TSR's 2022 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Rankings (Women): #4 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas

Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin

---

Seeing the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women in our top-five should hardly come as a surprise. This is a team that had grand success last year, producing finishes that put them at the very top of the NCAA. Not just at the cross country national meet, but throughout the entirety of the fall months as well.

In 2022, the Athenas will surely see (some of) the same success that they had during their 2021 fall campaign which was one of their best seasons in school history.

And while they are ranked a couple spots lower than where they finished at last year's national meet, it shouldn't be unrealistic to think that this team is still a favorite for the podium.

* * *

The first true test of the Athenas' 2021 cross country season came at the UC-Riverside 40th Annual Cross Country Invite, a very deep field featuring some of the better teams on the west coast.

And yet, despite the massive size of the meet, the CMS women thrived.

The three-headed scoring monster of Meredith Bloss, Riley Harmon and Natalie Bitetti flexed the best front-runners in the field, putting together a fantastic string of finishes, going 4-7-11 in the overall results.

That scoring trio would allow the Athenas to boast the strongest firepower in the field which was even better than what we saw from a strong California Baptist squad.

The Lancers ultimately got the best of the Athenas as far as depth was concerned, but CMS still had a very solid supporting cast. The backend trio of Angela Gushue, Laura Zimmer and Sophie Gitlin were the next three CMS runners to cross the line, going 30-36-39, respectively, with the scoring being closed out by Zimmer.

With a comfortable runner-up result, the Athenas had plenty to be happy about. Of course, we would get a more accurate gauge of their capabilities later in the season.

The next varsity race on the docket for the CMS women was the Louisville XC Classic, another massive meet, this time with numerous fields for varying levels of competition.

The "Silver" race was admittedly not the best field available, but the Athenas would still face the likes of UW-La Crosse, Calvin, Emory and MIT. And while those Division Three programs all had plenty of promise, they were simply no match for what this west coast lineup brought to the table.

Bitetti, Harmon and Bloss were outstanding once again, going 3-4-7 in the overall results -- but there was actually one more low-stick who emerged with elite scoring. This time, it was Emily Clarke who finished 9th overall to give the Athenas yet another true front-runner.

And through four runners, no other team in this field could touch the CMS women.

With Gitlin closing out the scoring fairly quickly via a 22nd place finish, the Athenas locked-down the overall win with just 43 points. And while the UW-La Crosse Eagles actually held their own, they were still much further back in 2nd place with 70 points.

After cruising through their competition at the Pomona-Pitzer Invite, the CMS women ventured to the postseason looking borderline unstoppable. In fact, at the SCIAC XC Championships, the Athenas absolutely crushed the Pomona-Pitzer women, one of the top teams in the country, by scoring just 18 points!

The same five women who scored at Louisville took five of the top-six spots of the meet, simply overwhelming their competition with a point total that no other team could match through even two runners.

It was almost an identical scenario at the West Regional XC Championships. Of course, that was only a precursor for their season finale, the NCAA XC Championships.

In a year where the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women looked untouchable, the Athenas would ultimately lose a heartbreaker Johns Hopkins at last year's national meet.

The CMS women were leading for the first 4000 meters of the race, but then slowly fell apart, eventually finishing a devastating two points behind Johns Hopkins.

The combination of Bloss, Bitetti, Harmon and Clarke went 13-16-19-26 in what was an absolutely unreal display of All-American firepower. But with CMS' fifth runner finishing 79th overall, a truthfully solid performance all things considered, this team just didn't have quite enough to edge the Blue Jays.

And while that final result was a tough pill to swallow, the silver lining of the Athenas' performance is that their 2nd place finish was the highest-ever in school history.

Now the question is...how will they rebound in 2022?

* * *

We'll admit, it's going to be tough for the Athenas to emulate that national meet placement in the fall of 2022. That's because they lose a crucial scoring contingent which features Emily Clarke, Riley Harmon and Sophie Gitlin.

For those keeping track at home, that's three of their top-five scorers from last fall.

Ouch.

It will admittedly be challenging to see a scenario where the Athenas are contending for a national title again in 2022. The amount of lost scoring from last year's lineup is usually too much for a team to simply replace in the span of a single year...but it has been done before.

However, what is working in favor for the Athens this fall is that they still have one of the best 1-2 punches in the entire country. Veterans Meredith Bloss and Natalie Bitetti are both top-20 finishers (and returners) from last year's national meet.

As we already mentioned, Bloss led her team at last year's national meet and finished 13th that day which was the cherry on top of an outstanding year. She was also the SCIAC champion last fall and she later finished runner-up at the West regional meet.

Although she is a senior, this is only her second year of collegiate cross country. Last year was, unbelievably, a learning curve for her. And as you saw, she handled that first-season of competitive exposure extremely well.

On the track, Bloss finished 7th at the indoor national meet in the 5000 meters and later 10th at the outdoor national meet in the 10,000 meters. She is, without question, a top-10 talent who will be looking to lead her squad to another team trophy this fall.

As for Natalie Bitetti, she was close behind Bloss at last year's national meet, finishing 16th overall. Of course, in her first collegiate cross country season, we could see that she was a top-tier talent from the very beginning.

Placing 3rd at the Louisville XC Classic, 4th at the SCIAC XC Championships and 3rd at the West Regional XC Championships is consistency and reliability that is so. darn. impressive.

At the national meet, she went out with the top pack and just wasn’t able to close as fast as a few others over the last kilometer. But that actually makes us think that she could potentially finish higher on the same stage in November with a better tactical approach.

Bitetti's indoor track season was admittedly rocky, but she rebounded fairly well during the spring. She ended up qualifying for the outdoor national meet, finishing 18th overall in the 1500 meters in a time of 4:39.

Although improvements from Bloss and/or Bitetti this fall won't have a massive impact on making up for this team's lost scoring potency, there is probably 10ish points that could be chopped off from each of their national meet finishes in 2022.

As for the rest of this CMS team, filling the third or fourth scoring slot should be Angela Gushue, a current sophomore. She finished 131st at last year's national meet which admittedly was a tough day for her.

But let's not forget: Gushue was only a freshman last year and the rest of her season was very promising. She finished 9th at SCIAC XC Championships and 13th at the West Regional XC Championships. Her track results weren't necessarily outstanding, but we don't see why she can't build on a successful first year.

Will Gushue be better in 2022 than she was in 2021? Yes, almost certainly. Women who see as much success as she did at such young age usually have a greater ceiling.

Of course, trying to know exactly what her ceiling will be later this fall may be this team's biggest unknown over these next few months.

Two seconds behind Gushue at the NCAA XC Championships was Laura Zimmer, a junior this year. She was consistently in the latter-half of CMS' lineup, but is expected to crack the team's top-five as a scorer.

Zimmer showed flashes of potential on the track, running some shorter races in the 800 meters and the 4x400 meter relays. Eventually, on the outdoor oval, she committed to the 1500 meters and qualified for the outdoor national meet.

The 2021 backend cross country runner ended up running 4:44 for 20th place on the national stage, but that doesn’t show her true speed. She had to run 4:34 to even get to the national meet to begin with.

With yet another summer of training, Zimmer could be a quality component of the Athenas' lineup this fall. Her 1500 meter success is extremely encouraging and we also shouldn't discount the fact that she was 36th at UC-Riverside (ahead of Gitlin), 12th at the SCIAC XC Championships and 17th at the West Regional XC Championships.

Even if she doesn't improve this fall, which is unlikely, she should still offer respectable backend scoring support.

But after those four women, things begin to look a little less clear.

Who will be this year's fifth scorer? Who will fill out the final two spots of their varsity lineups? Whoever those women are, how effective will they be?

Seniors Anika Kimme and Mallorie Jenne could step up and fill that final scoring role, but so could freshmen Elle Marsyla and Riley Capuano.

Kimme is a really interesting name to monitor. She ran 17:56 for 5000 meters this past spring and just finished a rust-buster race alongside the main returners from last fall. Her momentum seems to be sneaky-good right now, something that could end up being the difference maker when it comes to the Athenas being a top-five team this fall.

It's a similar story for rookie Ella Marsyla. She was part of that rust-buster group that all finished together. These early-season meets rarely tell us anything of note, but for a team with far less clarity at the backend of their lineup, her youth-driven upside could be important to watch as the season progresses.

As for Capuano, she was a really solid high school talent, owning times of 5:03 (1600) and 18:28 (5k XC) coming into CMS. With most of her progress coming in the last year, there is certainly room for her to experience additional growth.

One last name to keep in mind is Isabella Brusco. She didn't race last fall, but she was the 13th place finisher at the 2019 SCIAC XC Championships and has national meet experience. If Brusco has grown and developed as a runner since then, then she could be a major x-factor for this team in 2022.

* * *

In full transparency, ranking this CMS women's team was really tough.

Bloss and Bitetti are so darn good and they each have the talent to be low-stick superstars on a true title contending team. They are the absolute least of our concerns as far as scoring goes.

However, what really isn’t clear is who is going to fill the rest of this team's top-five, or even their top-seven for that matter. While they do have numerous high-upside options, many of whom we are very optimistic about, there is no guarantee that everyone will deliver.

Still, this team was simply way too good last year to not be ranked in our top-five.

Their firepower is elite and their supporting cast, while not as clear as a few other teams, is still expected to be very potent if expectations are met by the end of the season.