TSR's 2022 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Rankings (Women): #7 Williams Ephs

Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin

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Few teams are greater examples of excellence than Williams cross country, both on the men's and women's sides. The Ephs have long been a mainstay in the ultra-competitive NESCAC, a conference that often boasts some of the best Division Three cross country teams in the nation.

And yet, time and time again, Williams often walks away with an outstanding season of high-level performances and top postseason finishes.

In 2022, that narrative won't be any different for the Williams women who look like they will be imposing threats for any team that toes the line next to them this fall.

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Prior to the 2021 cross country national meet, the Williams women won every meet that they competed in other than the James Earley Invitational where they did not field a full-strength lineup.

Admittedly, none of their performances were completely dominant, but it was hard to be upset about a team that was consistently winning regardless of how it looked.

After comfortably defeating a respectable Amherst team at the Little Three Championships, the Ephs would find success on their home course at the Williams Purple Valley XC Invite. There, they would face top-ranked foes such as MIT, Tufts and Middlebury.

However, despite their competition, the Williams women still racked up 52 points and a victory. Genna Girard was a very pleasant surprise, finishing runner-up, while supporting scorers Grace Kaercher and Ella Ball thrived as well, placing 10th and 11th, respectively.

From there, the Ephs overwhelmed their competition with depth. The combination of Charlotte Studenmayer, Alexandra Bettez, Madeline Lawler, Emma Tapscott and Lucy Gagnon put together a string of finishes that went 10-11-14-15-17-19-23.

No other team was able to match the mass number of varsity options that Williams held. As a result, the MIT women settled for runner-up, just 12 points behind the Ephs.

It was almost an identical situation at the Connecticut College Invite, a meet where Williams posted a lineup extremely similar in its structure. Girard once again led the team with a runner-up result while Ball and Lawler finished 13th and 14th, respectively.

With the final four women of this varsity lineup going 21-28-33-39 in the overall results, the depth of this team was enough to once again out-battle the women from MIT and Tufts.

And in the end, Williams earned a 25-point margin of victory.

And the NESCAC XC Championships? Same deal.

Girard (3rd) was great, Ball (9th) and Lawler (14th) continued to improve and the next three runners of Williams' lineup finished inside the top-21 spots. Yet again, the Ephs were victorious, this time by 13 points.

After winning the Mideast XC Championships, albeit by a smaller nine-point margin over Middlebury, the Williams women advanced to the national meet. On paper, this group was more than capable of putting themselves on the podium, but that possibility would ultimately come down to how much firepower they were able to display.

Depth, after all, was probably the least of this team's worries.

And sure enough, the lineup structure that we saw from the Williams women at last year's national meet seemed to match what we had seen from them all season long. Girard was a huge All-American finisher in 15th place, but the rest of the lineup finished outside of the top-60, going 63-67-72-107.

In the end, a 7th place team finish was fairly close to what the Ephs were expected to do. Girard proved to be an elite low-stick, the team's supporting cast was outstanding in the middle portion of this lineup and the rest of their backend contributors were good enough.

Still, this was a team that, on the right day, could have been closer to the top-five.

* * *

Alright, let's get the bad news out of the way.

The Williams women return four of their seven national meet runners from last year's team. That means that Grace Dailey, Abby Scott and Emma Tapscott are all gone, leaving the Ephs with significantly fewer middle-lineup options in 2022, a lineup aspect that carried them throughout last fall.

Admittedly, that group of three wasn't always the most consistent. For instance, at the NESCAC XC Championships, only Dailey emerged as a scorer. But just one week later, that trio filled the second, third and fourth spots in Williams' lineup at the Mideast regional meet.

Trying to rebound from the loss of so many high-impact scorers is going to be a major challenge for Williams, even if those three women weren't low-stick runners or top-three national meet contributors.

But this is Williams we're talking about. This team will always be good. And while losing Dailey, Scott and Tapscott will hurt, the returning (and improved) firepower of this 2022 team should be enough that the Ephs remain just as competitive as they were last year.

A lot of the Ephs success this fall will truthfully depend on how Genna Girard, Eva Borton and Molly FitzGibbons perform throughout the season.

Girard was the 15th place finisher at last year's NCAA XC Championships, holds a 10k personal best of 35:34, boasts All-American honors on the track and is sitting at TSR #13 in our 2022 preseason individual rankings.

The biggest concern for Girard this season is availability as she has had very limited racing opportunities throughout her time at Williams. She has raced only four times on the track and only five times on the grass.

Even so, we know that when she does race, she is one of the best distance runners in D3.

It's a similar story for Eva Borton who has had her fair share of availability concerns as well. She was the 22nd place finisher at the 2019 cross country national meet, but has not raced since pre-COVID despite being listed on the roster in every single season since then.

If we see the best versions of Girard and Borton, then the Williams women will have one of the best scoring duos in Division Three -- and you can’t understate the double low-stick value that this tandem could potential offer.

Of course, that’s a very big “if” statement and we really aren’t quite sure what to expect.

Behind those two, there is a talented supporting cast with a ton of potential to fill the holes left by Dailey, Scott and Tapscott.

Molly FitzGibbons and Ella Ball are the two athletes with perhaps the most promise of that returning group.

FitzGibbons was not on the national meet roster last fall, but she is coming off of a breakthrough year where she was an All-American in both the mile and the steeplechase.

If those performances can translate at all to the grass -- and we think they can based on our TSR #17 ranking of FitzGibbons -- then she is in for a huge cross country season which could catapult the Ephs into podium contention.

As for Ella Ball, she is a proven scorer on the cross country course already, having finished 63rd at the national meet as a true freshman in 2021. She also went on to run 4:43 (1500), 10:07 (3k) and 17:23 (5k) during the winter and spring months.

But wait, there's more!

Veteran Maddy Lawler was 72nd at last year’s national meet while Charlotte Staudenmeyer was 123rd as a true freshman. Lucy Gagnon ran a national qualifying mark of 4:33 in the 1500 meters last spring and could also provide a big boost in the team's scoring if that PR translates at all to the longer distances of the cross country course.

There’s also Grace Kaercher (10:08 for 3k), Nora Johnson (5:03 mile in high school) and Sophie Rosencrans (4:46 for 1500 meters) who are coming into their sophomore years, each of them with the potential of taking a step into the top-seven of this team.

* * *

Despite numerous scoring losses, the Williams women boast an elite top-four and there is enough depth that there will be several other high-level runners competing for a scoring spot.

However, there is truthfully a significant level of uncertainty surrounding the top-two or three runners of Williams' projected 2022 lineup.

Girard has, historically, been somewhat limited in terms of availability, Borton has been very limited in terms of availability and there's no guarantee that FitzGibbons is going to be the superstar All-American that her track times suggest that she could be.

Even so, this squad runs deep enough that they will have a highly competitive team even if things don't completely work out for Girard, Borton or FitzGibbons. On the flip-side, if all three of those women are available and competing at a high level, then the ceiling for what this team can accomplish is incredibly exciting.

In fact, if everything goes exactly to plan, then the Ephs have the potential to boast three to four All-Americans and a fifth runner in the top-60 or top-70. Heck, by that thought process, could they maybe even contend for a national title?

They have A LOT of questions to answer before we even start talking about that, but you can’t necessarily rule out that possibility, either.