TSR's 2022 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Rankings (Women): #3 Johns Hopkins Blue Jays

Additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin

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The reigning national champions, Johns Hopkins, come into this year ranked at TSR #3 -- and that almost feels like we are robbing this Centennial Conference powerhouse.

Despite winning seven of the past nine national team titles in cross country. Trying to replicate that success and secure another NCAA gold medal will admittedly be a challenge in 2022.

Why is that you ask? Well, it's largely because four of the Blue Jays top-seven athletes from last year's team are gone -- and a handful of those departures were high-impact scorers.

But this is Johns Hopkins we're talking about. This team is always good. They're in the same category as Adams State and Northern Arizona where a preseason ranking outside of the top-two is almost insulting.

And by November, that may end up being the case for our TSR #3 team.

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The Blue Jays began their 2021 title run at the Iona Paddy Doyle Meet of Champions where they face a few mid-major Division One rosters in New York. And yet, despite competing in a division that was supposedly above their weight class, the Johns Hopkins women came out victorious.

Veteran Ella Baran landed an excellent runner-up result while Ashley Heidenrich was a solid complementary low-stick in 6th place. With teammate Paloma Hancock finishing 10th and two supporting scorers in Sara Stephenson and Diane Vezza placing 13th and 14th, respectively, the Blue Jays walked away with 45 points and a 22-point margin of victory.

But for as good as that victory was, it was admittedly challenging to gauge just how strong this result was relative to the Division Three scene.

It was a somewhat similar situation at the Louisville XC Classic in the "Gold" race. In a field that was dominated by Division One and Division Two programs, it was the Blue Jays that stood out as one of the few D3 lineups in the field.

As a collective group, the Johns Hopkins women ran well as a pack. Heidenrich was the lead scorer in 63rd place while Hancock finished 77th and Stephenson placed 85th. With the team's final two scorers, Lina Spjut and Diana Vizza, going 90th and 102nd, there didn't appear to be any true scoring deficiencies in this lineup.

And yet, at the same time, the team was limited on firepower. Not having any true low-stick in this field to separate them from the other fringe top-10 programs was clearly evident, although it should be noted that star front-runner Ella Baran didn't even run.

If she had, then we're looking at a 60-point improvement (minimum).

That, in turn, would have only elevated the Blue Jays from 9th place to 8th place, but they would have taken down a strong UC-Colorado Springs group (D2) in the process.

Luckily, we got to see Johns Hopkins toe the line for one more regular season meet, this time against a field that was almost entirely Division Three focused.

At the Rowan Inter-Regional Border Battle, the Blue Jays trounced their competition with a lineup that was simply way too good to be matched. Heidenrich's runner-up result was huge, but somewhat expected. However, seeing veteran Alex Ross toe the line for her first meet of the season and place 3rd was a massive injection of scoring potency that reminded us of just how good she was.

Vizza, Stephenson and Spjut closed out the scoring in 6-7-10 while Hancock and Aishanee Wijeratna finished 11th and 14th, respectively. With a total score of 28 points, the Blue Jays were able to comfortably take down a strong SUNY Geneseo program that held a similar lineup structure, but just couldn't match Johns Hopkins' scoring potency.

And yet again, Baran remained out of the results.

At both the Centennial Conference Championships and the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships, the Blue Jays easily handled their competition. And while there wasn't much to truly analyze, Baran continued to sit on the sidelines, leaving us with questions about the Blue Jays hopes for a national title.

But when Baran was needed the most, she returned to this team's national meet lineup. She would ultimately prove to be the difference-maker between gold and "only" a podium finish.

Baran's 9th place individual finish was massive in terms of firepower as the Blue Jays needed to counter the four All-Americans that Claremont-Mudd-Scripps had assembled. And luckily for them, Baran wasn't the only low-stick who Johns Hopkins had at the national meet.

Ross and Hancock finished 20th and 21st overall, giving the Blue Jays three All-Americans in the top-21 spots. That brilliant display of firepower, however, was still two points behind what the Athenas had shown. And with Johns Hopkins' fourth scorer (Heidenrich), placing 46th, that scoring gap widened to an 18-point margin with CMS' fourth runner finishing 26th overall.

But the saving grace of this team wasn't Johns Hopkins firepower. Instead, it was their fifth scorer, Diana Vizza, who finished 54th overall. In the end, her top-55 finish swung the national title in the Blue Jays' favor, giving the women from Baltimore, Maryland the national title by a mere two points over their west coast counterparts.

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Last year's Johns Hopkins team was simply incredible. Their firepower was able to counter most (but not all) of the low-stick scoring seen from CMS and their depth was easily the best in the nation. After all, non-national meet scorers such as Sara Stephenson and Lina Spjut still finished 56th and 87th overall in the final results.

But in 2022, roughly 57% of this lineup is going to look VERY different. That's because four women last year's top-seven are now gone, including three women who were scorers at the NCAA XC Championships last fall.

9th place national meet finisher Ella Baran is now running for the Colorado Buffaloes. 46th place national meet finisher Ashley Heidenrich is now for the Michigan Wolverines. 54th place national meet finisher Dianna Vizza has graduated and the same can be said for 87th place national meet finisher Lina Spjut.

And when you step back to evaluate the remaining members of this lineup, it feels a bit more understandable as to why this team has been placed at TSR #3 instead of one or two spots higher.

Those varsity losses, in turn, leave the Blue Jays with super senior Alex Ross, fellow veteran Sara Stephenson and junior Paloma Hancock from last year's national meet lineup. But make no mistake, that is still a fantastic core of returners who could absolutely make major noise this fall.

Let’s start with Ross who truly had her breakout season on the grass last fall. She was consistently one of the top runners for the Blue Jays during the 2021 season, never finishing lower than 4th in a race before the national meet.

The distance-centric Blue Jay star placed 3rd at Rowan Inter-Regional Border Battle, 4th at the Centennial XC Championships and then 2nd at the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships where the team went 2-3-4-5-6. All of that led up to a postseason peak where she was 20th a the national meet.

But what if we told you that she was noticeably better on the track?

On the indoor oval, Ross ran the 5k/3k double at the NCAA Indoor Championships finishing 5th and 17th, respectively. Truthfully, that 3k finish was a bit rough for her, but when you consider that it came after a tough All-American performance in the 5k, it was hard to fault her.

However, the spring season was where we saw one of our favorite performances from Ross. She finished 3rd in the 10,000 meters at the outdoor national meet in a race that was headlined by Kassie Parker and Ari Marks.

Ross also came back to the next day to finish 9th in the 5000 meters, just outside of an All-American position.

There is no question that Ross will be favored to be top-five individual at this year's national meet -- and that would be huge if our suspicions are correct. A 20th place All-American performance from last fall still gives her plenty of room to improve in her scoring, something that most front-runners on podium-contending teams can't always offer.

Right behind Ross at last year's national meet was junior Paloma Hancock. Because of COVID, last fall was Hancock’s first season of collegiate cross country, but she didn't show any first-year jitters. If she was a 21st place All-American with that level of inexperience, then what could she do this fall with a year of high-level competition under her belt?

On the track, Hancock only raced twice in January and three times in April. That is, admittedly, an unusual racing schedule and hopefully nothing that affects this team in the fall. Hancock could be part of a very powerful low-stick duo alongside Alex Ross if she can replicate last year's fitness. And like Ross, she also has the potential to cut-off a few points from her national finish.

But for as good as Ross and Hancock are, the greater opportunity for improved point scoring can be found by the team's final national meet returner from last fall.

We are, of course, talking about Sara Stephenson.

The current senior had her first cross country season with Johns Hopkins last fall after transferring from Washington and Lee. From that looks of it, Stephenson didn't seem to have any adjustment issues.

Even though her 6k PR of 21:37 is still from the 2019 South regional meet, Stephenson is still running close to that level for Johns Hopkins. She ran 22-flat at the Rowan Inter-Regional Border Battle (where she placed 7th) and then came back two weeks later to run 22:38 at the Centennial Conference meet where she finished 8th overall and fifth on her team.

Placing 56th overall at the national meet was a solid result for this veteran, but we think she could have been closer to the top-40 -- and that's before we saw how incredible she was on the track.

The Blue Jay veteran had an absolute banger of a year on the track. At the NCAA Indoor Championships, she finished 8th in the 3000 meters and was a part of the Blue Jays' 10th place DMR finish at that same meet.

Then, on the outdoor oval, Stephenson set personal bests in the 1500 meters (4:44), the 5000 meters (17:01) and the steeplechase (10:51). At the NCAA Outdoor Championships, she was 9th in the steeplechase and 18th in the 5000 meters.

Despite not earning All-American honors on the track, the improvements that we've seen from Stephenson suggests that she will have a very strong chance of being an All-American this fall. In fact, the consensus at The Stride Report is that she'll be a top-30 talent at the national meet come November.

If the trio of Ross, Hancock and Stephenson all deliver on the potential that we think they can, then the Blue Jays will essentially have the same top-three scoring structure that they had last fall. That would be monumental for a team that is still plenty deep.

Of course, trying to figure out who will fill-out the second-half of this lineup is a guessing game that we don't currently have the answers to.

Other runners who have some championship experience are veterans Katharine Priu and Sydney Friedel.

Despite a very up-and-down 2021 cross country season, it's important to remember that Priu was a top scorer on this team back in 2019. That year, she was runner-up at the Mideast Regional XC Championships and 76th at the national meet.

We're not entirely sure which version of Priu we'll see this fall, but after an encouraging year on the track where she secured numerous personal bests, it's clear that the Blue Jays' veteran may be near the prime of her fitness.

And if that's the case, then her role as a fourth scorer will be invaluable for the Johns Hopkins women later this fall.

As for Friedel, she may be the biggest x-factor on this team going into the 2022 cross country season. She was a very solid contributor during the Blue Jays' 2021 fall campaign, but after running 9:53 (3k) and 17:24 (5k) this past winter, both marks being good enough to qualify for the indoor national meet, Friedel should absolutely be a top-five scorer for this team.

Of course, trying to know just how good of a scorer Friedel will be this fall is a level of uncertainty that you don't always want in the fifth spot of our lineup. Suggesting that she'll be a top-80 or even a top-70 talent seems fair, but how much higher from there could she go?

When it comes to the rest of this varsity group, we're not entirely sure what to expect. There are a ton of younger talents such as Cooper Brotherton, Emma Whitehead, Eleni Alvarez, Aisling Callahan, Isis Diaz, Viviana Li and Lydia Tolerico who are all either freshman or underclassmen. One of those women could surprise us and produce some exciting results later this fall.

And truthfully, we probably missed a few names who could have ended up cracking this team's top-seven by season's end -- this roster is simply that large.

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Could this team be ranked higher? Yes, absolutely.

But with so much uncertainty plaguing the second-half of this lineup, and so much scoring relying on the improvements of these returning women, we forced ourselves to place the Blue Jays at TSR #3.

Regardless, Johns Hopkins always has a plethora of talented women who step up for their team every single cross country. And while we don't know with absolute certainty who those runners will be in 2022, history say that we'll see at least one or two breakout names from this roster in the coming months.

While the reigning champions did lose over half of their top-seven from Louisville, that doesn’t mean they are completely out of the title hunt this year. Coach Bobby Van Allen is one of the best developers of talent in D3 history and we are extremely confident that he will have the Blue Jays ready to go when they get to Michigan in November.