First Thoughts (Women): New Mexico Ties NC State, Tuohy & Chmiel Go 1-2, Northern Arizona Is Legit

Ladies and gentlemen, this was a really big meet.

Like, a REALLY big meet.

Trying to cover every single thing that happened between both the men's and women's races is a boarderline impossible task for a single article. So what we'll do is cover the women today and the men tomorrow.

Sure, it's not ideal, but there is only so much that one human can write in a single day.

So with that, let's break down the performances from some of the top teams in this field. And yes, some teams will garner more analysis than others.

That's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

CLICK HERE FOR RESULTS

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1. NC State Wolfpack (80 points)

2. New Mexico Lobos (80 points)

We have to talk about these two teams together because you can't highlight one without highlighting the other.

Ya know, sometimes, I wonder if watching cross country streams are really necessary when talking about team races. There's only so much that you can takeaway from watching the top-10ish individuals in each race.

When watching the women's race unfold, it looked like the NC State women were just going to steamroll their competition. Katelyn Tuohy and Kelsey Chmiel ended up handling the front of this race with ease, eventually finishing 1-2 in the overall results.

With teammates Sam Bush and Sydney Seymour also making their presence known at the front of this battle, I just couldn't imagine a scenario where the firepower of any other team, specifically New Mexico, would be able to counter what NC State was able to offer (unless the Wolfpack's fifth scorer dropped off the face of the Earth).

But when the results were settled, the Lobos had put together a shockingly impressive display of depth and pack-running. The combination of Samree Dishon, Gracelyn Larkin, Amelia Mazza-Downie, Elise Thorner and Emma Heckel went 8-9-12-25-26, respectively, in the overall results.

And yet, if you had told me that the Lobos would earn those finishes coming into this race, I think I would only be surprised by Dishon. When it comes to everyone else in this lineup, those performances were not at all surprising.

However, I wasn't expecting to see Bush (16th) and Seymour (23rd) falter as hard from the front as they did. Neither woman had a poor showing, but that scoring duo had the potential to finish in the top-10, individually.

Instead, the savior of the day for NC State was likely Nevada Mareno, the Wolfpack veteran who locked-down an absolutely clutch 36th place finish. That is arguably one of the best cross country races of her career. Without her performing as well as she does, then the Lobos get the winning edge by a few points.

Now, lot of people will look at these results and potentially suggest that NC State and New Mexico are about even as far as talent and scoring are concerned...and understandably so!

After all, they just tied on the biggest non-national meet stage of the year.

BUT, let's not forget that New Mexico beat NC State last year at Nuttycombe before the Wolfpack went on to win NCAA gold. That's largely because All-American Hannah Steelman didn't race at Nuttycombe last fall, but later reappeared at the national meet.

And in 2022, it'll likely be a similar story.

Neither Marlee Starliper nor Savannah Shaw ran for NC State on Friday. If they had, then the Wolfpack women likely get a clear-cut win.

By how much? Probably not a lot, but enough where we aren't questioning if the NC State women are still national title favorites.

I think the ultimate takeaway from this race is that the NC State women are still the national title favorites...but not by as much as we thought they would be. The New Mexico women clearly boast an extremely deep lineup which benefits them in these mega-sized fields.

If NC State can't close out their top-five scoring faster in the future, then the Lobos could very easily win NCAA gold come November. But if/when the Wolfpack women do run a full lineup, I still don't know how they would lose.

As for the individual race, Tuohy is awesome and I don't really have much more to say about that. Instead, let's quickly chat about Kelsey Chmiel. We had some uncertainties as to how she would perform after an extended absence from racing, but she looked phenomenal with her runner-up finish.

Tuohy may have won by five seconds, but Chmiel wasn't exactly shaken off from her superstar teammate.

3. Northern Arizona Lumberjacks (244 points)

Welp, the suspicions are true.

The Northern Arizona women are legit.

After their monster showing at the Cowboy Jamboree where they earned a runner-up finish, we basically said, "Wow, that was cool, but can you do it again?"

And they did!

Elise Stearns made a statement with her monumental 3rd place finish, looking incredibly strong the entire way. Her low-stick scoring spark was phenomenal, but there was also a catch: Stearns was only NAU runner in the top-30.

Annika Reiss (40th) had another great showing, although it certainly wasn't quite as strong as what we saw from her at the Cowboy Jamboree. Meanwhile Taryn O'Neill (64th), Alexis Kebbe (66th) and Jesselyn Bries (71st) closed out the Lumberjacks' top-five with depth that simply gave this team no flaws.

With Megan Van Pelt finishing 84th as the team's sixth runner, I'm struggling to figure out what I'm supposed to dislike about this lineup. They have (some) elite firepower, outstanding depth, interchangeable scoring options and, maybe more importantly, room for improvement.

Reiss was solid, but her Cowboy Jamboree result says that she could have been even better. It's a similar story for Taryn O'Neill who was projected to be a top-20 name in this field.

Do I think that this team could contend with NC State and New Mexico? No, I don't, but if the backend of Alabama or Oklahoma State's lineup falls apart, then NAU could easily be the fourth podium team in 2022.

4. BYU Cougars (252 points)

*Shrugs shoulders*

Yeah, that seems about right.

The BYU women pretty much matched most of our expectations, although I did think that the backend of their lineup would be a little bit better.

Aubrey Frentheway (12th) matched expectations and ran a really gutsy race while McKenna Lee (15th) had one of the best performances of her career.

Lexy Hallady (57th) and Carmen Alder (63rd) were actually better than NAU's third and fourth scorers, giving the BYU women a more complete lineup through 80% of their scoring options. However, with the Cougars' final scorer faltering to 106th place (which isn't even that bad of a result), the women from Provo had to settle for a 4th place team finish.

With Jenna Hutchins not in this race after a tough start to her season and winter cross country All-American Lindsey Stallworth in the "B" race, the BYU women seemingly have limited options in the latter-half of their 2022 varsity lineup.

Even so, I think there is still enough firepower and middle-lineup scoring support for the Cougars to *potentially* be a podium team. However, when you factor Alabama and Oklahoma State back into this mix, that podium possibility becomes increasingly more challenging to envision for the Cougars.

Regardless, this was a solid result that BYU should be fairly happy about.

5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (257 points)

I give up!

I have no idea how to think about this team.

At the Joe Piane Invitational, the Fighting Irish women finished 4th overall, but they were fairly close to a 5th place Florida State team that just finished 24th at Nuttycombe on Friday.

And if you had told me that Maddy Denner was not going to be a scorer for this team in Madison, Wisconsin, then I would have said that there was no way that the Irish would be a top-five team.

And I would have been wrong.

Olivia Markezich (17th) was unsurprisingly great. However, with teammates Katie Thronson, Annasophia Keller, Erin Strzelecki and Siona Chisolm going 46-52-61-81, respectively, in the overall results, there just weren't any scoring gaps that held this team back.

In fact, that lack of a scoring drop-off is what almost gave this team an edge over BYU. And if Maddy Denner had actually run to her All-American potential, then we're looking at the Irish women finishing 3rd over Northern Arizona!

There are still major questions about this team, mainly in terms of their consistency and whether or not they can have everyone run well on the same day.

But the potential that they flashed at last year's national meet is very clearly still there following Friday's performance.

6. North Carolina Tar Heels (280 points)

I don't know if this was a "best case" scenario for the North Carolina women, but it was certainly one of their better possible outcomes going into Friday's race.

Brynn Brown (19th) did her part, but teammate Kelsey Harrington (27th) probably had one of the best performances of her career. Taryn Parks (50th) continues to emerge as a really underrated middle-lineup scorer, Fatima Alanis (89th) had a respectable day and Sasha Neglia (95th) did well enough.

Some of these women, mainly Neglia, are likely capable of more, but for the most part, this was a really great result for the Tar Heels. They beat the teams that they were capable of taking down, showed a good balance of firepower and scoring support and didn't really take a surprising loss to anyone.

7. Stanford Cardinal (285 points)

I really liked this result for the Stanford women!

Sure, their 7th place team result was maybe a little bit expected, but their scoring structure lacked very few weaknesses. Zofia Dudek (16th) is getting closer to her low-stick role from the winter of 2021 while her supporting cast was beyond excellent.

Lucy Jenks (58th), Audrey Suarez (65th), Audrey Dadamio (72nd), Abi Archer (74th) and Riley Stewart (76th) all ran together as a collective pack, showcasing far better depth than we were expecting the Cardinal to have in 2022.

I think Jenks, and maybe even Stewart, can be better in future races, but that's not the important part. If this team can continue to flex incredible depth and scoring steadiness, then they may be a lock for a top-10 finish at the national meet.

The only question, however, is how much more firepower can they pair next to Dudek?

8. Utah Utes (303 points)

Fantastic result for Utah, I was thrilled with how they raced.

I think people forget how good this team was last fall. Their national meet performance was not great, but for the most part, this is a talented group. And while they did lose a few women from last year, they've still got an excellent core -- something they showed us on Friday.

You gotta love the comeback story that we've seen from Emily Venters. She ran with zero fear in this race and was stride for stride with the leaders, outlasting a couple of top-ranked stars.

Her 6th place result makes me feel like she's not just the same Emily Venters from her Boise State days -- she may actually be better now than she was back then.

It's hard not to root for her.

However, one could argue that Simone Plourde (22nd) was the biggest scoring hero in Utah;s lineup, producing another low-stick result that really gave this team an exciting spark. I think we knew that Plourde had the potential to be significantly better in 2022, but gosh, this was impressive stuff.

Keelah Barger (49th) and Ariel Keklak (60th) had super underrated performances on Friday and I just really love the value that they bring to the middle of this lineup.

However, just like we highlighted in our summer rankings, this isn't necessarily a complete lineup. Utah's fifth scorer faded to 171st overall on Friday, limiting the Utes from potentially leap-frogging numerous powerhouses.

Based on this lineup structure, Friday's result might be Utah's ceiling this season, although I certainly hope I'm wrong.

9. Colorado Buffaloes (306 points)

Gosh, what is going on with the Colorado women?

Bailey Hertenstein was fantastic, placing 5th overall, while Emily Covert settled for a solid, but unexciting, 29th place result. And while Covert certainly could have been better, she was certainly not the main driver behind Colorado fading a bit in these results.

Ella Baran ran well, holding her own with 47th place finish. However, after her, things began to fall apart. The Buffaloes had no other scorers in the top-100 and Hannah Miniutti, who was a DNF at the Cowboy Jamboree, had a really rough outing as well.

There is clearly so much untapped scoring potential within this Colorado lineup, but the backend support of this lineup just hasn't quite rallied like we thought they would.

To be clear, a 9th place finish at Nuttycombe isn't at all bad, but for a team that like Colorado, they are likely capable of doing so much more.

10. Georgetown Hoyas (310 points)

I'll admit, I thought Georgetown would be closer to the top-five than outside of the top-10 at the Nuttycombe Invite...but a 10th place finish is still pretty darn good!

Coming into this race, I thought that the Hoyas would show greater scoring potency and firepower followed by a significant scoring drop-off. But instead, they flexed a lineup structure that was somewhat compact (as far as scoring is concerned) as all five of their runners finished in the top-100.

Donahue, Jensen, Corman, McDonald and Chloe Gonzalez went 33-41-55-88-93, respectively, in the overall results.

But wait, there's a catch!

Chloe Scrimgeour didn't race on Friday. In our last update, she was listed as a top-50 individual in the country. If she enters this race and finishes in the top-50, then you're looking at Georgetown cutting off roughly 40 points and challenging for a top-five spot.

So generally speaking, this result was perfectly on par with our expectations!

11. Oregon Ducks (363 points)

Bravo, Oregon!

We had serious doubts and concerns about the Oregon women coming into this race. They were without star low-stick Alessia Zarbo, we didn't see Izzy Thornton-Bott dominate the Bill Dellinger Invite like she did in 2021 and the rest of this supporting cast hadn't really shown us anything of note.

In our eyes, a top-20 finish for this team would have been a great accomplishment.

But then Thornton-Bott placed 24th overall for a nice scoring spark while Emilie Girard (53rd) and Maddy Elmore (59th) secured a pair of top-60 finishes. And with two other women just barely cracking the top-115, the Ducks were actually about to close out their scoring fairly quickly compared to a few other programs.

No, Oregon isn't perfect, but their roster as a whole rallied on Friday in a major way. The Ducks needed numerous women to step up and have the best races of their careers.

And generally speaking, they did just that.

If this team returns Zarbo for the postseason, which isn't a guarantee, then the Ducks will be a team with a lot of sneaky-good momentum.

12. Toledo Rockets (500 points)

Validation!

After ranking the Toledo women at TSR #25 in our preseason team rankings, the Rockets settled for an early-season loss to Illinois and a modest 7th place finish at Joe Piane.

That, unfortunately, was not enough for them to stay in our top-25.

But after Friday's race, that will likely change.

The Rockets had Joy Chirchir (35th) and Faith Linga (70th) give the Rockets two fairly solid front-runners while the rest of this supporting cast just needed to not collapse. Madeline Vining was 99th, a fairly solid result, while the final two Toledo scorers stayed within the top-160 overall.

Toledo isn't going to blow anyone away this season, but Friday was a great example of how sneaky-good this team can be when they are able to assemble a fairly complete scoring-five.

13. Syracuse Orange (506 points)

Honestly, I don't have much to say about the Syracuse women.

They perfectly matched many of our expectations and truthfully, I don't think anyone should be surprised. And that's not a bad thing!

If anything, they just validated their performance from the Cowboy Jamboree.

None of our writers had Syracuse in the top-10 of our predictions, but I like to think that many of us would have put them in our top-15 if we had been asked. A 13th place finish in this field also seems to align with their TSR #18 ranking.

Savannah Roark's 31st place finish was an awesome result which truly validated herself as a low-stick. That's roughly where we expected her to be, although one of our writers had her in the top-20.

And while there was only one other Syracuse runner in the top-100, no scorer in this lineup finished outside of the top-140 spots.

So...yeah.

Solid result, just nothing crazy or surprising.

14. Wisconsin Badgers (506 points)

Really nice redemption race for the Wisconsin women after a not-so-great effort at the Griak Invitational earlier this season.

The Badgers were admittedly missing a few names back in September, but they likely had more scoring potential in them at the Griak Invitational -- and they showed that on Friday.

The Wisconsin women fielded a lineup that didn't produce any results that truly blew us away or left us majorly concerned. They simply had a really solid lineup with decent scoring value...and that's about it.

Rhuly (43rd) was solid, Stieve (83rd) held her own, Heiligenthal (97th) had a nice rebound effort, Lucinda Crouch (128th) was solid-ish while still leaving room for improvement and Emma Watcke (143rd) wasn't much worse than what we saw from fifth scorers on other teams.

I don't know if this group has a super high ceiling, but when they run a somewhat full lineup, then they don't have too low of a floor, either.

15. Providence Friars (511 points)

After a slightly underwhelming outing at Paul Short, the Lady Friars were able to rally for a 15th place finish at Nuttycombe.

The rise of Jane Buckley (38th) has been a much-needed development and Shannon Flockhart (77th) is producing the results that we were expecting out of her.

However, the final three scorers in this lineup, Kimberly May, Niamh O'Mahoney and Lily Tuck, went 109-132-155, respectively, in the overall results. Sixth runner, Laura Mooney, had a tough day in 177th place.

Both Tuck and Mooney can be dramatically better than they were on Friday. Knowing that should leave you feeling pretty good if you're Providence. However, even if those women do run at their full potential, then I'm not entirely sure that the Friars even beat Oregon.

Still, this was a solid result that will likely push the Providence women into the national meet, and that's not something that I could convincingly say was going to happen after Paul Short.

16. Washington Huskies (515 points)

Was this a great result for Washington?

No, not really, but when you consider that Madison Heisterman had an "off" day, star low-stick Haley Herberg didn't run and this team was relying almost entirely on freshman, then it's hard to say that this was poor performance.

Anna Gibson (39th) continues to emerge as a really nice scorer for this team in the absence of Herberg and truthfully, the Huskies' supporting cast was actually pretty solid. They had all five of their scorers finish in the top-150.

With greater firepower, which is something that we know Washington has yet to truly unveil, the Huskies are likely closer to an 11th place team in this field. However, we'll still need to see how Herberg performs when she returns and what Heisterman can do when she's racing at her full potential.

But for now, this is a respectable result.

17. Colorado State Rams (518 points)

The Colorado State women were a team that was definitely on our radar coming into this season. We thought they had sneaky-good depth and very few lineup flaws.

However, an unexciting Griak Invitational performance, which wasn't even bad, didn't leave us too inspired. And truthfully, the same thing can be said here.

Sarah Carter (62nd) and Lily Tomsula-Martin (73rd) pretty much ran how we thought they would, but we also thought Annabel Stafford would be a bit better after fading to 145th.

But if Stafford is better in the future, then the overall scoring stability of this lineup is actually pretty solid. At the very least, it's an improvement on what we saw from this team at the Griak Invitational where the Rams had a fairly significant scoring drop-off after their top-three.

Colorado State may have finished 17th on Friday, but given what we already know about this squad, this was actually a fairly encouraging result if everyone is firing on all cylinders in the future.

18. Michigan State Spartans (530 points)

I really don't have a whole lot to say about the Michigan State women. This is roughly where we saw them finishing, although I'm not sure all of our writers would have put the Spartans in the top-20 of their predictions.

Katie Osika (37th) is clearly this team's true front-runner and McKenna Veen (97th) looks like a fairly competent second scorer. But after those two, the Michigan State women had a wide array of runners who were scattered throughout the top-165 spots of these results.

The Spartans have tons of backend options for their varsity lineup, but trying to figure out who from that group is going to step up and offer greater scoring potency is what will truly determine how high this team goes in 2022.

19. Arkansas Razorbacks (533 points)

People will look at this 19th place result for Arkansas and assume that they ran poorly...but that's not entirely truly. In fact, well over half of their scoring group actually did pretty well.

Isabel Van Camp continues to flex her talent with a huge 10th place finish. Meanwhile, teammates Sydney Thorvaldson (78th) and Mia Cochran (80th) gave this team a really underrated 1-2-3 punch.

But with the final two Razorback scorers finishing 180th and 195th, there just wasn't enough support to truly let Arkansas' low-stick scoring value shine.

20. Utah Valley Wolverines (544 points)

Not going to lie, this one was a little disappointing to see.

The Utah Valley women were fantastic at the Cowboy Jamboree, placing 7th overall in a loaded field. The Wolverines later went to Paul Short where they just flat-out struggled, placing 5th overall (far from 4th place) in a field where they should have finished 3rd.

Everlyn Kemboi (13th) continues to be excellent this year for the Wolverines, but Mazzie Melaney (90th) was the only other UVU scorer in the top-100. Their bottom-three scorers finished outside of the top-130 and their fifth scorer settled for a 174th place finish overall.

Is Utah Valley still a nationally competitive team?

Yes, for the most part, I think they are.

But trying to properly gauge this team moving forward feels like an impossible task right now.

21. Michigan Wolverines (545 points)

After an underwhelming result at the Cowboy Jamboree where they placed 10th overall, fellow podcast co-hot Ben Weisel was able to convince me that the Wolverines would be fine and that Ericka VanderLende just had to run like her usual self to match our expectations.

And mathematically speaking, he was right.

However, the Wolverines struggled on Friday. They had three women in the top-100, but Kayla Windemuller was their best scorer in 68th place. No other Wolverine runner finished in the top-130, Katelynne Hart didn't have a great day and Ericka VanderLende was nowhere to be seen.

This is a talented team! I truly believe that when I say it.

The problem, however, is that the Michigan women can't get everyone to run well on the same day and these larger fields have proven to be a fairly significant challenge for many of these Wolverine distance talents.

22. Furman Paladins (556 points)

Yep, this seems about right.

The Furman women are still SO young, although I feel like I've been saying that since the start of the new century...but it's true! This is a fairly inexperienced group and they are relying so heavily on underclassmen to carry this team's scoring burden.

Bethany Graham (30th) is still an awesome front-runner and when you look at the middle portion of this lineup, which went 91-115-141 in the overall results, the Paladins weren't that much more worse than a few of the teams in the top-20.

Yes, their fifth scorer did fade to 185th, but if she had been closer to the the top-150, then we're looking at a 16th-ish place performance for the Furman women.

There is still some decent scoring value within this lineup despite what their Nuttycombe result suggests.

23. Air Force Falcons (567 points)

If I'm Air Force, I'm fairly happy with this result.

Finishing 23rd overall ahead of some established programs is encouraging, especially from a Kolas scenario. Beating Florida State, Utah State and Harvard could potentially yield a total of three Kolas points.

But I think the most exciting development for this team was seeing Lindsey Peters (20th) and Halle Hamilton (21st) give the Air Force women a MASSIVE scoring spark. That is tremendous low-stick value that many of the teams in the top-10 didn't have.

Now, admittedly, no one else on this team finished inside the top-145 and their fifth scorer faded to outside of the top-210. That's certainly not ideal, but when you have the scoring potency that Peters and Hamilton offer, then it's hard to be too upset.

24. Florida State Seminoles (588 points)

Welp, that wasn't a great race for Florida State.

A semi-encouraging 5th place result at Joe Piane left us feeling good about FSU and what they would be able to offer in terms of scoring this season. However, that fast Joe Piane course may have skewed our perspective of this team just a bit.

The Seminoles weren't necessarily terrible on Friday, especially with Alyson Churchill (51st) and Emmy van den Berg (83rd) finishing in the top-100, but the gaps throughout the rest of this lineup were far too great to overcome, especially with no one in the top-50 of this race.

Quick Hits

25. Indiana Hoosiers (620 points)

Yep, this seems about right. I like that Sarah Schmitt finished 43rd and Mariah Wehrle finished 69th, but this team is still very much in development.

26. Oregon State Beavers (626 points)

Kaylee Mitchell (4th) and Grace Fetherstonhaugh (14th) have been SO good this year. However, between injuries, certainly transfers not working out and just a couple of "off" days, there was only so much Oregon State could do in this field.

27. Iowa State Cyclones (631 points)

I feel like people were probably a little surprised that we left Iowa State out of our top-25 preseason rankings, but we saw this coming. They just don't have any legitimate firepower and their depth is very limited, although we do think that Dana Feyen is trending in the right direction.

28. Utah State Aggies (647 points)

We were pretty high on the Utah State women coming into this year, but the lineup gaps that they showed at Paul Short (where they placed 4th) grew only wider on Friday.

29. Harvard Crimson (652 points)

It feels weird to see the Harvard women at 29th place in this field. On paper, they have so many highly-talented names. Maia Ramsden (7th) is budding into a legitimate star, but there are a handful of women who I thought would be better for the Crimson this season.

30. Boise State Broncos (663 points)

Yasmin Marghini's 44th place finish was nice, but with many of Boise State's supporting scorers over 100 spots back, there just wasn't enough help on this team to advance the Broncos out of the lower-tier of these results.

31. Princeton Tigers (672 points)

Abigail Loveys (34th) has been a pleasant surprise this season and Page Lester (92nd) was really solid on Friday as well. But with projected low-stick Fiona Max fading in this race and no one else inside the top-170, the Princeton women could only do so much. I do think they'll be notably better in the near future.

32. Duke Blue Devils (676 points)

I really liked this team coming into this cross country season, but that's probably because I recognized a lot of these scoring options and thought a lot of them had high potential. That theory hasn't looked great this season, but Amina Maatoug (28th) has been awesome and freshman star Dalia Frias (67th) is getting better.

33. Portland Pilots (752 points)

Laura Pellicoro (32nd) has been a far greater low-stick than I thought she would be this season, but there just wasn't enough scoring support for this team to stand out in this field.

34. Minnesota Golden Gophers (789 points)

It's a rebuilding year and they just had jaw-dropping success for the last three-ish years.

Let's cut 'em some slack.

35. Tulsa Golden Hurricanes (885 points)

I admittedly don't have much to say about Tulsa, mainly because I don't know much about this team. I feel like they're still looking for an identity and a true lead scorer for national-caliber fields such as these.

36. Gonzaga Bulldogs (977 points)

Gosh, I'm a little surprised by this result.

The Gonzaga women finished 4th at the West Regional XC Championships last year, returned numerous scorers and only got better by bringing in a graduate transfer from Oregon.

I didn't think they would be last in this race and I also didn't think that they would be last by over 90 points.