TSR's 2022 D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Women): Update #3

TSR Collaboration
Nov 7, 2022
7 min read

Written by Kevin Fischer, Hannah Thorn & Brett Haffner

Additional edits and commentary by John Cusick & Garrett Zatlin

NOTE: These rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at the NCAA XC Championships.

KEY

(Unranked):

Was not ranked in our last update.

(#/#):

First number indicates how much the team has moved in the rankings.

The second number indicates where the team was ranked in our last update

10. Williams Ephs (Unranked)

After an underwhelming start to the season, the Williams women are getting better and better. They went from being beaten (soundly) by Amherst back in September, to edging out the Mammoths at the Connecticut College Invitational, to winning the NESCAC XC Championships fairly comfortably with 37 points.

Putting four women in the top-eight at a conference meet as deep as the NESCAC is a huge deal. And although there was a bit of a scoring gap going back to their fifth runner (which was true freshman Fiona Picone), it was still a very strong team performance.

Yes, we know that this is cross country and that times can be taken with a grain of salt. However, we think it means something when four of the Ephs top-five runners ran a 6k personal best in their latest effort and all of their top-five ran a seasonal bests.

In theory, that suggests that they are peaking beautifully.

The Ephs look to be coming together at the right time and are beginning to make some noise as we get into the busy end of the season.

9. UW-La Crosse Eagles (+1 / 10)

A win for UW-La Crosse over UW-Eau Claire at the WIAC XC Championships was probably expected, but we didn’t necessarily expect the Eagles to emerge victorious in such a dominant fashion.

Maddie Hannan made a statement with her win over Carolyn Shult, the latter of whom had been running incredibly well of late. That's an encouraging sign at the national meet looms.

Behind Hannan, the 2-3-4 scorers for the Eagles finished consecutively in 4th, 5th and 6th. Jenna Lovejoy finished a solid 10th overall as the team's fifth runner, but as we’ve mentioned with this group before, that 20-second gap between their fourth and fifth scorers can make a pretty big difference in a national-caliber field.

If Hannan can come up with a top-25 finish at the NCAA XC Championships and Lovejoy can cut down on the gap between her and her teammates, then this team has the potential to beat some of the top-ranked programs ahead of them in a couple of weeks.

8. MIT Engineers (-2 / 6)

MIT won the NEWMAC XC Championships with ease (and as expected) despite an "off" day from their usual top scorer, Einat Gavish. Admittedly, the Engineers didn’t look phenomenal overall, but they took care of business and you can’t ask for too much more.

Even so, we still saw a couple of big individual performances. Gillian Roeder won the conference title after being the fifth NEWMAC finisher at the Connecticut College Invitational while freshman Kate Sanderson finished 4th with a 47-second personal best.

This was also the first race that we’ve seen from 2021 XC All-American, Olivia Rosenstein, since last fall which is a wildly encouraging developing. She was a solid 13th, but if she can get back to her fitness level from last year, then that would be a huge boost for the Engineers.

7. Carleton Knights (+2 / 9)

Carleton was the team favorite going into the MIAC XC Championships, but they faced a difficult test when it came to conference rival, Saint Olaf.

Of course, they passed that test with flying colors.

The Oles ran with a tight pack as they always do, but the Knights got the job done with their superior star power at the front of their lineup, recording the 2nd to 5th place finishes behind TSR #2 Fiona Smith from Saint Benedict.

We know how reliably great Clara Mayfield has been, but Hannah Preisser has become one of the better secondary scoring options in D3 this fall. She has been much better than some people realize.

Admittedly, In a deeper field, there are some concerns about the top-five time-spread of almost two minutes. Even so, Carleton still has the necessary firepower to compete with some of the best teams in the country.

6. Washington U. Bears (+1 / 7)

In our Pre-Conference D3 Roundtable article, we didn’t give Washington U. much of a chance to knock off U. of Chicago at the UAA XC Championships. And while they didn’t win, they at least fought admirably to keep the gap to 10 points.

Emily Konkus put together another great individual performance with a 2nd place finish behind Emory’s Annika Urban while teammates Lindsay Ott and Katie Rector continue to make great strides behind her.

Ultimately, what did the Bears in was the gap between their top-three runners to their fourth and fifth scorers. Their depth is impressive, but it just couldn’t compare to that of the Maroons.

Regardless, this is still certainly one of the top teams in the nation.

5. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas (0 / 5)

The top-five portion of our rankings don't look too different this time around, but that’s because all of the top teams did their job during conference meet weekend.

At the SCIAC XC Championships, we saw the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women take home the win a very good Pomona-Pitzer team, 22 points to 34 points.

CMS had the top-three runners in the race with Natalie Bitetti, Meredith Bloss and Anika Kimme all crossing the line before anyone else. Bitetti also took this opportunity to show that she is a top-10 talent in the country by winning this race in 21:19. That was almost 40 seconds faster than her teammate, Meredith Bloss, who we know is very fit.

It looks like Bitetti is gearing up for a big November.

CMS’s team score was filled out by freshmen Elle Marsyla and sophomore Angela Gushue. What’s stopping CMS from moving up these rankings is these two women falling behind their top trio. And yet, at the same time, that's not necessarily to say that they've been running poorly.

That said, Gushue finishing in 9th overall allowed four women from Pomona-Pitzer to place ahead of her which made this a closer team battle than we would have thought. Still, this is a solid group and we're high on the Athenas as we dive deeper into November.

4. Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (0 / 4)

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the women from Johns Hopkins earned a perfect score at their conference meet. That was their 14th consecutive Centennial Conference title.

The Blue Jays were once again led by Alex Ross who posted a blistering time of 21:36.

Super fast.

She was followed by teammate Paloma Hancock in 21:45. This has been such a great season for Hancock and she is only getting faster as the season continues.

Sydney Friedel, Sara Stephenson and Katharine Priu rounded out the top-five for Johns Hopkins. This was arguably an "off" race for Stephenson as we’ve had her ranked in the top-20 all season long, so we did not expect her to be the fourth scorer on her own team.

Of course, far greater and more important races lie ahead for Stephenson and the rest of her Blue Jay teammates. The emphasis on a conference meet that they were expected to dominate doesn't leave us with many concerns.

3. SUNY Geneseo Knights (0 / 3)

Winners of the SUNYAC XC Championships, the Knights from SUNY Geneseo currently sit at TSR #3 for yet another update. They scored 30 points the other weekend by going 4-5-6-7-8-9-10.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that they sat all of their top runners.

Kathleen McCarey, Windsor Ardner, Marcie Hogan, Erin Elvers and Rachel Hirschkind were all on the sidelines two weekends ago. Those women must be resting for the upcoming regional and national meets.

2. Wartburg Knights (0 / 2)

It was hard not to rank Wartburg at TSR #1 after their American Rivers Conference XC Championsip performance. The only thing stopping them from a perfect score was the best runner in D3, Kassie Parker. But behind her, the Knights went 2-3-4-5-6.

Wartburg was unsurprisingly led by Aubrie Fisher yet again, but at this meet, the rest of the team wasn’t too far behind. Riley Mayer, Shaelyn Hostager, Ellie Meyer and Lexi Brown finished within 30 seconds of Fisher.

This team battle at the NCAA XC Championships is going to be so close. The strongest lineup aspect of both Wartburg and U. Chicago is arguably the depth of their respective team. They both have a complete top-five and show minimal scoring deficiencies.

1. University of Chicago Maroons (0 / 1)

The top team remains unchanged in this update as the University of Chicago women came into the UAA XC Championships and collected the team title. However, this wasn’t an easy feat as they were racing against our current TSR #6 team, Washington U., as well as quality teams in NYU and Emory.

The Maroons placed their entire top-seven in the top-13 places of this meet to score 36 points. They were led by Anna Kenig-Ziesler who was 3rd overall, finishing behind Annika Urban (1st) and Emily Koknus (2nd).

There was a 34-second spread between the first and fifth scorers in U. Chicago's lineup which has been pretty common for the Maroons this season. However, even more encouraging was the fact that their sixth and seventh runners were four seconds and nine seconds, respectively, behind U. Chicago's fifth runner.

But wait, there's more!

One of the most exciting developments was seeing Maddie Kelly return to top form. She started her season off with a DNF result at Saint Francis and then took the next six weeks off before showing up at the Augustana Interregional Invitational and finishing 18th.

The UAA XC Championships was easily Kelly's best race of the season as she finished as the second scorer for her team and placed 5th overall. That's a promising performance that makes this juggernaut team even somehow even stronger.