TSR's 2022 Preseason D2 XC Top 10 Rankings (Women): #6 Western Colorado Mountaineers

Edits and additional commentary by John Cusick & Garrett Zatlin

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Death, taxes and the Western Colorado women being one of the top cross country teams that Division Two has to offer.

Each and every year, the Mountaineers are able to flex respectable depth, better-than-expected scoring potency and postseason success that most programs have struggled to consistently emulate.

Now, in 2022, this RMAC powerhouse will once again have the chance to make a run for the podium and to further extend their already long history of success on the grass.

* * *

After a few early-season rust-busters, none of which gave the Mountaineers any challenges, it was the Chile Pepper XC Festival that would prove to be the most difficult regular season meet that the Western Colorado contested last fall.

In a field that featured highly-ranked Division One programs, as well as a few top-tier Division Two teams, the Mountaineers found themselves faltering a bit.

Katie Doucette was absolutely fantastic, posting a huge 5th place finish which allowed Western Colorado to match their competition in terms of low-stick scoring potency. And with Allison Beasley placing 17th overall, things were looking very good through two runners.

However, in a field that was headlined by the depth of other programs, the Mountaineers simply didn't have enough scoring support. Leah Taylor was 73rd and Gretchen Slattum was 77th, locking down the third and fourth spots within Western Colorado's top-five.

Those weren't necessarily poor performances, but with the team's fifth runner faltering to 108th, there were simply too many gaps for the Mountaineers to recover from.

In the end, Western Colorado would fall back to 9th place overall, losing to numerous Power Five programs from the Division One level and a handful of elite Division Two teams such as Augustana (SD), Colorado Mines and CSU-Pueblo.

However, the Chile Pepper XC Festival was unlike any field that the Western Colorado women would face throughout the rest of the season. Their conference, regional and national meet performances would be a much better representation of what they were capable of.

The Mountaineers went on to earn a modest 5th place finish at the RMAC XC Championships.

Doucette (3rd) and Beasley (15th) were great once again, but the final three scorers in this lineup all settled for a string of finishes that went 37-45-53.

At first glance, that may seem like an underwhelming result. But when you realize that three of those top-four teams in that field eventually placed in the top-seven of the national meet, it was hard to be too critical of the Mountaineers.

However, the South Central Regional XC Championships were a different story. In that race, Doucette placed 5th overall while Beasley came in 19th. Through two runners, we were seeing much of the same.

But then long-time veteran Alexia Thiros made her season debut and secured a huge 29th place finish while MaKenna Knez had, what may have been, the best race of her season, placing 38th overall. And with Slattum placed 45th overall, the Western Colorado were able to finish 4th as a team, just 13 points out from a very strong UC-Colorado Springs team.

The Mountaineers would end their season at the NCAA XC Championships with a result and a lineup structure that was very close to what we were expecting to see.

Beasley (29th) and Doucette (37th) emerged as the All-American talents that we knew they could be. Thiros, meanwhile, earned a 78th place finish to stabilize the middle portion of this lineup, something that wasn't always there during the regular season.

But with Leah Taylor earning a better-than-expected 99th place finish, the Western Colorado women were able to make up for the fact that no other runner in their top-five finished in the top-130 spots.

In the end, the Mountaineers secured a strong 9th place team finish, a result that seemed to align with their how season as a whole had gone.

* * *

The Western Colorado women come in at TSR #6 in our preseason team rankings. At a glance that might seem like a generous spot for this team, especially given the women who they lost from last year's team.

The Mountaineers do return four of their top-seven runners from last year, as well as three of their top-five, leaving them relying heavily on their two star front-runners, Allison Beasely and Katie Doucette.

But while the Mountaineers do return their superstar All-American duo, they also lose a strong contingent of middle and backend scorers in Lexi Thiros, MaKenna Knez and Camille Tredoux.

Thiros felt like the hero of last year's squad. She stabilized Western Colorado's scoring in the postseason, offering a top-80 national meet finish and bridging the gaps that separated the team's All-American scorers and backend contributors.

She is, without question, the biggest loss on this team.

Knez, meanwhile, was a respectable backend runner, often appearing as a fourth or fifth scorer while closely followed by her supporting cast. Her teammate, Tredoux, was closer to being a fringe varsity runner, offering depth instead of scoring.

Losing that trio of varsity contributors isn't ideal, but they aren't at all devastating. This team, both on paper and historically, is deep enough to make up for most of these loses simply based on their returners.

While replacing Thiros' scoring won't be easy, there are certainly avenues where that could happen for the Western Colorado women as soon as this fall.

And when it comes to making up her scoring value, Western Colorado may be able to start with the simple progression that we've seen from their top-two runners.

The dynamic duo of Doucette and Beasely was very impressive last year. They were reliable front-runners who not only got better as the season went on, but also left room for greater point scoring in 2022. Each woman showed vast improvements throughout the indoor and outdoor track seasons, momentum that should continue heading into this fall.

Their star front-runner, Katie Doucette, while already on the national stage prior to the fall of 2021, arguably had her “breakout” season during the winter months.

She ran very impressive times in the mile, the 3000 meters and the 5000 meters. At the NCAA Indoor Championships, she placed runner-up in the 3000 meters and 4th in the 5000 meters, arguably the most impressive double of the national meet.

Doucette also placed 8th in the 5000 meters at the NCAA Outdoor Championships this past spring. Her personal bests of 9:20 (3k) and 16:08 (5k) are extremely impressive, leading us to believe that she could go from 37th at the 2021 national meet to a top-five finish come November, a scoring improvement that not all low-sticks can offer at this point in their careers.

Allison Beasley is the Mountaineers other low-stick. She was consistent, reliable and sneaky-talented on the grass. She earned All-American honors as a freshman and competed like a true veteran throughout the season.

Admittedly, her indoor track season was underwhelming and she did not compete during the spring. Even so, as long as she is healthy, she will be a key part of Western’s lineup. Much like Doucette, she is another front-runner whose improvements at the national meet could yield a nice chunk of points.

Leah Taylor and Gretchum Slattum are the other key returners from last year's top-seven who will need to close the gap between the top-two and bottom-three of this 2022 lineup. In theory, they are probably the most important names on this year's roster.

Leah Taylor truthfully had a sub-par indoor track season compared to her cross country season. She also redshirted the outdoor track season, leaving us to wonder what her fitness will be like heading into the fall months.

Even so, Taylor produced great results when she needed to last fall. A 99th place finish at the national meet was very encouraging for someone who was just a freshman last year. If she follows the same trend of development that almost every Western Colorado varsity youngster has followed in the past, then she should be able to fill, and maybe even improve upon, Alexia Thiros' scoring value from last year.

And then there is Gretchen Slattum who was part of the Mountaineers' 11th place DMR team at the NCAA Indoor Championships this past winter. She also ran 17:29 for 5000 meters during the outdoor season, making her feel like a lock for the third or fourth scoring spot.

Slattum, much like Taylor, was a freshman who was far from perfect last fall. However, she began to show modest signs of promise in the postseason and her track marks suggest that she'll be significantly better this fall.

And then there's everyone else.

While we don't know with confidence who will be in the rest of this varsity lineup, there are simply too many options on Western Colorado's rosters for this team not to find success in the coming months.

Someone, in our minds, is almost certainly going to be an unexpected breakout scorer.

The Mountaineers add Peyton Weiss, Jayda Nix, Megan McLaughlin, Lauren Willson, Natalie Ruybal, Emma Thomas and Julie Van De Walle to their 2022 roster for this season. Most of these women will likely redshirt the season based on Western Colorado's history, but it is by no means impossible for one or two of these women to emerge as varsity contributors.

This leaves Western Colorado relying on their redshirt freshmen to step up and fill out the rest of their lineup.

Women such as Emma Berg, Taryn Dance, Ellie Jeffrey, Olivia Kaiser, Emma Kjellsen and Lacey Kunz will all (likely) be making their cross country debuts for the Mountaineers this fall. Several of those ladies ran indoor and outdoor track this past year, but there were truthfully not any standout performances.

That, however, doesn't necessarily matter. The Mountaineers simply need just one runner to fill out their top-five. It could be any of the 13 women who we listed in the last three paragraphs.

Just by the sheer number options, at least one of these runners should be a reliable top-five scorer who can elevate this team to new heights.

* * *

If Doucette and Beasley perform to their full potential while Taylor and Slattum show improvement from last year, then the Mountaineers could be just as good as last year even with their major losses.

And frankly, we have no reason to believe that none of that will happen.

The Mountaineers biggest weakness, of course, will be their fifth runner, but maybe that's because there is simply so much unknown surrounding the latter-half of this lineup.

If the Western Colorado women simply find another "good enough" backend scorer in 2022, then the scoring deficiencies on this team may be far lesser than what we saw last fall.

And who knows? Maybe that backend contributor evolves into an unexpected top-end scorer who puts this team on the podium come December.