Gavin Struve
Sep 5, 20236 min
Updated: Sep 6, 2023
Written by Gavin Struve, additional commentary & edits by Garrett Zatlin
NOTE: Earlier this summer, The Stride Report reached out to nearly every team that was considered for a possible ranking this summer. While we did receive numerous responses and great clarity, we did not get a 100% response rate. On rare occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
Considering that the preseason ranking we have assigned to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps is exactly where they finished last season at the national meet, one may think that this team is the exact same as the 2022 edition of their squad.
That, however, would be a false assumption. After all, the Athenas lose a pair of reliable veteran lead scorers. That's a massive blow to the front and middle portions of their lineup. It also gives this team a wider range of outcomes entering this fall.
But that doesn’t mean that this group isn’t capable of matching (or improving upon) a strong 2022 fall campaign. Who would we be to discount the historical success of a program that has reached the NCAA XC Championships every year since the team’s second season of existence a decade-and-a-half ago?
The women of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps entered the fall of 2022 with a daunting task — replicating their runner-up finish from the 2021 national meet.
Those were fair expectations as CMS returned three of their four All-Americans. However, they were never able to quite replicate that level of success after catching lightning in a bottle the year prior.
Even so, there was little indication during the regular season that CMS was in store for a dip on the national stage. Leading up to their 2022 season finale, they tested themselves against Division One competition and were repeatedly able to take down rival Pomona-Pitzer, one of the better Division Three programs last fall.
But as a whole, the Athenas season was a bit hard to evaluate. They won the "Brown" race at Paul short by putting five women in the top-35. Of course, without a high-end D3 competition to compare against, it was hard to get a good gauge of this team going into the postseason.
When they did eventually reach the 2022 cross country national meet, the Athenas looked noticeably different when compared to their elite 2021 group.
All-American Riley Harmon and fifth scorer Sophie Gitlin had graduated. Emily Clarke pleced 26th at the 2021 national meet, but concluded her eligibility with Nevada.
Meanwhile, Meredith Bloss and Natalie Bitetti, who both finished in the top-16 at the 2021 national meet, slipped outside of the top-35 a year later.
The firepower and scoring potency of CMS' squad last year looked far more limited than they had just 12 months prior, at least on the national stage. Entering the 2022 season, we viewed them as a formidable podium team.
And yet, despite all of that, this team still salvaged a top-10 result on the national stage.
As we enter the fall of 2023, it feels like we can hit the refresh button for the Athenas. They can now focus on further developing their next generation of distance talents while still retaining a low-stick star.
Natalie Bitetti will now be the focal ace for this team as an upperclassman with consecutive All-American finishes on the grass. Admittedly, she was not as good at the most recent NCAA XC Championships (39th) compared to the 2021 national meet (16th). But that was still an All-American result, and everything that she produced in the regular season suggested that she was a top-tier name.
In fact, with four individual victories last fall, Bitetti appeared in store for something even more impressive than her 2021 efforts. That’s why we have her ranked at TSR #9 in our preseason individual rankings. She’s a proven top-10 individual star for a team that also fits in that range, and she was already the most consistent lead runner for a team with multiple returning All-Americans a year ago.
Truthfully, we don’t have a lot of questions or doubts about Bitetti’s ability entering this fall. We think she’s in store for a major national meet bounce back in a few months and that her regular season will prove that as well.
But now for the bad news.
Meredith Bloss has transferred to Purdue and Riley Harmon has graduated. The loss of Bloss will undoubtedly hit hard. Even if she wasn’t at her best when it mattered the most in 2022, she was still a reliable veteran star who was the team’s top national meet finisher in 2021.
We haven’t even mentioned Anika Kimme who has also graduated after emerging as a surprise lead scorer in 2022, nearly coming away with an All-American finish. When you add her to the list of departures, it's understandable to have some concerns about this group into the fall of 2023.
Fortunately for CMS, there are women waiting in the wings to be potential lead scorers who can complement Bitetti's low-stick scoring potency.
Angela Gushue was one of the few women on this roster who improved at the 2022 NCAA XC Championships. She placed 131st during her freshman season in 2021 and improved to 105th in 2022. Let's also not forget that she was the 22nd place finisher in the "Brown" race at Paul Short last fall. That's a sneaky-good result.
Gushue doesn’t need to be a low-stick ace in 2023, but another modest improvement and continued reliability as a complementary scorer should be the expectation. However, part of why the Athenas don’t necessarily need Gushue to develop into another lead scorer is because Elle Marsyla may fill that role.
As a freshman last fall, Marsyla displayed a level of consistency and ability that belied her youth. The Athenas’ competitive regular season schedule appeared to help fast-track her development and she finished 107th at the national meet.
Finishing 34th at Paul Short's "Brown" race while snagging a 12th place finish at the West Regional XC Championships also showed promise. And when you look at her resume from last fall, you could credit Marsyla for being fairly reliable.
Riley Capuano was another rookie who established herself as a varsity runner for the Athenas last fall, even though she didn’t have nearly the same success on the national stage. She could be in store for a leap in 2023. And frankly, CMS will need exactly that from her given that she’s expected to be a scorer.
The fifth returner from CMS’s 2022 national meet lineup is Laura Zimmer, a veteran who will need to leverage her experience for a team that needs scoring stability.
Like several others on this squad, Zimmer was better in the fall of 2021 than 2022. That season, she finished 137th on the national stage and was fairly respectable in her lead up to that race as well. The Athenas would likely be happy if she replicated results like that as a backend scorer this fall.
It’s unclear where exactly CMS’s final varsity contributors will come from, but Amelia Opsahl has been a steady fixture in the regular season over the past two years. The Athenas also bring in a large freshman class that could produce a woman or two who has an early impact.
It’s also possible another one of these women could have a sudden rise like Kimme had. That, in turn, would make us (and the rest of the Division Three landscape) recalibrate our ranking of Claremont-Mud-Scripps heading into November.
Just as they did a year ago, CMS returns more contributors than many of their direct competitors. But the Athenas hardly enter this fall without questions and could be hard-pressed to stay in the top-10, particularly if some of their younger women don’t step up.
Bitetti is an elite talent at her best, but the list of known quantities beyond her is not extensive. However, at the same time, the experience that names like Gushue, Marsyla, Capuano and Zimmer have should give this team a solid baseline.
We like this group’s combination of returning talent and youth-based upside a bit better than what a lot of other candidates for the final spot in our preseason top-10 team rankings have to offer. We also like this program’s consistency, as evidenced by 14-straight national meet appearances.
With less hype than last fall, but a number of returning pieces (including the most important one), CMS appears to be in store for a result more in line with expectations. Matching their national meet finish from last November would qualify as just that.