.
She's just that good.
Yes, it's true, watching her finish 2nd to Ari Marks at the outdoor national meet reminded us that she is only human and that she can’t win every single race. Still, our guess is that she’ll use those previous races as fuel and we will watch her go on an absolute tear (yet again) this fall.