TSR's 2023 D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Women): Update #4 (FINAL)

TSR Collaboration
Nov 24, 2023
8 min read

Written by Conor Daly, Kevin Fischer & Gavin Struve

Additional edits and commentary via Garrett Zatlin & Gavin Struve

NOTE: These rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at the NCAA XC Championships or at a singular meet. You will notice that these rankings may mirror the national meet results, but not precisely. That is intentional. These rankings are intended to be an aggregate. They are not recency lists.

KEY

(Unranked):

Was not ranked in our last update.

(#/#):

First number indicates how much the team has moved in the rankings.

The second number indicates where the team was ranked in our last update.

10. Emory Eagles (Unranked)

We had a hard time seeing the Emory women being nationally competitive after losing Annika Urban. But with some big-time pickups during the offseason, the Eagles looked better and better as the season went on.

Their first real test was not until the UAA XC Championships where they finished a very respectable 4th place. From there, they went on to tie (ultimately losing on a tie-breaker) our then-TSR #10 team, Lynchburg, on the regional stage. That was more than encouraging for a team that had not even scratched our "Honorable Mention" list to that point.

At the national meet, Emory was one of the most pleasant surprises of the day, battling their way to an 8th place finish. Of course, the Eagles couldn’t have done that without some big-time pickups.

Brigid Hanley, a transfer from the University of Arizona, came up huge with her best performance to date, coming across the line in 8th place. We also saw Emory’s secret weapon, true freshman Elizabeth Csikai. After not racing until the regional meet, she emerged as one of the top freshmen in the nation with a highly impressive 22nd place run.

Liesl Scherrer (51st) did what was needed of her as a middle-lineup scorer and Madison Tiaffay was another freshman who was a top-80 finisher.

With three of their five scorers from the 2023 NCAA XC Championships not even wearing an Emory uniform last year, the addition of Hanley and the freshman duo of Csikai and Tiaffay was the edge that ultimately led Emory to their recent success.

9. Wartburg Knights (-5 / 4)

In the early-going of the fall months, we thought that we made a mistake by ranking the Knights at our preseason TSR #1 spot. But then they slowly gained momentum that we thought was very encouraging.

At the Augustana Interregional Invitational, the Knights fell to the U. of Chicago women who were on fire at the time. As such, we no longer saw this team as the best in the nation, but were sure to keep them as a top-five squad.

The Knights slowly gained momentum as they took down Central College at the American Rivers Conference XC Championships before putting on a show at the Midwest Regional XC Championships. There, the Knights flipped the script on the U. of Chicago women, putting four runners in the top-seven en route to a convincing victory.

Of course, it felt fair to say that the national meet would hold much more weight, urgency and emphasis -- something that the Midwest regional meet couldn't replicate.

Coming into the national meet, we saw the Knights as one of four teams who had a very realistic shot at taking home the national team title. In our eyes, they seemed to be peaking at just the right time.

All three of our Division Three writers predicted the Knights to have four women in the top-30. Yet, the Knights just didn’t have it in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Other than Shaelyn Hostager (21st), everyone from top-to-bottom had an "off" day. With only three runners in the top-100 and their fifth runner in the 200s, the Wartburg women finished in a shocking 14th place.

So how exactly does a team that’s a top-four lock end up in 14th place?

It’s truly unclear what happened to this team between the seven-day span of their fantastic regional meet and their humbling national meet showing. As a result, we have had no choice but for the Knights to plummet in our rankings.

That said, the rest of their solid results from this fall keeps them in our top-10.

8. UW-La Crosse Eagles (+1 / 9)

While oftentimes overlooked because of their men’s team's success, the UW-La Crosse women had an excellent season in their own right.

After losing a heartbreakingly close battle with the Carleton women early in the season, the Eagles grabbed a pair of respectable wins over St. Olaf and UW-Eau Claire before snagging the WIAC title and later cruising through their regional meet.

Even though we expected this team to be higher than 10th at the national meet, some other teams just had awesome performances. Other than Maddie Hannan (82nd) having an "off" day of sorts, you really couldn’t have asked for much more from the Eagles’ scorers. We need to also give credit to Katelyn Chadwick (57th) who was so solid throughout the fall months and made really strong improvements in 2023.

Ultimately, the Eagles retain a ranking higher than their national meet finish since their regular season was very admirable -- and more specifically, the rise and fall of other top teams positioned UW-La Crosse at this spot.

7. Lynchburg Hornets (+3 / 10)

Their male counterparts are similarly on the rise and entered the cross country national meet in similar standing toward the backend of our top-10. However, the Lynchburg women proved to be the program's better team this fall as depth powered them to a 7th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.

The Hornets produced just one All-American by the skin of their teeth (Division One transfer Kayla Werner finished 40th), but two other teammates joined her in the top-50 (Allison Dell and Sarah James).

As long as their backend didn't implode, this Virginia-based squad was primed to earn a top finish. And sure enough, the Lynchburg women admirably closed out their scoring after 103 individuals had crossed the line.

That set of finishes resulted in one of the more complete team efforts that we saw on Saturday. It also solidified the Hornets as one of the nation's best teams after they faced a lighter schedule this fall compared to their national competitors.

6. Williams Ephs (+2 / 8)

We should preface this ranking by saying that Williams could have been even better, but a 6th place finish at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships was a perfectly solid season-ending result for the Ephs.

Genna Girard entered the meet as the TSR #2 individual, but slipped to a backend All-American position. Ella Ball (52nd) was arguably capable of a bit more as well and Molly Fitzgibbons (58th) never quite rallied back to All-American form.

But despite not having their best days, all of these women still offered reliable scoring as Williams' first four runners crossed the line just inside the top-60. Nora Johnson (59th) crossed the line next to Fitzgibbons raising the floor of this team significantly.

In the grand scheme of things, that was an admirable effort considering that, on an individual basis, the Ephs weren't at their best. But with a freshman closing out the scoring, Williams cemented a successful season with their best finish in recent years -- and a TSR #6 landing spot reflects that.

5. SUNY Geneseo Knights (+1 / 6)

With a defined, but not necessarily tight, scoring structure, SUNY Geneseo finished one spot off of the podium just as they did a year ago. The Knights boasted one of the nation's better 1-2 punches in Penelope Greene (3rd) and Rachel Hirschkind (24th), both of whom were both near their best when it mattered most.

Lily Fowler-Conner (56th) and Kaitlyn Grossman (69th) were good as well, but this group needed virtually everything to go right in order to secure a top-four finish. That, of course, shouldn't take away from a performance that largely held very few flaws.

We didn't entirely know what to make of this team entering last weekend as their only loss in a Division Three meet had come to the eventual national champions, Carleton. Even so, they lived up to (and probably exceeded) expectations as this ranking suggests.

4. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas (+1 / 5)

Perhaps the team who most directly benefited from Wartburg faltering on the national stage was the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women.

Natalie Bitetti (2nd at the national meet) and Riley Capuano (11th) were great throughout this season as lead scorers, and you could say the same for All-American teammate Elle Marsyla. The rise of those latter two women were massive as the Athenas beat our preseason expectations as to what they were capable of.

There was a relatively sizable gap from those women to the Athenas' backend scorers, but both of the ladies (Sara Wexler and Angela Gushue) still finished among the top-90 individuals. Wexler in particular was great compared to what she had produced earlier this fall.

In the end, all of that helped CMS to a memorable season which, in addition to a podium result, also featured a SCIAC title and a win at D3 Pre-Nationals.

3. U. of Chicago Maroons (-1 / 2)

After a phenomenal start to the season, highlighted by a win at the Augustana Interregional, the Maroons started to slip ever-so-slightly during the postseason.

U. of Chicago lost their TSR #1 spot to NYU at the UAA XC Championships, sustaining what was a surprising loss at the time. Then, at the Midwest Regional XC Championships, they lost to a Wartburg team whom they had beaten earlier in the season (although we put limited stock into the regional meet).

The Maroons bounced back a bit, running better at the national meet and looking more like the best version of themselves en route to a podium finish. However, they ultimately came up just six points short of a title despite outstanding 7th, 13th and 19th place finishes from Maddie Kelly, Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel and Elisabeth Camic, respectively.

Sure, you could argue that the Maroons' backend scorers could have been a bit stronger. But all things considered, this team was still within very realistic striking distance of the national title, and that doesn't always happen if you're the 3rd place team on the national stage.

2. NYU Violets (-1 / 1)

NYU took Division Three by storm this fall, starting the season outside of our top-10 rankings and finishing as the national meet runner-up. The Violets were just four points shy of winning the national title and they led by 18 points at the 5k mark before each of their top-four runners dropped at least a couple of spots in the final kilometer. Even so, they still posted an outstanding top-two with senior Grace Richardson (9th) and freshman Morgan Uhlhorn (15th) leading a group that offered strong backend support.

Vivian Kane (37th) rounded back into All-American form after looking like a star last fall and Kate Cochran (47th) was a very pleasant surprise this fall as well.

While they would have loved to hold on for the win, Saturday was NYU's highest cross country national meet finish in school history. And if you go back to August, nobody other than themselves could have foreseen a result like that.

1. Carleton Knights (+2 / 3)

A year after losing one of the most decorated distance runners in Division Three (Clara Mayfield), Carleton regrouped in a big way. While they didn’t have a top-five individual threat anymore, they still held some firepower along with some much-improved depth.

The national title that they won last weekend was representative of the way that they have been operating all season long as a cohesive group.

Hannah Preisser (14th) ran very well, but finished a bit behind the low-sticks of the other podium teams. That, however, largely didn't matter as Phoebe Ward (16th) was right there with her to offer some additional firepower.

Support scorers Helen Cross (41st) and Aliya Larsen (46th) finished just outside the All-American spots and Sophia McManus (62nd) moved up 26 spots in the last kilometer to seal the deal. McManus likely could have finished a bit higher up, but she was still the main hero of this team given her incredible final kilometer surge.

Despite appearing as a team in every cross country national meet since 2010, this was the first time in program history that the Knights have won it all. It has to feel even better to do so behind a truly balanced team effort.

That's how an undefeated, but somewhat untested, team who we viewed as a safe podium group, but a dark horse for the national title, won the whole thing.