TSR's 2023 D3 XC Top 20 Individual Rankings (Women): Update #1

Written by Conor Daly, Kevin Fischer and Gavin Struve

Additional commentary and edits by Gavin Struve & Garrett Zatlin

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NOTE: These rankings are based on how an individual fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at a singular meet or (eventually) at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships. Click here to learn more about our ranking criteria.

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KEY

(Unranked):

Was not ranked in our last update.

(#/#):

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

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

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20. Lara Kallem, Junior, Simpson (Unranked)

After a couple of tune-up efforts, Lara Kallem really broke out in a major way at the Dan Huston Invitational. Racing on Wartburg's home course, she took down a handful of top-rated individuals from her in-state rival that is listed at TSR #1 in our team rankings.

On that stage, Kallem finished 4th, beating higher-ranked names like Ellie Meyer and Aubrie Fisher -- a surprising development given her more modest resume coming into this fall. Kallem has never reached the national meet, but this most recent performance, in addition to another pair of top-four results from earlier this season, could infuse her with momentum to propel her into uncharted waters.

19. Allison Sibold, Junior, St. Lawrence (Unranked)

Allison Sibold had previously been a solid name at the Division Two level, but she appears primed to truly emerge as a national-caliber talent after attaining national meet experience last year and stacking fitness.

Sibold picked up a troika of victories to open her 2023 cross country season before placing 8th at D3 Pre-Nationals, an excellent result which validated her fitness by finishing ahead of star names like Kayla Aalpoel and several key scorers for MIT and CMS.

We'll get a true feel for whether or not this ranking is overzealous, or perhaps overeager, as Sibold has a handful of competitive meets looming in the coming weeks. But truthfully, this is someone who was already very solid during the regular season in 2022 -- we don't have any reason to believe that her latest effort was a fluke.

18. Gillian Roeder, Junior, MIT (Unranked)

Gillian Roeder has been incredibly steady this fall, showing improvement and while simultaneously confirming the idea that 2022 cross country national meet performance (177th) was a fluke -- something that we very much believe.

The MIT star was the Engineers' top scorer over 4000 meters in their opener before finishing a more important 3rd place overall at the Williams Purple Valley Invite as her team took down rival Williams, convincingly.

However, her latest performance was perhaps the most impressive of her career. Roeder led MIT to a runner-up result at D3 Pre-Nationals where she placed 4th in a strong field. That result was debatably the best of her career (on the grass) and she delivered on the potential of hers that we have been preaching about for the last year.

Now, as she dives deeper into the fall months, it feels as if Roeder has both a higher floor and ceiling as one of the top runners on a podium team.

17. Claire Walters, Junior, Franciscan (OH) (-3 / 14)

Has not yet raced this fall.

16. Penelope Greene, Junior, SUNY Geneseo (Unranked)

Penelope Greene's best effort this season came in a deep field which, in theory, bodes well for her championship season prospects.

After a 5th place run at the Yellowjacket XC Invitational that mostly matched expectations, Greene finished in the top-50 and as the top Division Three runner, in the Paul Short "Gold" race. In the process, she took down one of the best names in Division Three, including Sara Stephenson, which unquestionably warrants an introduction into our rankings.

As seemingly the lead scorer for our TSR #6 team, Greene has the opportunity to achieve some things of great import this fall. Of course, we would like to see her replicate a performance of that caliber later in the season, a fairly reasonable ask for someone who has run 16:47 for 5000 meters.

15. Grace Hadley, Senior, WPI (Unranked)

If you only pay attention to the cross country season, then Grace Hadley's breakthrough would appear as one of the most surprising developments of the fall. But her All-American effort in the 5k this past spring at least foreshadowed this kind of jump.

Nonetheless, Hadley has exceeded our expectations and appears to be a singular talent across distances and racing surfaces. She opened her season by winning the Bates Super-XC Invite, then threw down a 3rd place finish at D3 Pre-Nationals, pulling ahead of some big names while stamping herself as an All-American favorite.

We'll be intrigued to see if Hadley can maintain this level of success, but she's already shown herself as a solid championship racer in the past year. And maybe more importantly, her rate of improvement doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon.

14. Ellie Meyer, Junior, Wartburg (-4 / 10)

Ellie Meyer has been just a step off of her best, finishing well behind teammates Shaelyn Hostager and Lexi Brown at both the Redbird Invite and the Dan Huston Invitational.

Even so, it's not like there is a dramatic gap between her and her teammates. It wouldn't be surprising to see her really kick it into gear over these next few weeks. She has an ideal team, training partners and competition to push her, and her pedigree from previous seasons keeps her as a top-15 name for the time being.

13. Caroline McMartin, Senior, Central College (-1 / 12)

Carolina McMartin is off to a really solid start, having already faced some elite competition and holding her own. Following a decent day against a largely Division Two field at the Roy Griak "Maroon" Race, she finished 3rd at the Dan Huston Invitational, just behind our TSR #3 runner, Lexi Brown, as well as our TSR #10 runner, Shaelyn Hostager, but ahead of Kallem and Meyer.

The Central College standout was within five seconds of the win, suggesting that she is actually pretty close to the level of those first two women. She also defeated Kallem in one of her two season-opening wins, further validating the idea that McMartin is just as good as she has been over the last year.

There haven't been many surprises to this point with this Central College star as she has been exactly the type of top-tier talent that we thought she would be.

12. Maddie Kelly, Junior, U. of Chicago (+1 / 13)

A tough day at Joe Piane isn't too much of a concern for Maddie Kelly considering her solid performances prior to that, taking 2nd and 1st in her first two races, with both of those efforts ending in top-five sweeps by the Maroons.

Winning the Gil Dodds Invitational over her teammates is an achievement in and of itself. The bigger test for her and U. of Chicago is over a month away.

11. Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel, Junior, U. of Chicago (Unranked)

Through the first two races of the season, Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel traded wins with Maddie Kelly in smaller meets. It was a really nice start for someone who didn't have a ton of prior cross country success.

But her performance at Joe Piane, finishing 7th in the "Gold" race, against competition from all three divisions, with a 5k mark of 17:30, boosted her stock past our projections and solidified her place comfortably within these rankings.

Any doubts that we had entering the fall about how Battleson-Gunkel's track achievements would translate to the grass have now been eliminated. She has a case to be the lead scorer for a podium outfit and now the only question that remains for her is, just how high can she go in 2023?

10. Shaelyn Hostager, Junior, Wartburg (+6 / 16)

She hasn't faced a ton of huge names yet, but for the races that she's been in, Shaelyn Hostager has done everything that we could have expected from her -- and then some.

She has already notched a head-to-head victory over Caroline McMartin, and the only Division Three athlete who she has lost to is teammate and our TSR #3 runner, Lexi Brown. Looking like the second scorer on our TSR #1 team, Hostager carries tangible momentum entering some larger meets of great importance.

9. Aubrie Fisher, Senior, Wartburg (-7 / 2)

Aubrie Fisher hasn't performed up to expectations yet this fall, but it isn't time to panic just yet through two meets.

Her outstanding resume over the past several years is enough for us to still give her a vote of confidence for the remainder of the season by keeping her in our top-10. Plus, this is someone who, for the most part, has usually peaked very well for the postseason.

It's a surprise not seeing Fisher as Wartburg's top scorer, but even more so seeing her behind several other teams' top runner(s) through this fall. She's still an All-American talent, but we'll be forced to move her further down if she can't rediscover her elite form soon.

8. Olivia Rosenstein, Junior, MIT (-3 / 5)

Has not yet raced this fall.

7. Maddie Hannan, Senior, UW-La Crosse (0 / 7)

Maddie Hannan isn’t afraid of a little competition. After all, she attempted the 800/5k double at the outdoor national meet earlier this year. Put simply, she runs with some serious grit.

And of course, this fall has been no different as Hannan has wasted no time to run against the best of the best. In her season opener, the Running of the Cows, Hannan finished 3rd ahead of Hannah Preisser who is currently ranked above her.

As far as Paul Short went, it was a solid outing, but maybe not as elite as we saw in her season opener. At Lehigh University, the Eagle's star low-stick faded a bit to 106th place. Hannan hasn't necessarily done anything to significantly hurt or improve her stock this fall, so we'll monitor to see how she fares in the weeks ahead.

6. Hannah Preisser, Sophomore, Carleton (-2 / 4)

We had high hopes for Carleton's low-stick sophomore coming into the fall and for the most part, Hannah Preisser has largely delivered thus far. In her two competitions over 6k, Preisser has only lost to our TSR #7 runner, Maddie Hannan, and heavy national title favorite, Fiona Smith, both at the Running of the Cows.

While we may have hoped for more dominance, we have to remember that Preisser is an underclassman and the competition that she has faced (i.e. Fiona Smith in both races) hasn't necessarily been conducive to offering a great look at her improvement.

5. Natalie Bitetti, Junior, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (+4 / 9)

Natalie Bitetti is no stranger to the top-end caliber of competition on the grass. She has placed 16th and 39th at prior cross country national meets, so it’s safe to say that she knows what she’s doing by now.

It also seems that her high-level experience in her early years has paid off even more this season. She has been running fantastically in multiple, highly competitive fields which have dramatically varied in terms of the competition that she has faced.

Her fall competitions were filled with Division One and Two foes....that is, until D3 Pre-National. On that stage, Bitetti ran to a fantastic runner-up result, further flexing her raw talent. Not only is she racing very well, but her team is, too. All of the signs that we’ve seen so far point to nothing but positives for CMS and their top runner.

4. Sara Stephenson, Senior, Johns Hopkins (-1 / 3)

Sara Stephenson has started out her season very much in impressive form.

She first took a win against Division One competition at the Baltimore Metro Meet before running well once again over the hilly Van Cortland course -- that will theoretically pay dividends when she goes up against the hilly terrain on the national meet course.

However, at Paul Short, the Johns Hopkins star was not quite as strong, finishing behind the aforementioned Penelope Greene. We would have expected Stephenson to be the top Division Three runner in that field, fairly comfortably we might.

Even so, this move down one spot in our rankings is less of a punishment and more a product of rewarding some other women who are off to a bit of a flashier start.

3. Lexi Brown, Junior, Wartburg (+3 / 6)

Lexi Brown has established herself as the top Wartburg woman this fall, finishing as the Knights' top runner in both 6k races that the team has contested this fall.

She hasn’t necessarily been tested against top-end Division Three competition just yet, but we feel that we’ve seen enough to move her up a bit. After all, there are several other top-20 women on her own team.

Simply put, Brown is currently the top runner for the top-ranked team, and that’s a pretty strong feat, so much so that we're listing her at TSR #3.

2. Genna Girard, Junior, Williams (+9 / 11)

Things have been clicking for Genna Girard this fall. Virtually everything seems to be going right for the Ephs’ front-runner. And honestly, that may be an understatement.

The Williams standout won her season-opener, the Williams Purple Valley XC Invite, by 48 seconds. And let's be clear, she wasn’t up against a poor field, either. In fact, she was up against our TSR #5 team, MIT, as well as her two teammates who (at the time) were both well within our top-20 rankings.

Girard then went on to D3 Pre-Nationals and looked as confident as can be, blowing out the field by 15 seconds. She seems to be in a league of her own and the only woman who has the potential to challenge Fiona Smith for the individual gold at the national meet. She wasn't necessarily the Eph expected to be a fringe title contender this fall, but her and her team likely welcomed that development all the same.

1. Fiona Smith, Junior, St. Benedict (0 / 1)

Unsurprisingly, Fiona Smith has been on a winning streak this fall. She’s undefeated in her first three races and hasn’t shown any signs of weakness.

Specifically, she went up against the UW La-Crosse women once and the Carleton women twice. Those lineups feature the TSR #6 and TSR #7 ranked individuals in this update. And not only did Smith beat them, but she did so by over 40 seconds each time.

Anything can happen, but it’s hard to see a scenario in which she doesn’t take home the individual title in November. She’s just that good.

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ADDED

Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel (U. of Chicago)

Grace Hadley (WPI)

Penelope Greene (SUNY Geneseo)

Gillian Roeder (MIT)

Allison Sibold (St. Lawrence)

Lara Kallem (Simpson)

KICKED OFF

Molly Fitzgibbons (Williams)

Ella Ball (Williams)

Kayla Aalpoel (George Fox)

Rachel Hirschkind (SUNY Geneseo)

Sienna Ruiter-Diaz (Calvin)

Claudia Harnett (U. of Chicago)

JUST MISSED (in no particular order)

Kayla Aalpoel (George Fox)

Rachel Hirschkind (SUNY Geneseo)

Sienna Ruiter-Diaz (Calvin)

Amelia Lehman (UW-Oshkosh)

Ella Ball (Williams)

Riley Martel-Phillips (UC-Santa Cruz)

Chloe Bullock (Redlands)

Elle Marsyla (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps)

HONORABLE MENTIONS (in no particular order)

Claudia Harnett (U. of Chicago)

Molly Fitzgibbons (Williams)

Katie Rector (Washington U.)

Alison Bode (St. Olaf)

Paloma Hancock (Johns Hopkins)

Sydney Rankin (Colorado College)

Erin Eivers (SUNY Geneseo)

Kate Sanderson (MIT)

Sydney Kholsa (Wittenburg)

Ella Webster (Wittenburg)

Olivia Pisacano (RPI)

Lexi Fernandez (MIT)

Elliot Singer (Colorado College)

Jenna Allman (Calvin)

Sophie McManus (Carleton)

Phoebe Ward (Carleton)

Haley Meyer (Wartburg)

Kylah Holland (Hardin-Simmons)

Katelyn Chadwick (UW-La Crosse)

Sylvan Wold (Amherst)

Grace Richardson (NYU)

Katie Cline (Pomona-Pitzer)

Notes

- N/A