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First Thoughts: Analyzing the Women's Regional Championships
- Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
- May 29, 2022
- 12 min read
Women's East 800 Meters
There is plenty to talk about here. There was a good number of surprise developments in this field depending on how you look at some of these results.
Here's the thing: You could argue that there were four to five "surprise" qualifiers in this field. However, if you look at their resumes, they had good enough arguments to be in the top-12 qualifying conversation in the first place.
The women who first come to mind are Michigan's Aurora Rynda, Campbell's Dorcus Ewoi, Mississippi State's Sydney Steely and Boston College's Katherine Mitchell. All of these women were more than capable of qualifying for the national meet, but there were other women this season who gave us better reasons to select them in our predictions over these four.
Rynda, for instance, hadn't run faster than 2:05.88 this spring and that had only recently come at the BIG 10 Championships. And while we knew about her past elite-level credentials, she hadn't shown us any of that firepower this spring.
Ewoi ran 2:04 (800) and 4:17 (1500) in one meet which was highly encouraging, but there weren't any other times on her resume that put her in that top-tier of talent.
Steely has actually been sneaky consistent all season long, but she was rarely placing highly or contending for wins. It's a somewhat similar argument with Mitchell, although she did place 2nd at the ACC Championships.
Each of those four women deserve to go to the national meet, but it's understandable why they weren't necessarily our first priority picks.
However, the biggest developments that we saw in these races were the women who didn't qualify...and my goodness, were there quite a few stunners.
LSU rookie Michaela Rose has been electric all season long, making significant improvements in her times and becoming an increasingly greater threat in loaded fields. However, her youth might have caught up to her on this championship stage.
Florida State's Ruby Stauber not qualifying for the national meet is such a bummer. Her comeback campaign this year has been outstanding and a fairy tale ending for what she has gone through would have been so cool to see.
But more importantly, she would've been plenty deserving of a national qualifying send-off as well. Stauber was super consistent this season and ran 2:03 en route to the ACC title a weeks back.
Georgetown's Melissa Riggins was also a very popular pick, especially since she didn't really have a poor race all season long. However, much like Rose, it's possible that youth and relative inexperience may have played some kind of role in these races.
And finally, we have Ohio State's Aziza Ayoub. She has had a very underrated career, offering great consistency, decent range and tons of experience. The only thing that she was missing was a fast time -- something she threw down earlier this season (2:03) before faltering a bit at the BIG 10 Championships.
Individually, one one by one, if you had told that these women would qualify for the national meet, I would nod my head and say, "Sure, I could see that being possible."
But to have Riggins, Ayoub, Rose and Stauber all not qualify? I'm not going to lie, I didn't see that coming.
Women's West 800 Meters
We can talk about all of the surprise qualifiers and non-qualifiers from this race, but how about Boise State's Kristie Schoffield running 2:01 to win the region?!
Schoffield has been fairly quiet for the past year or two despite owning a then-PR of 2:02 and having past All-American honors. And while we said on numerous occasions that Schoffield has a history of peaking in the postseason, I'm not sure I saw her running 2:01 to win this event.
But that mark simply validates what Ben and I were saying on the latest episode of the Blue Oval Podcast. If Schoffield is on fire, then she's going to be a problem.
And while plenty of women ran super fast times in this event, none of the women in the top-12 really surprised us by advancing to the NCAA Championships...well, none of them except for one.
Utah's Josefin Eriksen just ran 2:02 to finish 2nd place overall in this field. She will comfortably advance to the national meet...and I'm shocked.
There wasn't a single result on Eriksen's resume which suggested that she would be advancing to the NCAA Championships, much less running 2:02. She came into this field as the 28th best seed. In 2021, she ran no faster than 2:10 and at the start of this season, Eriksen was running 2:06.
For her to put together an insanely clutch postseason and suddenly peak better than anyone I have seen this year was incredible. You just don't see that every day.
Now the big question is...can she replicate that result on the national stage?
As for the rest of these national qualifiers, many of them were fairly predictable, although only Maura accurately predicted that Kansas' Honour Finley would advance to Eugene, Oregon.
In terms of non-qualifiers, there weren't a ton of surprises, but BYU's Lauren Ellsworth-Barnes being the first woman out was tough to see. She is clearly in the best shape of her life right now and she showed that throughout the entire season. Owning a 2:01 PR and not advancing is surprising, especially for someone who we viewed highly enough to rank in our Top 25.
Grand Canyon's Alexa Hokanson was another near miss and although she was a popular pick, she was also by no means a guarantee to qualify for the national meet.
But for the most part, everything else was super expected. With the exception of Eriksen and Ellsworth-Barnes, I don't think anyone's theoretical wagers were hurt too bad.
Women's East 1500 Meters
Alright, this portion might get fairly long, so grab your Wawa hoagie and relax as I dive into all of this analysis...
If I had told you that Virginia's Mia Barnett wouldn't qualify for the national meet, what would you say? You'd probably say something along the lines of, "Wow, that's pretty crazy, but I guess anything can happen?"
Then, if I then told you that NC State's Sam Bush would qualify for the national meet in the 1500 meters, you'd probably say, "Well, she still has the 5k, but Bush and Barnett missing the national meet in the 1500 meters is pretty surprising."
And finally, if I then told you that Florida State's Maudie Skyring would also miss the national meet, you likely would have said, "Hold on, let me see those results."
Now, in Skyring's defense, she fell going into the last lap of her race, leaving me heartbroken on her behalf. And in defense of Barnett, she was near the lead group with roughly 250 meters to go before getting tripped up and losing tons of momentum (but not falling).
Maudie Skyring, Sam Bush and Mia Barnett (despite her youth) looked like they were three of the top-five most reliable names in this field. These women have headlined our rankings for months, throwing down super fast marks and showing incredible poise all season long.
Look, surprises of the nature happen every now and again, but maybe for only one or two names -- not three! This was a shocking development, although the seemingly quick paces that we saw in some of these fields potentially contributed to some of this madness.
Speaking of which, let's talk about some of the crazy times.
Providence's Shannon Flockhart? 4:10 PR.
Cincinnati's Ellie Leather? 4:11 PR.
Binghamton's Emily Mackay? 4:11 PR.
Middle Tennessee State's Eusila Chepkemei? 4:11 PR.
Megan Marvin? Nevada Moreno? Maia Ramsden? Caroline Timm? All 4:13 personal bests.
If you were ready for a fast pace, then you thrived and were ultimately rewarded. And not only do these women now advance to the national meet, but how we view them suddenly changes.
Flockhart had run a 4:36 mile during the indoor track season, but now she has validation of her fitness with a recent 4:10 PR, a time that is, on paper, fast enough to give her an outside shot of the national title.
And now all of these women seemingly deserve to be in the All-American conversation. They have been consistent all year long, having shown promising racing qualities, are peaking at the right time and don't have to worry about Barnett, Skyring and Bush.
On paper, a lot can happen at the national meet.
One last note: I have been saying FOR YEARS, that NC State's Nevada Mareno was one of the better women on the east coast. And I've stuck to that take for each and every season...well, I did until this spring season.
But of course, in the one regional meet where I decided to jump off the bandwagon, Mareno makes me pay for it and delivers a big result. And I gotta say, I'm fairly happy for her.
Much like I mentioned with Iowa State's Thomas Pollard, Mareno was someone who I highlighted in the fairly early days of TSR and while it may have taken some time for her to deliver on those high expectations, she eventually came through this year.
Women's West 1500 Meters
The women's West region 1500 meter results were the exact opposite of the women's East region 1500 meter results: Very predictable. In fact, it was almost surprising how accurate our predictions were.
For perspective, Maura, Ben and myself all correctly predicted 10 out of the 12 national qualifiers in this field. The only two women who threw a wrench into our rankings. They were Stanford's Melissa Tanaka and New Mexico's Stefanie Parsons.
Admittedly, Parsons was a true shock. She was the 30th seed coming into the regional rounds with a seasonal best of 4:20 (although her PR was 4:17 from her time in D2). For her to get past a LOADED region where most of the superstar women delivered on their highest potential is wildly impressive.
She had very little margin for error and still came through.
As for Tanaka, she was the 17th seed and she is much better than some people realize. She was fairly competitive at the PAC-12 Championships this past spring and was a multi-time 800 meter Ivy League champion during her time at Penn.
So while she may not have the same star power as a few of these other women, she was still plenty capable of advancing to Eugene, Oregon.
Women's East 3k Steeple
I'm not going to lie, I don't really have much to say about these races. This may have been the most predictable race in the East region. No, our predictions weren't perfect, but that's probably because we weren't trying to be too obvious with our selections.
And don't get me wrong, there were still a few names who snuck through to the national meet. Virginia's Helena Lindsay, for example, ran 10:02 to earn a PR and the last at-large bid the NCAA Championships.
However, when you realize that she had slowly progressed down to 10:05 this spring, highly observant fans would have realized that Lindsay had plenty of momentum in her favor going into the regional races.
I just happened not to be one of those observant few.
Seeing BIG East stars like Mia Nahom (UConn) and Lydia Olivere (Villanova) not advance was pretty surprising. Nahom is a dynamic and explosive distance talent who was having the best year of her career. Olivere, meanwhile, is a true veteran who boasts some outstanding championship experience and postseason consistency.
If one of these women didn't advance, then that would be one thing.
But for both of them to finish outside of the top-12?
Well, that's certainly not something I had on my bingo card.
There are a few other women in this field who we could highlight as "surprising" misses, but when you look at some of the women who did advance, it's hard to say that other women had better chances of going to Eugene.
And to Duke's Emily Cole, I am going to speak for both Ben and myself when i say that we apologize for not picking you to qualify for the national meet. It's not a you thing, it's a "the ACC hurt us so bad last year and we're trying to avoid that again" thing.
Women's West 3k Steeple
At first glance, I looked at the results for this event and thought "Huh, these are super straightforward. Almost too straightforward...what am I missing?
And then it hit me: Oregon's Aneta Konieczek didn't advance.
When I eventually sat down to watched the replay, I expected the Duck veteran to fall on a barrier or a water pit. That would, after all, explain her surprising miss.
But no, that's not what seemingly happened, at least not when she was on screen. For the most part, it looked like she simply faded from a very top-heavy pack.
These things happen. There's always one star who stuns everyone by falling out of national qualifying territory. But with Konieczek now ending her season early, BYU's Courtney Wayment has one less threat who she has to worry about on the national stage.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of title threats still remaining, but Konieczek ran 9:25 in Poland this past summer and if there was ever going to be a scenario where she reached her peak fitness, then she was, in theory, going to be a major problem for Wayment.
As for the rest of this field, I want to offer more analysis, but each of our writers (including me) accurately predicted 10 out of the 12 national qualifiers in this field (each). We all missed on Konieczek, but then we each missed on our sleeper picks like Emma Tavella (Garrett), Veerle Bakker (Maura), Lena Lebrun (Ben) and Lucinda Crouch (Gavin).
So yeah...not much more to discuss.
Women's East 5k
Can we just dedicate this section entirely to NC State?
I mean c'mon, how can you not be a fan of the NC State women?
The Wolfpack women sent not one, not two, but FIVE runners to the NCAA Championships in the 5000 meters, a feat that comes close to mirroring what we saw from the 2019 BYU men in the 10,000 meters when they sent six men to the national meet.
And the craziest part? All five women came from the exact. same. heat.
There were only five automatic qualifying spots to earn in each heat and while the Wolfpack women only secured three of those automatic spots, they were still able to secure the final two time-qualifying bids.
But if I went through that list of five and asked you if you were surprised about each respective woman making the national meet, you would say "no" four times and "yes" once.
Katelyn Tuohy? A lock to qualify.
Savannah Shaw? Better than some people realize.
Sam Bush? A breakout star this year.
Hannah Steelman? An established long distance veteran who has rebounded from injury.
But Marlee Starliper? One of the most inexperienced women in this field? The woman who has dealt with nearly two years of injuries and setbacks? The youngster who was historically better in the mile than the longer distances?
Yep, she qualified for the national meet as well.
What Starliper had to go through to get to this point is incredible. Her ability to rebound and ultimately run an outstanding mark of 15:37 is just fantastic. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if she would ever reach that point, but Coach Henes continues to show a level of patient development in her runners, allowing them to peak at perfect times. It's so darn impressive.
But for Starliper to go through that AND have Hannah Steelman bounce back from injury (after losing a shoe in the 10k earlier this week) to qualify for the national meet is wildly encouraging.
And of course, the story can't end without reminding everyone that Samantha Bush was the first woman out of the 1500 meters, only to avenge herself by snagging the final automatic qualifying spot in 15:35.
To put it simply, the NC State women did more than just send five women to the NCAA Championships from the same heat. They did so in the face of challenging adversities and season-long setbacks.
Kudos to Coach Henes...
Speaking of setbacks, Florida's Parker Valby qualified for the national meet in the 5000 meters and it's hard not to be happy for her. She has proven to be boarderline elite talent in the longer distances, but she wasn't healthy for the NCAA Indoor Championships to deliver on that kind label.
And don't worry, the overcoming of adversity was just confined to the second heat. That's because Alabama's Amaris Tyynismaa finished 2nd overall in her heat with a time of 15:42, earning a surprising national qualifying bid.
Tyynmismaa was outstanding last year, emerging as one of the flat-out best distance runners in the country. On the track, she specialized in the mile and 1500 meters, rarely ever having a bad race.
But in 2022, she has been absent or clearly not at 100%. This is likely due to a rumored (and minor) injury, but whatever the true reason for her setback was, expecting her to qualify for the national meet this spring would have been a stretch.
But she did! And now, Tyynismaa has forced us to reevaluate how we view her.
In a way, this East region 5k can be summarized as a triumphant story of overcoming adversity for many of the top women in this field.
I could keep going on and on, but there is only one more name who needs to be discussed. I am, of course, talking about Florida State's Lauren Ryan.
Some weekends, you have it. Other weekends, you don't.
Seeing Lauren Ryan miss out on a national qualifying spot in the 10k was surprising, but part of me was still thinking, "Ok, that's not a huge deal, she still has the 10k."
But now? Well, I'm not really sure what to think. Just the other week, Ben and I were talking about how Lauren Ryan isn't mentioned enough. Now, someone who we once viewed as a far-out title contender isn't going to have a chance to attempt exactly that.
Women's West 5k
Another West region women's race, another set of highly unsurprising and somewhat predictable results. Sure, our predictions were far from perfect, but this is another instance where the women who did qualify for the NCAA Championships would have all been realistic options.
Some people may be surprised that New Mexico's Adva Cohen didn't advance to the national meet in the 5k, but this is someone who had already done the steeplechase prior to this race. It's understandable if running on tired legs held her back from national qualification.
You could also argue that Oregon's Alessia Zarbo and Washington's Haley Herberg were favored to qualify in this event, but those two women are better 10k runners than 5k runners and they had already contested the 10k.
Admittedly, Washington's Allie Schadler not qualifying was a bit surprising. She looked like she had made a fairly strong rebound this season and was just beginning to post some of her better marks in the latter half of this season.
However, seeing her choose the 5k over the 10k was a surprise to me. I didn't agree with that decision when it came out and I think that my initial hunch was correct.
You could also make an argument that San Francisco's Ruby Smee was a surprise miss, but her outdoor track season has been much quieter than her indoor track season, so maybe there were enough signs there to suggest that a top-12 finish would be a challenge.
But other than that, these results were fairly on par with expectations. And while I know our predictions were far from accurate after seeing the women who did make it into the top-12, in retrospect, they weren't total shockers.
