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TSR's 2023 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Women): #25 California Baptist Lancers
- Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
- Aug 9, 2023
- 8 min read
NOTE: Earlier this summer, The Stride Report reached out to nearly every team that was considered for a possible ranking this summer. While we did receive numerous responses and great clarity, we did not get a 100% response rate. On rare occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
The fall of 2022 was the first season where the California Baptist men and women were able to compete in official NCAA-sponsored championship meets. That was because the Lancers had finalized their four-year transition from the Division Two to the Division One level.
And for the most part, this team was great throughout last fall, stepping up to a nationally competitive level while showcasing excellent team-centric racing.
Ultimately, the Lancers' lack of national meet experience caught up to them in their season finale, but their fall campaign as a whole was noticeably better than how it ended.
But we are now in 2023 and last year's exposure to the highest levels of competition could have only benefitted the long-term growth of this program. And while there are still multiple hurdles to overcome, the ladies from CBU should still be a tricky team to deal with come October and November.
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Last fall, the California Baptist women decided to first test themselves at the Griak Invitational, a fairly competitive early-season meet in Minnesota. At that meet, they would face the likes of Utah, Michigan State, Colorado State, Ohio State and Wisconsin -- teams that all qualified for the national meet last fall.
And yet, despite the talent in that field, it was CBU's depth and pack-running that helped them take down numerous top-level teams.
Yasna Petrova's 3rd place finish was a very pleasant surprise as she gave the Lancers a promising low-stick scorer. In a race where many teams boasted great depth, CBU was able to stand out because of her.
With Greta Karinauskaite, Maja Dzialoszewska and Maelle Porcher going 16-20-21 in the overall results, the only point of improvement that CBU needed to make was at their fifth scoring spot which resulted in a 35th place finish.
Even so, the Lancers finished runner-up, losing to a strong Utah team by only 10 points and ultimately lighting an exciting spark for the rest of the season.
The CBU women would go on to win the Weiss-Crockett Invitational with relative ease, although the competition wasn't nearly as strong at that meet as we have seen from prior fields at Pre-Nationals.
Regardless, a pair of top-five finishes from Petrova and Karinauskaite were complemented by top-15 finishes from Maelle Porcher and Carlota Rodes. Plus, with Anna Mate and Maja Dzialoszewska finishing 20th and 21st, respectively, there weren't any major flaws to point to for the Lancers.
After taking down a very solid Utah Valley team at the WAC XC Championships, the CBU women ventured to the West Regional XC Championships. There, they struggled just the slightest bit, losing a tie-breaker with Oregon State and settling for 5th place overall.
And while their depth wasn't that much worse than the teams ahead of them (in many cases, it was better), you can point to the Lancers' lack of firepower after Yasna Petrova, the 5th place overall finisher.
Even so, the Lancers had done enough to advance to the national meet, their first appearance on that stage in their first year of being eligibile. Of course, like we mentioned earlier, their first effort at that meet would prove to be a tough wake up call.
We could go through the results of this meet and comb through every CBU scorer. But the fact of the matter is that most of the Lancers in this field simply had bad days. Yasna Petrova was the lone bright spot in 77th place, but after her, the next-best scorer on the team was Maelle Porcher in 150th place.
And in the end, the California Baptist women ended their season with a 29th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
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Whether you love 'em or hate 'em (and I don't know why you would hate them), fans of NCAA distance running should get used to seeing California Baptist competing on the national stage when it comes to cross country.
Coach Adam Tribble's ability to recruit legitimately impactful distance talents from overseas has translated fairly well to the collegiate realm. Not only that, but there have been a solid handful of women who have developed quite well over the last few years in Riverside, California.
As we venture into the fall of 2023, the Lancers should still be nationally competitive, but they may have a few more hiccups this fall compared to last year.
A large part of that assumption is based on who they are losing.
Maelle Porcher is not expected to return to this team later this fall -- and that's a tough blow. Despite her youth, this rising distance talent offered highly valuable scoring stability in the middle of this lineup throughout 2022.
And while her scoring potency never blew anyone away, she kept excessive scoring to a minimum and allowed her now-former teammate, Yasna Petrova, to deliver on her value as a low-stick scorer.
It also appears that veteran Anna Mate has finished her eligibility with the Lancers. She may not have been quite as potent of a scorer as Porcher, but she offered the team a fairly respectable backend contributor.
Mate was the team's fifth scorer at the Weiss-Crockett Invitational and the third scorer at the West Regional XC Championships (essentially crossing the line with two teammates right behind her).
Last year's California Baptist team clearly had depth, but there were certain moments where that aspect wasn't always reflected in their results. And now, with two key varsity scorers out of this lineup, nearly everyone on this team is going to have to make improvements to compensate for those losses.
Luckily, the returners (and new additions) on this team look promising.
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Yasna Petrova, the team's lead scorer throughout last fall, is set to return in the coming months. The CBU low-stick was fantastic in 2022, offering tremendous consistency and emerging as a true ace who the Lancers could lean on.
Truthfully, outside of the national meet, there isn't much more that Petrova can do to help her team this fall. In 2022, she was a top-five finisher (overall) in every race she contested leading up to the NCAA XC Championships. And even in Stillwater, Oklahoma, a top-80 result was still plenty respectable.
From a scoring standpoint, Petrova is the one runner who we're not really worried about.
Instead, the name who we'll truly be watching is Greta Karinauskaite, the steeplechase superstar from this past spring.
The breakout distance talent from the outdoor oval ran outstanding times of 15:36 (5k) and 9:26 (steeple) earlier this year, emerging as one of the best all-around long distance talents in the NCAA during the spring months.
Throughout last fall, Karinauskaite was a solid cross country scorer. However, nothing that we saw from her on the grass led us to believe that she would be the superstar that she proved to be on the oval.
Now, as we venture into September, October and November, all eyes will be on Karinauskaite to be a true star low-stick, or least as good as teammate, Yasna Petrova.
If that happens, then the departure of women such as Maelle Porcher and Anna Mate shouldn't be quite as challenging. No, we wouldn't anticipate all of those scoring obstacles to disappear, but a step up from Karinauskaite this fall would at least take the pressure off of the now-somewhat-thin backend of this lineup.
The problem, of course, is that there's no guarantee that Karinauskate will be a star on the grass later this fall.
The Lancers are also bringing back Emilia Mikszuta, Carlota Rodes and Maja Dzialoszewska, three key names who occasionally emerged as top-five scorers for the CBU women last fall.
Mikszuta is an interesting name to analyze. She was fine throughout the 2022 cross country season, sneaking into the final scoring spot of her team's lineup at the Griak Invitational. However, for the most part, she was largely not a factor in larger meets where the field size proved to be overwhelming.
However, Mikszuta just had a very encouraging year on the track, running 10:08 in the steeplechase. In theory, that kind of mark suggests that this Polish distance talent will at least make improvements in her cross country scoring potential this fall.
How big of a jump will she make? Truthfully, we don't know, but the idea that she can offer some scoring stability to a lineup that needs it seems plenty reasonable. In theory, she should be a good replacement for the now-departed Anna Mate.
And then there is Maja Dzialoszewska, a reoccurring varsity scorer for California Baptist last fall. Finishing 20th at the Griak Invitational and 21st at the Weiss-Crockett Invitational aren't necessarily results that blow you away, but generally speaking, Dzialoszewska was solid.
After a quiet year on the oval, we're not sure if we should be expecting anything too different from Dzialoszewska in 2023. Even so, she's fairly reliable and she's (usually) not going to be the one who hurts you with excessive scoring.
Sometimes, that's all that you can ask for.
However, it's a slightly different conversation with Carlota Rodes.
At the Griak Invitational (60th), she struggled. But at the Weiss-Crockett Invitational (14th) and the WAC XC Championships (5th), Rodes thrived. Unfortunately, her season ended at the West Regional XC Championships (73rd) and she didn't make the team's national meet lineup.
When she's at her best, Rodes is a scorer who can be a bit behind Maelle Porcher, but relatively stronger than Anna Mate. The problem, of course, is that we don't always know what we're going to get from Rodes. And for a team that is trying to piece together a complete lineup, reliability is going to be a big deal for them in 2023.
There are, however, reinforcements.
As always, Coach Adam Tribble has brought in a large number of new international names. However, most of these women will need further development before they can be impact scorers. Sure, some of them might surprise us, but generally speaking, we don't anticipate those newcomers to have any major roles for the Lancers in 2023.
Well, except for one name.
Grace McLaughlin is a transfer from Gonzaga and recently put together a couple of excellent unattached efforts in the longer distances.
The long-time veteran has run 9:22 (3k) and 16:09 (5k) on the track, making her someone who could absolutely be a high-impact name for the CBU women this fall. She also finished 6th at the quietly-competitive UCR XC Invitational last fall.
It's admittedly been a bit since we've seen McLaughlin put together a full season. However, she’s clearly talented and could help the Lancers be far better than TSR #25 by the time November rolls around.
Naturally, we want to balance those two aspects when establishing expectations.
The newest Lancer is a major wild card who could change the dynamic of this team if everything goes perfectly for her in 2023. But until then, we'll stay on the more cautiously optimistic side.
We should also note that Grace McLaughlin is a Division Two writer for The Stride Report.
* * *
If someone wanted us to rank the California Baptist women higher, I'm not sure that we would argue. With the potential that Karinauskaite, Mikszuta and McLaughlin all have, the ceiling for this team could be far higher than TSR #25.
However, there's also no guarantee that any of those women will fully translate their recent successes to this season. We also need to see greater consistency from Rodes and the scoring potency of Dzialoszewska has room for improvement.
Trying to fill out this lineup and hoping that everyone runs well on the same day is going to be slightly more challenging this year than it was in 2022. And after seeing how they finished on the national stage back in November, we feel like this spot is relatively fair.
Even so, there are numerous avenues towards success for this team. If everyone delivers on their full potential, then you're looking at a group that could be a top-18 squad by the end of October. Everyone who we mentioned has legitimate scoring utility and the team as a whole now has a valuable year of experience.
And who knows? Maybe last year was just the start of something far more grand for the women of Riverside, California...
