TSR Collaboration
Sep 6, 20236 min
Written by Gavin Struve & Conor Daly, additional notes and commentary via Garrett Zatlin
Disclosure: Conor Daly is a current athlete for Washington U.
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.
Devoid of two low-stick studs and a handful of other varsity contributors, the Washington U. women will look noticeably different over the coming months compared to a year ago.
And yet, we don’t expect this team to be markedly worse off.
The Bears still have All-American candidates and exciting youth going into 2023. However, they’ll need to make full use of the next few months as a ramp-up period to gain momentum and experience as they approach the national meet, a stage that they have thrived on in recent history.
It also bears mentioning (no pun intended) that Washington U. finished runner-up as a team at the indoor national meet and 3rd at the outdoor national meet largely on the strength of their distance program.
Before diving into last season’s results and trajectory, we should address the elephant in the room: Emily Konkus and Lindsay Ott, both of whom finished among the top-25 individuals at the 2022 NCAA XC Championships, are gone from this program.
The former graduated, and the latter has transferred to Lipscomb. They’re not the only departures, but they are by far the most impactful ones. Those two women were consistently Washington U.’s top-two scorers a year ago and offered tremendous firepower. At the moment, there is no direct replacement for their reliability nor their scoring potency.
In addition to those two departures, Washington U. also enters this season without backend lineup contributor Ella Behrens. She is a significant loss considering that she produced a top-half All-American finish earlier this year over 5000 meters at the indoor national meet.
The Bears were a stable, top-end team throughout the 2022 season. Washington U. never looked like a true national title contender, but they certainly appeared to be a top-10 team (comfortably) throughout last fall.
Even so, the Saint Louis-based women couldn’t get past U. Chicago on either the conference or the national stage and they finished behind Wartburg on multiple occasions as well. For as good as the Bears were last fall, they never won a varsity meet.
Even so, they were better than nearly everyone else who they faced, save for the Maroons and Knights, and they still proved to be competitive on the national stage.
Along with their consistency, the 2022 iteration of this team should be commended for having everyone peak together for the NCAA XC Championships in what was an impressive showcase of front-end scoring and depth.
In their season finale, the Bears placed four women in the top-50 with Konkus and Ott leading the way via their 13th and 23rd place finishes, respectively.
The only element that held Washington U. back from a high-end podium finish was a drop-off to their final scorer who came across the line in 106th place. While that would have been a great placement for a fifth scorer on a number of other teams, it did not equate to a top-five team finish for Washington U.
In fact, that was the first time since 2013 that this women's program didn't finish in the top-five on the national stage.
But after what we saw from this team in the regular season, their 6th place finish on the national stage wasn't representative the podium-caliber talent that they had flexed last fall.
The tough news for Washington U. is that they may not be able to match last year’s national meet finish which, strictly by comparison, was not one of their better results on that stage. That absurd notion points to how much of a fixture this program has become toward the top of the Division Three landscape over the past decade.
The good news for the Bears is that there appears to be another high-octane low-stick star waiting in the wings. Katie Rector showed remarkable consistency and made an immediate impact in her rookie campaign a year ago.
Rector seemingly couldn’t miss last fall, finishing outside of the top-eight on just two occasions. Plus, she was arguably at her best on the national stage, placing 46th, although one could argue that her result was not a surprise despite her youth.
While she hasn’t been an All-American yet, we almost feel like placing Rector just outside of our preseason top-20 individual rankings will look like a massive underestimation in the very near future.
Sure, we would like to have more results to go off of for someone who will need to be the focal star of a likely top-10 team, but it’s not Rector’s fault that she ran her way into such an important role as a freshman.
Fortunately, Rector won’t have to assume the low-stick responsibilities entirely on her own as senior Alexandra Blake returns to this team as well. She finished three spots behind Rector on the national stage (and just barely in the top-50).
Blake’s emergence, for both her scoring stability and veteran presence, should be incredibly reassuring for Bears fans. Having a (likely) secondary low-stick who can threaten for All-American honors won't completely replicate the firepower that they had last year (even next to Rector), but it will at least soften the blown of their now-departed veterans.
Avery McCammon is another senior with invaluable championship racing experience and appears to be a sound middle lineup scorer. She finished just a few sports behind Rector at the deep Augustana Interregional Invitational and closed out the Bears’ scoring in 106th place at the 2022 NCAA XC Championships.
This experienced distance talent offers another quality complementary scorer and should embolden Washington U. entering the fall months. She'll at least keep this team fairly stable and offer some upside as well.
Like Rector, Jillian Heth got a taste of high-level collegiate competition as a freshman last year. Heth raced at the national meet, although she did not finish in the top-250.
Even so, her rookie resume was highlighted by a 13th place finish at the Gil Dodds Invitational and a 10th place finish at the Dan Huston Invitational. Those are really nice results for a true freshman!
Many of Heth’s regular season performances from last fall often put her right next to McCammon. That leads us to believe that the sophomore can be a key middle lineup scorer with a year of experience and more consistency.
Among other lineup options, Helena Teixeira-Dasilva and Marlee Fradkin are now in their senior seasons and have amassed some valuable experience in large meets. Riley Clark raced at a similar level in her debut season last year and Julia Patterson reached the national stage in the steeplechase this past spring.
Any one of those women should be able to capably fill a backend lineup position for this team later this fall. They may need multiple of them to do so.
The Bears also brought in a deep freshman class, totaling nine women, and should be able to continue a track record of getting early contributions from one or two of their youngsters. They’ll likely need one to emerge in the coming months, and it seems far more likely than not that happens.
Arguably their most valuable addition, however, is Irene Williams, who is transferring to the St. Louis-based program after spending a year at the University of Virginia.
The Virginia native was a national-level star as a prep runner. She was at her best on the cross country course, placing 5th in the 2021 NXR Southeast Championships and running a sub-18:00 (5k) personal best elsewhere.
Williams clearly has All-American upside, but it seems more fair to set her 2023 expectations closer to being a reliable varsity contributor before we put that kind of pressure on her shoulders. Of course, if she does deliver on her pedigree early, then Washington U. could be just as good as they were last fall.
All things equal, this placement takes a good amount of projection. Truthfully we don’t know exactly what the back-half of the Bears’ lineup will look like this fall, even if we know who the options will be.
With both Rector and Blake emerging as All-Americans candidates after nearly receiving those honors last fall, the Washington U. women have two strong lead scorers. They also appear to have enough quality pieces behind them to configure a more-than-capable lineup.
It doesn’t feel like the Bears can beat rival U. Chicago this season, but they’ll again be battle-tested entering the postseason and have a strong track record upon getting there.
Yes, the 6th place finish that we saw from Washington U.’s last fall was their worst national meet result in the last years (which is actually more impressive than anything else). The Bears haven’t finished outside of the top-10 at the NCAA XC Championships in nearly a decade now and we’re banking on this team’s historical stability to keep them within that range.