The Group Chat (D3): BJ Sorg Thrives at Spartan Invite, MIT & CMS Women Look Good Early

Written by Kevin Fischer, Conor Daly & Gavin Struve

Questions, edits and additional commentary via Gavin Struve

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With nearly a month of competition now in the books, we thought this week would be a fitting time to analyze some of the strongest team and individual performances that we've seen across the Division Three landscape in recent weeks.

Below, we asked a handful of our TSR contributors to give their thoughts on which results stood out and what they could mean. Here's what they had to say...

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Did we learn anything new about the North Central men at the MSU Spartan Invite?

Kevin: The biggest thing that we learned is how legitimately good true freshman BJ Sorg is.

He had already run very well at his season opener hosted by Wartburg, but that was a 5k race and a much smaller meet. However, after the Spartan Invite where he placed 23rd overall, we can comfortably say that Sorg is already a high-level talent. On paper, he gives the Cardinals a scoring five that looks much more complete.

Otherwise, nothing shocking really happened.

Connor Riss (8th) and Braden Nicholson (16th) were fairly close to where I expected them to be, although Riss was definitely on the better end. Meanwhile, Max Svienty (28th) and Andrew Guimond (29th) had slightly underwhelming days, but I’m not too worried about them.

We should note that there is a gap after this team's top-five (which was somewhat expected), so it might be tough as the season goes on to make up for someone in this group having a bad day. But if everybody performs how they should, then the national title charge is still on.

Conor: Kevin hit the nail on the head with BJ Sorg. He was by far the biggest development for North Central at this meet and he altered their team scoring very favorably.

For a freshman who has run 9:13 (3200) to beat teammates who have run a good bit faster than that pace for 5000 meters is downright impressive. Not to mention that Sorg did this is his first-ever 8k race.

This might be a hot take, but other than him and Connor Riss, I don’t think the North Central veterans performed particularly well. Braden Nicholson held his own 16th place, but didn’t do as well as we might have expected. Separately, Svienty and Guimond looked a bit less sharp, falling back to 28th and 29th place, respectively.

And yet, does any of that worry me? No, not in the slightest.

The simple explanation is that North Central is in a heavy training block right now and are not yet ready to run their best 8k. It’s clear that they have their eyes on the prize in November and aren’t worrying about looking flashy in the early going.

Gavin: I must admit, I was slightly underwhelmed by this performance, and I’m glad Kevin and Conor share my sentiments to some extent. But seeing as we’re still two months out from the 2023 NCAA XC Championships, and this result came against a higher level of competition, I would be remiss to discount a team that has all the ingredients of a podium squad or better.

Riss (8th) was exactly where he needed to be and the same could be said for Nicholson (16th) to some degree. It would have been nice to see Svienty and Guimond, who we saw as top-25 names in Division Three entering this season, finishing closer to Riss and Nicholson.

But to be honest, their performances weren’t terrible and higher finishes likely wouldn’t have boosted them ahead of Michigan State and Grand Valley State in the team race.

Of course, as was hinted at above, Sorg’s emergence probably outweighs any added concerns that we have about the Cardinals’ veterans after one race.

Who’s a team that you feel better about now than you did a couple of weeks ago?

Kevin: The UW-Eau Claire women are on the upswing after their performance at the St. Olaf Invite. It was no surprise to see how strong Carolyn Shult looked, but the rest of the Blugold scorers holding their own against our preseason TSR #8 team, St. Olaf, was super impressive. Ava Matejcek (5th) and Morgan Dahl (6th), in particular, offered really encouraging scoring stability in the middle portion of this team's top-five.

If you look at accolades from previous cross country seasons along with track times, this contest shouldn’t have been particularly close. UW-Eau Claire is a group that wasn’t on our radar even as a “Just Missed” or “Honorable Mention” team entering this season, but they are already starting to prove that assessment wrong.

It’s still early, and the Blugolds will face more challenges that test just how good they actually are as the season progresses, but they couldn’t have asked for a much better start.

Conor: The UW-La Crosse women have entered the scene in a big way this fall, giving our TSR #3 team, Carleton, a scare at the Running of the Cows (yes, that is in fact the name of the meet). We got a strong first impression of this “Just Missed” Eagles group in which they fell to a full strength Carleton team by a mere five points.

Maddie Hannan led the way for the Eagles, proving to be the low-stick that we suspected that she could be, getting the better of our TSR #4 runner, Hannah Preisser. Meanwhile, Katelyn Chadwick and Maddy Vantassel, both national-caliber steeplechasers, were maybe better than we initially thought before their 7th and 9th place finishes, respectively. That put the Eagles' first three scorers right on par with Carleton’s top-three.

Although Madelynn McIntyre and Gwen Hinz may have lost a few points to Carleton’s backend runners, they have already shown tremendous growth since last year. If this duo can continue to improve just a bit, then I could even see this team contending for a podium spot in absolute best case scenario.

Gavin: They won’t get as much attention as their stalwart female contemporaries, but I was pretty encouraged with the U. of Chicago men winning the Gil Dodds Invitational.

That’s especially true because Washington U. was hardly bad in their narrow loss to the Maroons. With two newcomers — graduate transfer Jack Begley and freshman Noah Bender — leading the way, the Maroons very much had the look of a team that could improve this year despite losing several key scorers from 2022.

Does the Williams men upsetting MIT at the Purple Valley XC Invite make the Ephs a podium contender? On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the most), how much of an emphasis are you placing on this result?

Kevin: Maybe.

On one hand, this was a small meet that featured only two nationally competitive teams. It's hard to put too much stock into how the scoring will translate to larger competitions this fall. And while the times among these runners weren't necessarily close, we did see a lot of pack-running which may have been intentional.

But on the other hand, you could also interpret this result as MIT legitimately struggling more than we expected them to as they try to replace the firepower of Ryan Wilson, Matthew Kearney and Andrew Mah. That said, we also haven’t seen 9:00 steeplechaser Pablo Arroyo or 4:10 miler Tim Neumann in action yet.

Regardless, we have to give credit where is due. Williams looked really strong as a unit this past weekend, finishing 1-2-3 with John Lucey, Nikhil DeNatale and Charles Namiot paired with strong support from their backend scorers. They are definitely starting the season better than I expected, but reaching the podium will still be a difficult (yet not impossible) task.

So with that being said, I’d give this race about a “5.5” on a scale of 1 to 10 for the amount of emphasis that I’m placing on this result. As mentioned above, there are multiple reasons to be cautious when interpreting this.

But at the same time, cross country is a sport that usually produces very few flukes.

Conor: Since Williams and MIT combined for each of the top-25 spots in this race, let’s call this showdown a dual meet. And in a dual meet, as soon as one team takes the top-three spots, they have already won no matter how their fourth and fifth scorers perform.

And that was the exact case that played out thanks to Williams' front trio.

This is not to say that Williams’ fourth and fifth scorers were bad, because that was not the case at all, but this kind of setting can’t be replicated in a national meet scenario very well. It was nice to see Williams execute well against a northeast rival, but frankly, I see this as a poor showing from MIT more so than a fantastic run from Williams.

Both Acquaviva and Vedang Lad, who are expected to be well within the All-American positions, did not have their best days. Even though Acquaviva only finished a single race last spring, we would have bet on him to finish better than 5th at this meet. As for Lad, he is a sub-30:00 (10k) runner who is usually super reliable, so his 7th place finish is a bit puzzling.

As for Williams’ podium candidacy, the Ephs are contenders for sure.

As a “Just Missed” team in our preseason rankings, they were always going to be in the hunt for a podium finish this fall if things started to go their way, especially if you look at their tradition of excellence in the past few years.

Simply put, if you looked up the results of this meet and just decided that the Ephs are podium contenders, then you haven’t been paying attention.

I would say that this result holds an importance of level of “4.” Although this race is representative of where both teams are seemingly at in the middle of September, by the time November comes around, we would expect to see a much improved MIT team and a very different race situation.

Gavin: I’m not quite there yet in terms of anointing Williams as a prime podium contender, although this is undoubtedly a better start than expected under first-year head coach, Dusty Lopez.

The Ephs took the top-three spots fairly convincingly and it’s not like that was achieved over an unconventional distance. They did so against a fellow national power, one holding higher expectations than them, on an eight kilometer course in a late September meet.

In fairness to them, this team is almost certainly better than the “Just Missed” billing that we afforded them when crafting our TSR preseason top-10 team rankings.

That being said, a podium, or even a top-five finish on the national stage, is an unfair expectation to place on a team with so much newness. There will be more tests ahead of the Ephs before their season finale, perhaps as soon as their next race, D3 Pre-Nationals.

But last Saturday’s result at least opened our eyes to the idea of Williams being just as good as they’ve been in recent years, which is a pretty great starting point for Lopez’s regime. As such, I’d give this result a “6” in terms of importance.

Relative to expectations, which victory was more impressive at the Williams Purple Valley Invite: Genna Girard (Williams) or the MIT women?

Gavin: Given that MIT and Williams were ranked directly beside each other, at TSR #5 and TSR #6, respectively, in our preseason team rankings, we had relatively high expectations for this early-season showdown. And truthfully, it was hard not to come away impressed with the Engineers’ showing.

Beyond Girard’s dominant victory for Williams, MIT swept spots 2-3-4-5 and closed out their scoring with a freshman, Liv Girand, in 9th place. Heather Jensen finished in 11th place for added security. And they did it all without their low-stick star, Olivia Rosenstein!

With Girard’s teammate, Molly Fitzgibbons, not at her best and Rosenstein absent, Girard was the clear favorite. It’s one thing to carry those expectations and another to exceed them, but I think it was still more impressive to see how cohesive and complete the Engineers looked.

Kevin: I have to go with MIT here.

The Engineers were missing some key names in Olivia Rosenstein, Kirsi Rajagopal and Sarah Bentley, so to still sweep the 2-3-4-5 spots is super impressive. In fact, we could potentially speculate that a fully healthy MIT team puts seven in front of Williams’ second runner.

And the Ephs were a top-six team in our preseason rankings!

That's not to take anything away from Girard's individual performance. To win by the margin that she did against a field of really talented athletes is a great sign for her at this point in this season and it should afford her loads of confidence going forward.

But the biggest storyline of this contest should be the emphatic and definitive team performance from a shorthanded MIT crew that ended up looking anything but shorthanded.

Conor: As much as I wish I could play devil’s advocate, it’s gotta be the MIT women. I’ll echo Gavin and Kevin in that Girard’s performance was very impressive, but the MIT women as a whole were on another level.

So I’m going to take a minute to shamelessly gas them up.

One of the Engineers’ biggest assets this season is having so many options for their postseason lineup. However, we weren’t sure that they would have quite this many choices. After the pack that placed 2nd through 5th, MIT’s fifth and sixth runners were freshmen, something that makes us feel good about their potential development as they continue adjusting to the collegiate racing scene.

And although Kevin briefly mentioned this, I want to emphasize that the Engineers sat out their TSR #5 ace, Rosenstein as well as 9:56 (3k) runner, Sarah Bentley, and 17:15 (5k) runner, Archana Mohandas. Add the three of them back into the lineup and this is a scary-good team.

Did the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps’ women raise their stock after beating teams like Arizona, Southern Utah and Azusa Pacific at the UC Riverside XC Invite? If so, by how much?

Gavin: The Athenas’ triumph (and 3rd place overall finish) over a handful of sizable Division One programs didn’t change my opinion of them so much as it gave me a measuring stick to validate their ability.

All of that is to say that this performance doesn’t change my view of this team holistically, but it certainly doesn’t hurt them, either.

Their prospective low-sticks, Natalie Bitetti (10th) and Elle Marsyla (18th), performed well in a deep field, but more impressively, the same could be said for the rest of CMS’ scoring lineup. All five scorers landed among the top-45 individuals.

It’s worth noting that CMS finished 12th in this meet last year, putting only four women in the top-100, so it’s impressive that a similarly composed lineup fared substantially better. If anything, the tangible year-to-year improvement that they can now point to holds more importance than how they fared against big-name opponents.

Kevin: Yes, I would say that this race raises their stock.

We had the Athenas at TSR #10 in our preseason rankings. And while it can be hard to gauge how they will fare against fellow Division Three programs based on a result achieved in what was largely a Division One field, this performance was absolutely a promising sign.

There was one other nationally competitive Division Three team in the field via UC Santa Cruz. They were one of our “Honorable Mention” teams. However, CMS beat the Banana Slugs by eight places in the team standings and almost 200 points, putting three women in front of UC Santa Cruz’s top runner, Riley Martel-Phillips (32nd), who was 41st at last year’s cross country national meet.

We knew what Bitetti could do, but seeing the jump that Marsyla has made along with the seamless transition to the grass from high-level 1500-meter talents such as Riley Capuano (31st) and Laura Zimmer (34th) was a huge boost for this team.

They are starting to convince me that we underrated them in August.

Conor: This performance was no doubt a very encouraging result to see and it definitely boosts CMS’ stock by a good amount. The fact that they beat a handful of Division One programs is great, but it would be silly to try to read too far into that.

I’d like to dive a bit deeper into Kevin’s last point about Capuano and Zimmer. Both of them are very good middle distance specialists on the track, boasting marks of 4:35 and 4:34 over 1500 meters, respectively.

Last fall those two women struggled to find the same success on the grass. But if their results in the early going indicate anything about what’s to come, it’s that they will be more-than-suitable middle-lineup pieces for a top-10 team.

Not to put too much pressure on them, but I think the Athenas’ success this season is largely going to come down to whether those two women can consistently keep cranking out performances like they just did.

Did any women’s All-American candidates strengthen their case at the St. Olaf Invitational?

Gavin: Yes, several. But at risk of taking away names from my fellow writers to analyze, I’ll pick one name off the top of the stack. As it stands today, Carolyn Shult appears to be in store for a major improvement on her already-respectable 85th place finish from the 2022 NCAA XC Championships.

She just comfortably took down a quietly formidable field of women on a projected top-10 team racing on their home course. And she did so without the luxury of running near her teammates as her competitors did.

This is someone with three national meet appearances on the track, a pair of WIAC XC Championship runner-up results and a better national meet performance in 2021 than she enjoyed last year. Frankly, she profiles as more of an All-American than not.

Through the first weeks of the season, Shult is making us look a bit foolish for not even including her in the “Honorable Mentions” section of our TSR preseason top-20 individual rankings.

Kevin: Outside of Shult, who I won't say much about since Gavin already emphasized her impressive performance, I'm not totally convinced that anyone else in this field will end the fall as an All-American.

That, of course, is not to say that somebody like Bella Call isn't in the mix. After a 50th place finish at last year's cross country national meet and some decent track times, she already came into this season looking like a fringe All-American candidate.

Call's runner-up result at the St. Olaf Invitational seemed more or less in line with those expectations. I wouldn't necessarily say she that strengthened her case, but she definitely didn't weaken it.

Conor: Aside from Shult and Call, whose results were already discussed, I don’t see anyone else in the field who is a likely All-American. This isn’t to say that there weren’t many strong runners in the field that could make an outside run at an All-American spot.

One performance that caught my eye was the run of Lauren Walda who looks to be a strong scoring piece for the Oles. After finishing 87th at the cross country national meet last year, Walda has had a very good opening two races.

Running in the same meets as last fall, the sophomore has improved upon her performances by over 20 seconds in both outings and looks like a threat for this Oles team.

Which early result was more impressive: Sara Stephenson taking the individual win at the Baltimore Metro Meet? Or the U. of Chicago women dominating the Washington U. women at the Gil Dodds Invitational?

Gavin: While Stephenson prevailing over several Division One runners, and in the fashion that she did so, was no doubt impressive, I’m again going to give the team performance in question higher billing.

In a stretch of the season where we see comparably few matchups between top teams, it’s hard not to commend a program that looks to be without any apparent flaws when put under the microscope in the first weeks of the fall.

Make no mistake, U. of Chicago was favored to win this meet, but we’ve seen crazier things than teams slip up in a formidable early-season field. Look no further than the Stanford men at the Virginia Invitational this past weekend.

The Maroons effectively transformed the Gil Dodds Invitational into a dual meet with their scoring structure, but the hypothetical second team that they were competing against was every other program in this field. By sweeping the top-five spots, U. of Chicago took any attention away from the traditional power, and fellow preseason top-10 team and rival, that they were going up against in Washington U.

It’s hard to single out one U. of Chicago runner for their performance because they were all so valuable and valorous at the Gil Dodds Invitational.

Kevin: I agree with Gavin here that U. of Chicago's overall team performance was the more impressive result.

Sara Stephenson has been highly accomplished through the years and was 3rd at this meet in 2022, so to see her get the win in Baltimore wasn’t too much of a surprise. That doesn't mean it wasn't impressive, but it certainly wasn't shocking.

As far as the Maroons, their roster underwent some major changes following a 2022 campaign in which they were a national title favorite for the majority of the season. Anna Kenig-Ziesler, Frances Schaeffler and Lucy Groothuis have since departed, but it looks as though they are managing to cope pretty well with those losses.

Winning this meet was not at all surprising for this group, but a 1-2-3-4-5 finish against a solid, talented Washington U. team is a great sign for their progress this fall.

Conor: Although Stephenson’s win was impressive, she already has high expectations surrounding her every time she toes the line. After all, she was a top-10 finisher at the 2022 cross country national meet. And although the field that she faced was strong, no one present had those kind of credentials.

As far as how the U. of Chicago women performed, it was downright dominant.

As a member of the Washington U. program myself, it was hard to watch the Maroons outrun my sister team, but I have to give credit where credit is due. The Maroons made their intentions clear by going straight to the front of the pack from the gun. For the first 4k, it even looked as if they were going to sweep the first six spots.

The most exciting performance out of the group was that of Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel. The 16:48 (5k) runner had only completed a single cross country race in her collegiate career entering this season. But by swapping wins with teammate Maddie Kelly in their opening two races, Battleson-Gunkel has left no doubt that she’s going to be the real deal on the grass.

The Maroons have just about everything going their way, but there’s just one thing that I can’t get my mind off of: How much better could they be if Claudia Harnett makes a return?

In short, Harnett finished 17th as a true freshman at the cross country national meet two years ago. Yet, she did not make an appearance during cross country or during the outdoor track season in the 2022-23 academic year, nor has she raced this fall, despite being rostered.

Harnett’s return would bring even more firepower to a team that already has enough pieces to contend for a national title.