D3 Roundtable: Washington U. Displays Depth, MIT Wins Thriller & Amherst Makes A Statement

Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin

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At the Dan Huston Invitational, we saw the women of Wartburg and Washington U. battle it out with the Knights taking home a 13-point victory. Who had the better performance relative to expectations?

Brett: Relative to expectations, Washington U. definitely showed the stronger performance even though they didn’t come away with the team title.

Through five runners, the Wartburg women were very, very strong -- after all, that’s why they are one of the top teams in Division Three this season. With Riley Mayer also being their fifth scorer, instead of their third like we might expect, the Knights even have some breathing room despite this being a fairly dominant performance.

However, it was the depth of the Washington U. Bears that was on full display and that lineup aspect isn’t always reflected in the final team scores.

While Wartburg put their top-five scorers ahead of Washington U’s fourth scorer, the Bears would ultimately put NINE runners ahead of Wartburg’s sixth runners.

The Washington U. women have always been known for smart racing tactics as well as demonstrating great depth. The Bears might not have the same firepower that a program like Wartburg does, but they are clearly on the cusp of being a podium contender if they aren't already.

All-in-all, it was a very solid day for the Bears. Emily Konkus, Lindsay Ott and Katie Rector were very solid (as they usually are) while Avery McCammon and Jillian Heth had some wildly impressive races to serve as their team's fourth and fifth scorers, respectively.

Keeping their team’s time-spread down to 30 seconds like they did this past weekend is going to be crucial for them in order to fight for a podium finish at the national meet.

Kevin: I would also say that Washington U. had the better day when taking expectations into account. Both teams looked solid and a 21 point to 34 point final score is just about on par with the expectations that we had for both teams.

As Brett mentioned though, it was the depth beyond just their top-five that stood out for the Bears. It’s great to have a dominant top-five on paper, but a lot of unpredictable things can happen over the course of a cross country season.

If one or two of your usual top-five runners is unavailable to race, or just have an "off" day, you need depth to lessen that impact. Luckily for Washington U., they have more than enough names who can step up. They also have some star power in Emily Konkus, but more than anything, they look like a sturdy, resilient team from top to bottom.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Wartburg underperformed. They certainly deserved the win, and they are the more formidable team in terms of contending for a national title, but we didn’t really learn anything new about them this weekend.

Hannah: I’ll take the other side and say that Wartburg had a better day. We expected Aubrie Fisher to win this race and she did by nine seconds. She looks like she is picking up right where she left off last season. That's exactly what you want from your low-stick.

The big reason why I think Wartburg outperformed expectations is because sophomore Lexi Brown finished 2nd overall in 21:38. Last year, at this same meet, she finished 25th, running 23:32. For her to run 28 seconds faster already this fall is a head-turner.

Brown was consistently Wartburg's sixth runner last year, so for her to come in close to Fisher is a great sign for the Knights. They were already expected to be a title contending team with Fisher, Shaelyn Hostager, Ellie Meyer and Riley Mayer, but now with Brown showing this flash of brilliance, their potential for the rest of this season is sky high.

The boys pointed out above that Wartburg doesn’t have any room for error as their sixth runner, Haley Meyer, was 16th overall in 22:51. That was 41 seconds behind the Knights fifth scorer.

However, Meyer is only a sophomore, but is already improving her 6k time. At the Les Duke Invitational on September 10th, she ran 23:18. So who knows where she will be in a month? If she continues to trend upwards like we think she will, then the Knights will almost surely win NCAA gold.

At the D3 National Preview, we saw a tight battle between the men of MIT, North Central and Wis-La Crosse. Which team impressed you the most?

Brett: North Central, without a doubt.

MIT blowing the competition away in the final mile wasn’t terribly surprising. They showed their cards when it mattered the most.

UW-La Crosse mirrored the concerns that we had about them from the Griak Invitational. Their third scorer and beyond were a lot farther back from Ethan Gregg and Isaac Wegner than was ideal.

However, the Cardinals were a bit unheralded coming into the season, coming off of a few uncharacteristic years of not being in the national spotlight. With coaching changes and new faces coming to the team, it’s taken some time for the perennial contenders to step back into their elite competitive territory.

With Gabriel Pommier gone, it’s been a little unclear as to who would take the reins as North Central’s newest low-stick. However, the duo of Max Svienty and Braden Nicholson (who was previously at Southern Indiana) have both taken on that lead role, finishing in the top-15 at the National Preview this past weekend.

They did fade a little bit in the final stages of the race, but they could very well be All-American contenders by the season’s end based on their recent performances.

Connor Riss was just behind them with Julian Higueros and Andrew Guinond following close behind to round out the scoring lineup, completing a remarkable 24-second time-spread between their five scoring runners.

I also liked what we saw from these backend varsity contributors!

Thomas Rohr was the Cardinals' sixth runner right behind Guimond while Jacob Kluckhohn finished as the team's seventh runner, moving up from 164th place at the one mile mark to finish 38th overall by the end.

He could be really dangerous if he continues to trend in the right direction.

It seems like the pieces are finally being put together to see a grand return to form for the North Central Cardinals whose potential could very well be within grasp of the podium.

Kevin: MIT handled their business well and they look like serious national title contenders again despite a tough start to the season from 2021 All-American Ryan Wilson. UW- La Crosse didn’t look bad, but they definitely have some holes beyond their top-two that they will need to fill order to compete with the best teams in the country.

North Central, on the other hand, was very impressive.

A couple weeks ago, they started to get more recognition, nationally, after finishing as the top D3 team at the MSU Spartan Invite. On Saturday, they backed that up with another big display led by Max Svienty and Braden Nicholson, two low-sticks who were supplemented by a tight pack behind them.

The Cardinals obviously have a very rich history with 19 cross country national titles, seven of which came in a 10 year stretch from 2009 to 2018. After a bit of a down year in 2021, and a preseason where not a ton was expected of them, these blue bloods are showing that it was just a blip and that they are still a powerhouse in the new era of D3.

Hannah: MIT impressed me the most. With a mile to go, La Crosse, North Central and MIT were separated by only three points. For them to crush the last mile and open up a gap of 36 points was really impressive. It shows us that they were running under control which is nice to see from a team with an immense amount of pressure on them this season.

Andrew Mah, Matthew Kearney, Sam Acquaviva, Vedang Lad and Lowell Hensgen were a solid group as they were less than 40 seconds apart. Also, their sixth runner, Henry Hardar,t was another 13 seconds back.

That’s a solid pack and we saw them move up together the entire race.

I know we are all waiting for 800 meter national champion, Ryan Wilson, to show up in a big way, but that didn’t happen this weekend. He was 106th in a time of 26:29. That’s over two minutes off of his PR.

If Wilson can get in shape and move back up to Mah, Kearnry and Acquaviva, then MIT can be a true force against Pomona-Pitzer.

The Amherst women knocked off the Williams women by 22 points at the Purple Valley XC Classic. Is this a case of Amherst trending upwards? Or was this just an “off” day from the Williams’ women?

Kevin: Amherst is absolutely trending upwards. We said it before the season that they would be much better than last year’s team and that they had a lot of potential for growth.

So far, that potential is materializing even better than we thought it would.

Sure, Williams was missing a couple of potential scorers and didn’t perform at their absolute best, but Amherst is just the better team right now. Mary Kate McGranahan has shown signs of a breakout, Sophia Wolmer is still Sophia Wolmer (which is a good thing) and true freshmen Daphne Theiler and Allison Lounsbury are already making significant contributions.

It’s important to note as well that Julia Schor and Sidnie Kulik did not race. Both Schor and Kulik are projected to play important roles for this Amherst team in 2022, so if the Mammoths look like a top-10 team nationally without them, then it’s scary to imagine what they’ll look like at full strength.

Hannah: I think it was an "off" day for Williams. Molly FitzGibbons and Genna Girard finished 5th and 6th, respectively, but they were over 40 seconds back from McGrahan from Amherst which is not what I expected to see.

It’s still super early in the season, so I won’t sound the panic alarm, but Williams would have liked that duo to finish further up.

Also, Eva Borton did not race, which is something that I would like to sound the alarm about.

Borton is on Williams' 2022 roster, but we haven’t seen her race since before the pandemic. At what point do we stop hoping that she will race again? We have always looked at the Williams results and said, “Well, add the low-stick of Borton back in there and the Ephs beat x, y and z.”

But do we ever see her race again?

Without Borton, I am worried about Williams' finish. It shows us that they are super vulnerable to other New England teams. They just don’t have super strong depth behind FitzGibbons and Girard which could hurt them in the postseason, especially if the aforementioned women have another "off" day.

Brett: I would agree with both sides of the ball.

Amherst looks good and Williams brings up some points of concern.

The Ephs’ duo of FitzGibbons and Girard are very solid. However, getting beat by Amherst’s McGranahan and Wolmer is a tough point to start at. We’ve known that Wolmer is such a solid performer, but McGranahan has been evolving into a star in the making. She missed out on All-American honor in 2021, but is certainly poised to vie for a top-40 finish at the national meet this year.

Oh the other hand, Williams has good depth when you compare them to Amherst, but they need to bring down their large scoring gap from their top scorer to their final scorer.

Both Amherst and Williams struggle with this issue, but Williams needs to win those key battles against Amherst’s backend runners in order to make this battle a real fight.

At the SUNY Geneseo Mike Woods Invitational, we saw the Case Western men upset the host team, SUNY Geneseo, by six points. Are you concerned for the Knights after this upset? Or are you more impressed by the showing from Case Western?

Kevin: Both.

In August, if you had read me the list of teams competing at this meet, I would have said a 3rd place finish was the best case scenario for the Case Western men behind preseason TSR #6 SUNY Geneseo and preseason TSR #9 Middlebury.

On Saturday, a number of factors gave the Spartans a golden opportunity to pull an upset, but you have to give them the credit where it is due.

In the case of SUNY Geneseo, they were missing Ezra Ruggles, so they have some excuse. Even so, have not seen as much promise as we were expecting from some other Knights like Charlie Wilson, Ben Timmons and Ryan Mitchell.

All in all, the SUNY Geneseo men don't look right now like the same caliber of team that we thought they would be, but we wouldn't panic too soon. We barely just started October.

The Spartans have been a surprise, but it's not like they don't have talent. We knew Jack Begley and Joseph Jaster were guys who could perform at a high level, but the breakthroughs of Aidan Nathan and Robert St. Clair have given them a big boost.

It would be disrespectful to this very legitimate team to brush off this win as a fluke.

Brett: I’m more impressed by Case Western.

Like Kevin said, the lack of Ezra Ruggles for SUNY Geneseo hurts. His contributions would have likely put their team ahead of Case Western if he had run. However, since he didn’t run and his last performance was a bit lackluster, it’s merely conjecture.

Case Western has been a school that we’ve brought up from time to time thanks to Begley and Jaster, both of whom have qualified individually for national meets on the track. Yet, their team hasn’t been quite at a level that we would discuss in depth.

Bouncing off of Kevin, I would agree that Aidan Nathan and Robert St. Clair made impressive jumps to boost their team, but the main talking point that I want to discuss is Joseph Jaster. He actually made his season debut at this meet, serving as Case Western’s fourth runner and finishing almost a minute behind Begley.

We know that Jaster is good. If he can improve his performances back to the elite level thatwe know he’s capable of, then Case Western very well might have two guys shooting for All-American honors come November, a huge spark on the team-side of things.

Maybe Case Western is a dark horse school that we’ve been overlooking for quite some time.

Hannah: I think it's both, but I don't really have much more to say other than what Kevin and Brett have already discussed. So instead of repeating, I'll just transition us to the next question.

The Claremont Mudd-Scripps women dominated the “Brown” section of the Lehigh Paul Short Run over the weekend. How impressed with their performance are you? And what does it mean, if anything, moving forward for the Athenas?

Kevin: It's hard to tell exactly. They blew away the field, but they were kind of supposed to. It was impressive to see the 3-4-5 runners behind Natalie Bitetti and Meredith Bloss put together some solid races, but we would have learned more if they were in the "Gold" race with Johns Hopkins.

If you insert CMS' times into that "Gold" race, they would have finished one spot behind the Blue Jays (assuming I did the math right). But I'm not even sure how much THAT means because, in all likelihood, they would not have run those exact times.

Personally, my assessment of the Athenas hasn't changed much since the preseason. They are a top-five team in the country with an elite 1-2 punch and a supporting cast that is good, but not quite good enough for national title aspirations unless a couple people break out soon.

Brett: First off, I was pretty shocked to see the Athenas in the "Brown" race. They were more than deserving enough to have earned a place into the Gold race as the reigning national runner-up finishers in Division Three.

Nevertheless, they put together a really solid race to annihilate their competition, scoring 82 points to George Washington’s 214 points.

The one point I will contribute here is this: If Meredith Bloss and Natalie Bitetti compete together as a duo, then they will make the Athenas truly elite with one of the better 1-2 punches in Division Three.

My opinion hasn’t changed much of them as they are still very dangerous. However, I can’t wait to see them compete against some of the better teams in Division Three to get a better look at things.

Hannah: Put some respect on their name! Put them in the "Gold" race!

That might be dramatic, but I like the Claremont Mudd-Scripps women. I think they should have been expected to win the "Brown" race and them doing it handily was a nice example that they can deliver.

It’s a little alarming how far back Natalie Bitetti was from Annika Urban from Emory, but I think that speaks more to how good Urban is looking and less of a knock on Bitetti. She is still a great 1-2 punch with Meredith Bloss.

Put that with a 58 second time-spread from the Athenas' 3-4-5-6-7 runners and these women are looking dangerous. But honestly, we knew that coming into this season, so I'm not sure this race taught us anything we didn’t already know.

Personally, I am going to enjoy everyone overlooking them simply because they are from the West region and then have them show out at the national meet where they'll finish the job they started last year.

That’s my plan going forward.

In the “Gold” men’s section at the Lehigh Paul Short Run, RPI took down both Johns Hopkins and John Carroll. What is your level of concern for both Johns Hopkins and John Carroll? Is this a statement win for a team like RPI? Or is it just an anomaly?

Brett: Concern level for Johns Hopkins: Very low.

For the Blue Jays, they were the most well-rounded Division Three team in the "Gold" race. Putting six guys at 24:44 or faster is an impressive achievement and they displayed the most potent depth over RPI and John Carroll.

I’m not concerned about their loss to RPI because in such a huge field like the Paul Short Invite, the low-sticks of Cory Kennedy and Matthew Lecky are going to favor RPI, but in smaller fields, the pack-running and tighter split that Johns Hopkins employs will favor the Blue Jays.

To summarize: RPI might have better low-sticks, but Johns Hopkins is just a hair better as their backend scorers are concerned.

So was this a statement win? No, but it was still a very good win.

Concern level for John Carroll: Very high.

Having Alex Phillip run 23:16 can only take the Blue Streaks so far.

For them to have the advantage of their top runner scoring seven points, while RPI’s top runner scored 58 points and Johns Hopkins’ top runner scored 108 points -- and not beating either of those teams -- is not a great look relative to expectations.

On paper, Ethan Domitrovich, Dominic Delmoro and Adam Shah were solid, but they’re not running quite at the level that we once previously thought they could.

Having that low-stick is a great cushion, but the Blue Streaks will need to see some improvements from the rest of their lineup to produce a good team finish come the national meet.

Kevin: As the old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

When RPI beat Williams earlier in the season, I thought it was just an anomaly. But after they beat elite D3 competition once again this weekend, it's time to admit that they're the real deal.

My level of concern is much higher for John Carroll than it is for Johns Hopkins just taking into account what our preseason expectations for them were.

If you're Johns Hopkins, a tight loss to a team like RPI really isn't such a bad thing. The Blue Jays started to garner a lot more national attention after MSU and they showed at Paul Short that it was at least partially justified.

John Carroll, on the other hand, just doesn't appear to be what we thought they were. We knew the loss of Jamie Dailey would hurt, but we made some assumptions about improvements from the supporting cast that haven't come together yet.

Hannah: I’m not sure how many ways we can say it, but essentially, John Carroll isn’t looking as good as we thought they would and RPI is looking better than we thought.

I don’t have a lot to say to defend the Blue Streaks, but I will say Barrett Scheatzle did not race at Paul Short which hurts. Scheatzle was JCU's second scorer at the Spartan Invitational earlier this season and would have saved them 50 points (give or take).

Maybe enough to catch Johns Hopkins, but not enough to beat RPI.

Losing Jamie Dailey, Ian Pierson and Cormac Peppard-Kramer has really hurt John Carroll overall. They just don’t have the depth of some of these other top-caliber teams. They’ve already lost to North Central, Johns Hopkins and now RPI.

Our prediction of them placing amongst the top-three this year isn’t looking so hot.

For Johns Hopkins, I am not concerned. They had a fine race. Losing to a good team like RPI by 30 points in a race this large is not alarming. It’s a matter of one top-five runner finishing roughly 10 seconds faster.

I think it just speaks to how good of a team RPI is proving themselves to be.

Are there any other results from this past weekend that you think are noteworthy?

Kevin: The Carnegie Mellon and Emory men definitely had noteworthy performances in the “Brown” race at Paul Short.

The Tartans faced a high-level field that contained five nationally ranked D3 teams along with many D1 and D2 programs. Not only did they beat that field, they dismantled it with a victory of over 50 points.

It looks like all the pieces are coming together for a Carnegie Mellon team that looked like they had a couple of holes coming into the season.

Emory, meanwhile, finished 2nd in that same race and were also very impressive. They exceeded our expectations. After not having any finishers in the top-100 at last year's national meet, we did have some questions regarding the Eagles.

However, this past weekend, they showed that what they may lack in a superstar low-stick they make up for with some incredible depth.

Brett: I’ll make note of this first: Isaac Wegner has made incredible strides since the track season.

Wegner, who is more of a longer distance guy, has been slowly trending upwards over the year as an “on the cusp” guy on the national stage.

He placed 67th at the cross country national meet last year, not too far off from All-American status. Wegner also ran 30:04 for 10,000 meters during the outdoor track season, just outside of qualifying for the national meet.

But after placing 4th at the D3 National Preview this past weekend, beating names such as Simon Heys, Gunner Schlender and all of MIT’s runners, this was clearly a big step up for Wegner.

Now, serving as one half of an electric 1-2 duo for UW-La Crosse with Ethan Gregg in tow, Wegner is competing with some of the best names in Division Three right now. He seems very poised to make a splash on the national stage this fall and can do so right alongside Gregg.

Also, Annika Urban is getting seriously slept on.

The reigning 12th place finisher from last year's cross country national meet DESTROYED everybody in the "Brown" race on Friday, including Natalie Bietti by over 30 seconds.

If there’s anyone who might be another contender for the national title, look no further than Annika Urban.

Hannah: I really liked the race between Kassie Parker and Fiona Smith at the D3 National Preview. They were our TSR #1 and TSR #2 runners coming into the season, with reigning national champion Parker getting the nod over Smith.

Parker ran 20:31 to beat Smith’s time of 20:55. Those two women were over a minute ahead of a trio from U. of Chicago. A dominant performance from Parker shows us that she has no plans to relinquish her title this fall.

Parker is looking tough yet again this year. After opening up her season with a workout at the Spartan Classic, she beat Notre Dame’s entire team at the National Catholic Invitational, winning in 17:02 (5k).

I wouldn’t be shocked if we didn’t see her until the American Rivers Conference Championship where she’ll race against Wartburg’s Aubrie Fisher.