The Group Chat: Can NYU Win NCAA Gold? Plus, UW-La Crosse Over UW-Whitewater & Carolyn Shult’s Rise

Written by Kevin Fischer, Conor Daly & Gavin Struve

Questions, edits and additional commentary via Gavin Struve & Garrett Zatlin

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We saw no shortage of significant results between all the Division Three conference meets this past weekend. As such, we have some work to do ahead of our the third update to our team and individual rankings set to release early next week.

In the meantime, we saw it fit to round up our Division Three coverage team for a group chat to provide additional analysis of all the important results and key developments we just saw.

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Does Christian Patzka’s win over Ethan Gregg make him the clear-cut national title favorite? If so, would you take him over the field?

Conor: From my point of view, there’s a clear top-two among Division Three individuals. And luckily for us, we had the opportunity of seeing them go head-to-head this past weekend.

The showdown lived up to the hype with Patzka ultimately edging Gregg by four seconds. That small margin of victory doesn’t necessarily indicate that Patzka is significantly more fit than Gregg, although it must do wonders for Patzka’s confidence to take home a win like that.

I don’t think that the result of this matchup changes how we should look at the individual title race. Both of these men are running really well right now and each could very much take home gold at the end of the month. Gregg still remains Patzka’s biggest competitor and is more than capable of flipping the script.

It would be a bit crazy to bet against Patzka right now, so I would take him over the field. No, he’s not untouchable by any means, but he does have some big wins to his name over some of our highest-ranked athletes.

Kevin: It depends how you define "clear-cut favorite." Is Patzka the national title favorite? Yes. You can't argue with his high-quality wins at both the Augustana Interregional meet and the WIAC XC Championships.

But I think Ethan Gregg, after only losing to Patzka by four seconds and already boasting a really nice finish at Paul Short, has more than just a puncher's chance. I agree with Conor that there is a clear top-two individuals, and if I had to put it in terms of percentages, I'd give Patzka a 50% chance to win a national title in three weeks with a 40% chance for Gregg and a 10% chance for the rest of the field.

Gavin: I’m with Conor and Kevin that Patzka has to be the favorite, but that it wouldn’t be a total shock to see Gregg take him down.

That being said, I’d still take Patzka over the field and I think I’m even more bullish than them in my assessment of Patzka as a national title contender on a tier above Gregg. He now boasts four different valuable wins over individuals listed in our top-20 rankings and has yet to lose to anyone from another team.

Until he falters, Patzka resides on his own plane of competition.

The NYU women beat our TSR #1 team, U. of Chicago, fairly comfortably at the UAA XC Championships. Should that make the Violets our new TSR #1 squad and presumptive national title favorite? Why or why not?

Conor: I’m going to say it: The NYU women have been the biggest surprise (in D3) on either side this fall. Two years ago, they didn’t have a single individual qualify for the national meet. Last year, they finished a modest 26th place as a team. Today, the Violets have a very real case to be the top-ranked team in the nation.

What NYU did at the UAA XC Championships was remarkable. NYU’s first runner beat U. of Chicago’s first runner. NYU’s second runner beat U. of Chicago’s second runner. This pattern continued to hold for every member of NYU’s top-seven which is crazy impressive considering how insanely deep the Maroons are.

Grace Richardson had proven to be a talented runner before, but she is emerging as a far more potent scorer in 2023. The rise Morgan Uhlhorn has been a welcomed development when talking about the Violets' firepower and Vivian Kane is slowly rounding back into top form after a phenomenal 2022 regular season campaign.

The Maroons recently beat our then-TSR #1 squad, Wartburg, and now NYU beats our current TSR #1 group in U. of Chicago. By that transitive property (which is admittedly not super nuanced), it’s hard not to consider the Violets as the top-ranked team in the country and the national title favorites.

Kevin: Yes, I think so. When there's a result like this that looks like a big upset on paper, there are two ways of thinking about it: The favorite who lost was overhyped or the underdog who won was underrated.

And I think in this case, it's absolutely the latter.

As Conor mentioned above, U. of Chicago earned their own TSR #1 ranking after beating our-then TSR #1 squad, Wartburg, at the Augustana Interregional. In other words, their ranking was based on a concrete head-to-head result rather than projecting potential -- any idea of the Maroons being fraudulent in any way is a massive overreaction.

After all, key scorers such as Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel and Maddie Kelly, among others, have more than proven themselves as top-tier names within Division Three in past races/seasons.

That evaluation makes NYU's victory even more impressive. We knew that they were a much-improved team with a great group of returners and newcomers, but they needed a marquee win like this over a contender to cement their rising status. And sure enough, they went out there on Saturday and blasted expectations out of the water.

Gavin: I may need to see more to feel really confident about calling the Violets’ bona fide national title favorites. In fact, I may even predict a different outcome when these teams two face-off again later in the season.

But if I'm being forced to choose, then it’s hard to suggest that anyone else is worthy of our TSR #1 spot and national title favorite status after seeing NYU continue to win in the fashion that they have throughout this fall.

This is a team with firepower, depth and a strong scoring structure, perhaps more so than any other team. And maybe most importantly, they’ve yet to display any real flaws or reason for concern while competing in a variety of race settings.

After comfortably defeating UW-Whitewater at the WIAC XC Championships, do you view the UW-La Crosse men as a podium favorite? On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you in that assessment?

Conor: The UW-La Crosse men put on a show this weekend. Their top-five finished within the top-seven spots, only broken up by our TSR #1 runner, Christian Patzka, and his teammate, Gunner Schlender (TSR #7). And honestly, it's hard to find a flaw in the Eagles' varsity lineup. Everyone ran at or above expectations this past weekend.

The most significant performance for the Eagles was Grant Matthai emerging as their second scorer, ahead of both Isaac Wegner and Schlender. If this still-young distance talent is able to replicate that kind of performance and scoring value in the coming weeks, then that would greatly increase UW-La Crosse’s stock.

Coming into the weekend, the Eagles were likely seen as a podium team, but now I’d say that it's almost a guarantee. Not only would that I say my confidence level is at a "9" in terms of that happening, but I would even go as far to say that this performance left me asking whether UW-La Crosse could potentially challenge North Central for the national title...

Kevin: Absolutely. We had UW-Whitewater at TSR #3 going into this weekend and UW-La Crosse sitting at TSR #4, so it wasn't surprising that the scoring almost looked like that of a dual meet.

However, what was surprising was how much more maroon there was than purple at the front pack. The Eagles scored only 22 points by putting three runners ahead of Schlender and five runners ahead of Dan Anderson who was the Warhawks’ third scorer.

In the Warhawks defense, Craig Hundley could have been a few spots higher and you could say the same thing about Justin Krause. When those guys are on firing on all cylinders, then these team's scores are likely a bit closer, although that still wouldn't have been enough to take down UW-La Crosse.

I’d also offer a "9" out of 10 for my confidence in the Eagles reaching the podium.

Winning with that level of dominance not only makes UW-La Crosse podium favorites, but serious contenders for the national title. I believe that they are deeper and better than MIT at this point in the season and they can't be that far off from a North Central team who fared pretty similarly against UW-Whitewater at the Augustana Interregional.

Gavin: We went back-and-forth as to whether the Warhawks or Eagles deserved to be listed at TSR #3 in our most recent rankings update. The former ultimately jumped the latter because they beat Wartburg (previously TSR #3) at the Augustana Interregional. We viewed that as a more significant result than UW-La Crosse winning the Drews/Neubauer Invitational.

And while this conference meet showing contradicts their placement in our rankings, I’m glad that we got a definitive result like this. It gives us far more clarity entering the most important month of the season.

The Eagles' WIAC triumph makes them a clear podium favorite and I’d ascribe a confidence level of “8” to that assessment. I don’t think North Central is a clear favorite to win the team title over the field, so to speak, but I’m not quite ready to suggest that the Eagles are an immense national title threat yet.

That conversation will ultimately hinge on whether or not Grant Matthai can continue to display the level of scoring potency that he offered at the WIAC XC Championships.

After seeing her finish 2nd at the Augustana Interregional and winning the WIAC individual title, what is Carolyn Shult’s ceiling over the next month?

Conor: Carolyn Shult has taken the nation by storm over the last few weeks.

In her last two outings, she has beaten a handful of projected top-half All-Americans, and even did so by a comfortable margin in many scenarios. That was the case this past weekend when she beat the conference runner-up finisher, Maddie Hannan, by 25 seconds.

At this point, there’s not much more that Shult can do that would surprise me. She’s looking like a likely (borderline safe) top-10 finisher at the national meet. I’m going to say that a TSR #3 ranking (and/or a bronze medal at the national meet) is her ceiling behind Fiona Smith and Genna Girard.

Kevin: Outside of Fiona Smith, there is a lot of parity in the Division Three women's individual scene right now following the departures of stars like Kassie Parker, Ana Tucker, Annika Urban and Clara Mayfield all in the same year.

That has left a little bit of a hole in terms of truly top-end talent, but the depth across the nation is just as impressive as it has ever been, if not more so.

What this means for Carolyn Shult is that a national meet finish anywhere between 2nd place and 15th place would not be shocking. And while it will be tough to beat Genna Girard, who has emerged as the favorite to be the runner-up behind Smith, it is certainly not impossible.

So I'd say Shult's ceiling is earning runners-up honors at the national meet.

Gavin: I’m just as high on Shult’s ceiling as my colleagues, and I would agree that her ceiling is as high as anyone other than Fiona Smith.

However, I am given a little pause by the fact that she was nearly as good throughout the season last year before faltering to 85th at the 2022 NCAA XC Championships. Not only that, but her track season leading into this fall was not all too different from her 2022 campaign on the oval, either.

The most likely explanation is that Shult made another leap over the summer and that her cross country national meet result from last fall was an aberration.

So while this Bluegold veteran could certainly be among the top individuals in the nation at the end of this season, she appears to have a wider range of outcomes than her high-level competition, something that Kevin perfectly articulated.

Given how they comfortably beat Amherst at the NESCAC XC Championships, what is the ceiling of the Williams women moving forward?

Conor: After a rough start earlier in the season, it’s clear that the Williams women are headed in the right direction. Genna Girard has been dominating her competition and, arguably more importantly, Ella Ball is looking like she is close to returning to top form.

This matchup was expected to be really close, but it turned out to not be in the slightest. The Ephs scored 40 points, easily outpacing the Mammoths who settled for a score of 71 points.

I don’t think that Williams' overwhelming victory was because the Ephs ran particularly well, but rather because a couple of key contributors for Amherst had “off” days. Amherst’s second and third scorers at D3 Pre-Nationals finished sixth and eighth for their team, respectively, at the NESCAC XC Championships.

Although this performance does show that Williams is ever-so-slightly trending in the right direction, this doesn’t change too much about how I view them. I’d say that their ceiling is 5th place on the national stage, most likely behind NYU, U. of Chicago, Wartburg and Carleton.

However, it would admittedly take a lot to go right for this favorable projection to become a reality, as Williams would need to beat Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and MIT, a pair of squads who have already toppled them twice this season.

Gavin: I’m in no hurry to rule them out of podium contention, but I agree with Conor that Williams’ ceiling appears closer to matching their 6th place national meet finish from last fall rather than landing any better than that.

Even so, this was a reassuring win over a rival who they had faltered against earlier this fall. But one of the Ephs’ key scorers, Molly Fitzgibbons, has still yet to rediscover her top-half All-American form. She wasn’t bad by any means and is still a valuable scorer, but she’s been measurably behind Girard and Ball in every setting this fall.

It’s going to be hard for Williams to realize their full potential if that continues to be the case, but this is also a team that, as we're seeing now, often peaks for the postseason.

Kevin: Given how unpredictable cross country national meets in the past have been, I’m going to say that the ceiling for this team is a podium finish.

My mind keeps going back to last fall when the SUNY Geneseo men, who came into the national meet outside of our top-10, snagged a 3rd place finish. That makes me hesitant to rule anything like that out. Even so, that is not a likely scenario for the Ephs.

Beating Amherst comfortably is absolutely a step in the right direction, but there is still a notable gap on paper between the Ephs and the top few teams, especially in terms of backend scorers.

As Gavin mentioned, Fitzgibbons hasn’t been quite where we expected her to be. But if she can get back to her best racing in the next few weeks, then that will be a major boost for this team which could allow them to beat our current expectations.

With a victory at the MIAC XC Championships, Mohammed Bati snagged his third win of the season while competing in some strong fields. How seriously should we take him as a top-half (top-20) All-American candidate?

Conor: Mohammed Bati has built himself a serious resume this fall which has mostly gone under the radar...that is, until recently.

Finishing ahead of Gunner Schlender at the Blugold Invitational and winning over Will Kelly on the conference stage are a pair of impressive feats. Those two opponents are both projected to be top-half All-Americans (by virtue of being in our top-20 individual rankings), so Bati is for sure in the conversation.

Admittedly, I do worry about whether he will be able to replicate his regular season performances on the national stage. His 2022 cross country national meet showing was flat-out poor and he hasn’t had a chance to redeem himself on the national stage since.

Kevin: Mohammed Bati is definitely a serious candidate to finish in the top-20. Those victories over Schlender and Kelly that Conor mentioned are really high-quality wins that have to put Bati among the top Division Three talents.

Yes, he has had a little bit of inconsistency in his history, but I'm not too concerned by his cross country national meet performance last fall. It was one meet in pretty brutal conditions, and it’s the only national meet that we have seen him at -- the sample size is a little too small to judge that accurately.

Gavin: Like Conor and Kevin, I am slightly apprehensive to declare anything about Bati given that we’ve seen him just once at a national meet and it was a subpar showing.

It also doesn’t necessarily help his case that he was just as strong throughout last season leading up to that result, so cynics may suggest that there’s little room for improvement to end this fall campaign.

But that was Bati’s only appearance on the national stage to date. I’m banking on the idea that he has learned from that experience and will run much more up to his ability in a few weeks’ time. As such, I would say Bati is a top-half All-American favorite because for the majority of two cross country seasons now, he has looked like a clear-cut top-20 talent on the grass.

Between the respective dominance of the Carleton women and Fiona Smith, did we learn anything new from the MIAC XC Championship women’s race?

Conor: Fiona Smith winning, and doing so by a large margin, just doesn’t surprise me anymore. Smith’s “narrowest” margin of victory this season was by 40 seconds. That was against Hannah Pressier of Carleton who was also in this race.

This time around, Pressier was the runner-up finisher by just over 90 seconds, although that result likely tells us more about Pressier than Smith.

As for the Carleton women, they continue to be really, really good. The development of Helen Cross as a high-impact scorer this fall has been huge for them. When you add in Pressier, Phoebe Ward and Sophie McManus to the mix, you have one of the best front-four scoring groups in the nation. And with their backend members running well, the Knights have enough insurance at their fifth scoring spot to not leave me worried.

The Knights are for sure podium favorites in my book. With their current momentum, there’s not any team that is out of their reach. But am I surprised by their recent efforts? And did we learn anything new? Well, I can't say that we did.

Kevin: Not really. Fiona Smith winning by a big margin was one of the least surprising results of last weekend and Carleton dominating the team race over St. Olaf was also expected.

Helen Cross (4th) was probably the most impressive Knight on the day. When McManus fell a little bit further back than expected, she was there to clean it up and jump right into that third scoring spot.

Outside of Preisser, there are a lot of fairly unheralded, but very good, athletes on this team. But that was already my assessment of Carleton before this weekend, so I wouldn't say that we gained too much information.

To pivot a little bit, it was good to see Alison Bode back racing for St. Olaf. She's not at her best yet, but the first meet back after a long hiatus from racing is always difficult.

Gavin: I agree that these results are hardly surprising, but they do reaffirm the dominance of Fiona Smith and the Carleton women independent of each other and add to our understanding of the national picture.

There’s virtually nothing that Smith can do to change our perception of her until, and perhaps even at, the national meet. It’s a similar situation with Carleton, a squad that swept spots 2-3-4 for a second commanding victory over St. Olaf.

But given that nothing’s guaranteed and that we don't run cross country on paper, it has to be reassuring for both Smith and the Knights to continue winning and putting forth ideal results regardless of the time, place or competition.

Have your estimations of the Pomona-Pitzer men changed at all after a convincing victory over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, an “Honorable Mention” team in TSR's rankings?

Conor: My estimations of the Pomona-Pitzer men have improved a good bit, although I certainly don't view them as the national title threats that we thought they were in September.

There were a lot of positives that came out of their SCIAC title from last weekend. Low-stick ace Lucas Florsheim (1st) rebounded from his tough Pre-Nationals performance by taking the individual title that we knew he was capable of. Not only that, but we also saw Colin Kirkpatrick (7th) return to the team's top-five! He was strangely absent at Pre-Nationals and then proceeded to race the next week, finishing as the Sagehens’ seventh runner.

Before this outing, I saw the Sagehens as a team that was in our top-10 mostly based on their potential more so than anything that they had achieved this season. But after putting some more encouraging results on paper this weekend, I now feel confident that the Sagehens will make a strong run at the podium.

Kevin: Yes, I think they needed a good performance and comfortable win like this to start the postseason. At D3 Pre-Nationals, their top-five average time-spread was eight seconds faster than that of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. But at the SCIAC XC Championships last weekend, that gap grew to 26 seconds.

Outside of what Conor mentioned as far as positives for the Sagehens, I think Derek Fearon's 3rd place performance was huge for him. The two-time cross country All-American had a really rough outing at D3 Pre-Nationals, so for him to earn bronze at this meet is a sign that he is at least close to where he has been in the past.

Over the last few years, we have always viewed Pomona-Pitzer as a serious title contender. And while this year's squad may not have as strong of a case for NCAA gold, they still have undeniable talent scattered throughout their roster. This past weekend, in my eyes, showed us that they are still a factor on the national scene.

Gavin: I’m still holding out considerable hope that the Sagehens will run up to their potential and that the whole will at least near the sum of their parts when it matters most this fall.

That’s not to say that this group is the title-contending Sagehens of old, but this was a very reassuring result as Pomona-Pitzer gears up for the heart of the postseason. And while I wouldn’t necessarily bet on them to get onto the podium, I’m struggling not to think about the potential of what this team could be as they make a top-four national meet push.