TSR's 2022 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Women): #5 BYU Cougars

In the summer of 2020, before we even knew if there would be a cross country season, we ranked the BYU women at TSR #10.

Seven months later, the Cougars would win the national title at the NCAA Winter XC Championships, making our preseason ranking of BYU the single greatest analytical blunder in the history of this website.

That boarderline-insulting preseason ranking from two years ago stemmed from the fact that the Cougars had lost a heavy portion of their best scorers from the 2019 season. Naturally, The Stride Report wondered how they would recover and rally.

Now, as the women from Provo, Utah venture into the 2022 cross country season, we are once again faced with a scenario where multiple high-octane low-sticks have finished their eligibility.

But if BYU and Coach Diljeet Taylor have taught us anything over the years, it's that this team doesn't have the word "rebuild" in their vocabulary.

Instead, they'll simply reload.

* * *

After winning the cross country national title during the winter months and returning a heavy portion of their top scorers, all eyes were on the BYU women going into last fall. While there were plenty of people who believed that they could repeat as national champions, a juggernaut program like NC State was waiting for their own moment of glory.

The Cougars began their 2021 fall cross country season at the FSU XC Open, a small early-season meet which featured strong teams such as Furman, Florida State, Southern Utah, Stanford and, of course, BYU.

But despite the sneaky-good field, the BYU women handled their competition with relative ease. Superstar Whittni Orton took home the win as expected while second-year freshman Lexy Halladay and rising veteran Aubrey Frentheway finished 3rd and 4th.

With true freshman Ana Weaver earning a 6th place finish, the Cougars had tons to be excited about. Their top scorers looked just as strong as they were expected to be and their young up-and-comers posted excellent marks.

McKenna Lee would round out the scoring with a 10th place finish. Two other women, Kate Hunter and Anna Camp, would earn a pair of top-15 place finishes as well.

BYU would ultimately walk away from Tallahassee with a comfortable score of 24 points, beating host Florida State by a comfortable 27 points.

But for as good as that race was for BYU, there were still far greater challenges that lied ahead...like the Nuttycombe Invitational.

On the nation's biggest regular season stage, the Cougars toed the line against the titans of industry. NC State and New Mexico were two programs both gunning for the BYU women, eager to establish themselves as the title favorites instead of the Cougars.

For the most part, BYU ran exceptionally well. Frentheway came through in the clutch to secure a monster 13th place finish while Lexy Halladay continued her exciting rise to place 20th overall. The always reliable veteran, McKenna Lee, had a great race of her own, placing 23rd overall.

Anna Camp, one of the team's expected front-runners from last fall, finished 32nd overall, although we would later find out that she had much more scoring to offer in the postseason.

However, it was BYU's fifth runner and sixth runners, Anna Martin and Sara Musselman, who faded a bit further back, finishing 64th and 66th overall. And while that may not have been ideal on paper, in the grand scheme of things, those were excellent results for backend runners, especially for Martin who was still fairly young.

But regardless of how things developed in that fifth and final scoring spot, BYU was simply outmatched by both NC State and New Mexico. When comparing each scoring position in each team's lineup, the Cougars never got the edge.

Of course, there is one key piece of information that I opted to leave out: Whittni Orton didn't even run in this race. If she had, then NC State likely falls to BYU and the point difference between New Mexico and the Cougars would have been the slimmest of margins.

So while the BYU women did settle for a 3rd place finish, their overall team effort proved to be far more encouraging than what the overall results suggested (which was still far from bad).

After cruising through the conference and regional meets, both of which Whittni Orton would return for, the BYU women set their sights on Tallahassee, the stage where they would attempt to defend their national title from eight months prior.

And through their first two runners, BYU looked phenomenal.

Orton would secure gold, taking home the individual national title that her resume very clearly deserved. That lone point would be huge, especially when paired with Anna Camp who had her best race of the season, placing 12th overall.

Through two runners, no one at the national meet had a better scoring duo than the BYU women. Of course, it was the final three scorers in their lineup who would decide the fate of this team.

Aubrey Frentheway concluded her season with a strong 38th place All-American finish. And while it wasn't necessarily the same 15th place performance that we saw during the winter months, she still proved to be an outstanding scorer.

McKenna Lee once again proved to be one of the most reliable scorers on this BYU team, snagging a 46th place finish to closely mirror the 41st place finish we saw from her at the winter cross country national meet.

And with Sara Musselman closing out the scoring with a 58th place finish, it was hard to be disappointed with how anyone in BYU's top-five finished their season.

In the end, NC State would take home the win, putting together a collective group of scorers that was nearly 40 points ahead of BYU. Taking down the Wolfpack would have required a heroic effort from nearly everyone on the Cougars' roster.

And that's why Coach Taylor's team could venture back to Provo with their heads held high, knowing that they had raced admirably throughout the entirety of the fall months.

* * *

The 2021 calendar year was beyond great for the BYU women. Not only did they have mind-blowing success on the grass, but they thrived on the track as well, showing off that they were likely the deepest distance program in the NCAA.

And in the fall of 2022, the Cougars will certainly need to capitalize on that depth if they want to rebound from some crushing scoring losses.

Whittni Orton is gone.

Anna Camp is gone.

Sara Musselman is gone.

And in most years, departures of that magnitude would mean that the affected team is also gone from podium contention...but not BYU.

Still, it will admittedly be a significant challenge for the Cougars to return to the level that they were at last year. Losing the best 1-2 punch from last year's national meet, as well as a top-60 national meet scorer, is value that is almost never reproduced over just a single year.

Suggesting that the Cougars will once again be the runner-up team at the national meet come November, while plenty realistic, is a bet that would likely carry some heavy risk.

So how on Earth is this group going to be a top-five team in the country after such brutal scoring losses? How will they continue to battle for a podium position in 2022?

Well, let's start with BYU's top returners, a strong group of women who only make up a fraction of why we have the Cougars ranked at TSR #5.

Aubrey Frentheway is amongst the top-10 in terms of underrated women's cross country runners. People may see her 38th place national meet from last fall and question if she can legitimately be a leading low-stick for this team in 2022.

But like we mentioned earlier, this is someone who was 13th at Nuttycombe and 15th at the NCAA Winter XC Championships. When she's at her best, Frentheway is elite.

However, maybe more importantly, she's fairly reliable.

When a 38th place All-American finish on the national stage stage isn't one of the better two or three performances of her career, then that's a really good sign. That's why she's ranked at TSR #21 in our preseason individual rankings.

But Frentheway isn't the only reliable front-runner on this team. The Cougars are also returning veteran McKenna Lee for one more season, another highly underrated distance talent as far as cross country performances are concerned.

Lee hasn't necessarily shown the same scoring potency that Frentheway has, but she's not that far behind in the grand scheme of things. This is, after all, someone who was 23rd at Nuttycombe last fall as well as someone who placed in the top-50 of the national twice, finishing 41st at the winter cross country national meet and 46th at the fall cross country national meet.

She is also listed at TSR #41 runner in our preseason individual rankings.

Of course, Frentheway and Lee aren't the only returners from last year's star-studded squad. In fact, we haven't even talked about Lexy Halladay or Anna Martin yet!

Hallady was terrific in the early portion of last fall. Finishes of 3rd at the FSU XC Open and 20th at Nuttycombe would have comfortably put Halladay in The Stride Report's top-50 rankings going into last postseason (if our website had been active at the time).

Her postseason was admittedly a bit quieter, finishing 164th at the national meet, but we have to remember that Halladay was fairly young last fall. It's understandable if she had one or two learning moments.

And after an excellent outdoor track season where she ran 9:55 in the steeplechase and advanced to the outdoor national meet, we have every reason to believe that Halladay can be an All-American talent this fall. We just need to see her put it altogether throughout the entirety of the season.

It's a similar story for Martin. Her 64th place finish at Nuttycombe was VERY underrated. And while her 169th place finish at the national meet wasn't ideal, her Nuttycombe result did prove to us that Martin could be a legitimate backend scorer who can quickly close out BYU's scoring later this fall.

Following an outdoor track season where she ran 34:13 for 10,000 meters, Martin should prove to be a great member of BYU's supporting cast in 2022. She is now in year three of collegiate competition, but should still have plenty of room to grow and develop.

Don't sleep on Martin, she could be the true x-factor of this team.

* * *

Those four runners, on paper, are great scoring options. Most teams would love to have a group like that to get them through the upcoming cross country season.

However, those four women alone can't carry the entirety of BYU's scoring responsibilities. And truthfully, those women probably don't equate to the Cougars being a top-five team in the country this fall.

Of course, we knew that and so did Coach Taylor. That's why Jenna Hutchins and graduate transfer Lindsey Stallworth are now on this team.

Let's start with Stallworth, a game-changing graduate transfer who likely gives the BYU women a few extra spots in our preseason team rankings.

The former East Tennessee State distance runner truly broke out during the 2021 winter cross country season. After taking home gold at the Southern Conference Winter XC Championships, a meet that is annually headlined by the Furman women, Stallworth ventured to Stillwater, Oklahoma for the winter national meet.

There, Stallworth proved to the country that she was more than a mid-major star. The ETSU standout recorded a huge 38th place finish to earn All-American honors and establish herself as a true national-caliber low-stick.

After placing 8th in the South region last fall, Stallworth would once again advance to the national meet, although this time she would "only" settle for a 72nd place finish.

We're not entirely sure if we'll see the winter version of Stallworth or the fall version of Stallworth over the next few months. But what we do know is that her All-American performance wasn't a fluke. Even if she replicates last fall's national meet finish, the incoming graduate transfer will still provide great value and stability to this lineup.

And now for Jenna Hutchins.

The Tennessee native was a megastar in high school. Despite the pandemic interrupting parts of her junior and senior years, this still-young BYU ace posted phenomenal times at the prep level.

Hutchins ended her high school career with marks of 4:43 (mile), 9:49 (3200), 15:58 (5k XC) and 15:34 (5k track). She was 9th at the 2018 Foot Locker XC National Championships, 5th at the 2019 Foot Locker XC National Championships and 1st at the 2020 RunningLane XC National Championships.

Hutchins would ultimately graduate early and quickly enroll at BYU, giving her a semester to get adjusted with college life as well as the Cougars' distance team.

With the Tennessee megastar stepping out of the high school spotlight for an extended period of time, Natalie Cook instead became the face of the Class of 2022 (and understandably so).

But Hutchins is an all-time elite name in her own right. She shattered records and is now amongst the all-time greats for girls high school distance running. And while her absence does leave us wondering what she can do at the collegiate level, we still opted to rank her at TSR #45 earlier this summer.

The unknown surrounding Hutchins' potential for this fall season leaves us cautious yet excited at the same time. If she turns out to be the All-American star that her high school resume suggests that she can be, then BYU may not be that far off from last year's level of success.

And then there's the rest of this roster.

We feel extremely confident that someone on BYU's depth chart is going to have a monumental breakout season on the grass this fall...we're just not sure who.

Could it be veteran Kate Hunter who has run 4:13 for 1500 meters? What about up-and-comer Carmen Alder who ran 4:36 in the mile last winter? The same question goes for fellow 4:36 miler Heather Hanson. Haley Johnston could also be a sneaky-good name after finishing 115th at the NCAA Winter XC Championships.

Simply put, the lineup possibilities for this team are endless, especially if one or two of these women emerge as legitimate top-seven contributors this fall.

* * *

This is usually the part in the article where we offer a fairly reasonable critique for the program that we're writing about. But in terms of BYU's scoring reliability, depth, firepower, upside and new additions, it's hard to find a flaw when talking about this year's team.

Sure, they lose elite front-runners, but that's just the lifecycle of NCAA eligibility. For the most part, BYU still has a terrific core of women for this fall.

And for every critique that we have for one of their scorers, we have a positive that simply leaves us more encouraged than pessimistic.

Aubrey Frentheway wasn't the same low-stick that Whittni Orton or Anna Camp were at last year's national meet, but her 15th place at the NCAA Winter XC Championships tells us that she can return to that level.

McKenna Lee hasn't been an individual All-American yet, but the reliability of her two top-50 national meet performances is arguably just as good.

Jenna Hutchins has been out of the racing scene for quite a while now, but she's done nothing to suggest that she can't be an All-American this fall.

Lindsey Stallworth wasn't an All-American at last fall's national meet like she was in the winter, but if the lesser of her two national meet showings is still a top-80 finish, then BYU will happily take that.

Lexy Halladay has struggled in the postseason, but 9:55 steeplechase personal best suggests that she's a different (and better) runner. Teammate Anna Martin also faltered a bit in the postseason, but finishing in the top-70 at Nuttycombe shows us that she can better.

The fall of 2022 feels like it's going to be a transition season for the BYU women as they faze out their veterans and introduce their younger rising talents.

But let's not confuse transition with a rebuild.

After all, teams that are rebuilding aren't often in contention for a podium finish like BYU is.