.png)
TSR's 2023 Preseason D3 XC Top 20 Rankings: #20-16 (Women)
- Gavin Struve
- Jul 28, 2023
- 5 min read
Written by Gavin Struve, additional commentary by Conor Daly, edits by Garrett Zatlin
20. Claudia Harnett, Junior, U. of Chicago
We’re gonna start off with the biggest wildcard on our list. In fact, our first ranked athlete did not even compete in cross country this past fall! Nor did she race during the outdoor track season.
And yet, despite that, her accomplishments are far too impressive to turn a blind eye to.
In 2021, as a true freshman, Claudia Harnett dominated the trails. Early in the season, Harnett placed 2nd at the Augustana Interregional Invitational, only finishing behind nine-time All-American, Anastasia Tucker. Harnett went on to win her conference meet and place 3rd at the Midwest Regional XC Championships before performing wonderfully on the 2021 national stage with a fantastic 17th place finish.
Harnett continued to shine during her rookie campaign, ending up with personal bests of 4:30 for 1500 meters and 2:11 for 800 meters.
However, during her sophomore year, not everything went as perfectly. As mentioned previously, Harnett did not run cross country or outdoor track this past year, but she did compete during the indoor track season.
Yes, the Maroon ace came up a bit short of her freshman year self, but she still ran very legit times of 4:57 for the mile and 2:14 for 800 meters. Harnett also was a part of U. Chicago’s runner-up DMR squad from the 2023 indoor national meet, showing us that she still has the ability to be competitive with some of Division Three’s best women.
As someone who has not contested an event longer than a mile since November of 2021, it’s hard to say where Harnett belongs in these rankings, if at all. But if her freshman year campaign tells us anything, it’s that she’s incredibly talented and has what it takes to compete with our ranked women in the top-20.
19. Sienna Ruiter-Diaz, Senior, Calvin
Sienna Ruiter-Diaz has been a picture of consistency and progression throughout her collegiate career thus far. This year, that trend of reliability could either materialize into a major leap in fitness or continue to give this Calvin veteran a high floor void of poor performances.
Last fall, Ruiter-Diaz enjoyed a solid extended regular season. She placed 5th at the Knight Invite, 52nd at the Augustana Interregional Invitational, 5th at the MIAA XC Championships, 6th at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships and finally 34th at the NCAA XC Championships. That final result was over 100 spots better than all of her Calvin teammates.
Even if Ruiter-Diaz’s cross country national meet performance was a breakthrough on paper, it aligned with our expectations based off of her trajectory. In 2021, the Knight standout had a similar regular season campaign, finishing 3rd at her home invitational, 23rd at the Augustana Interregional Invitational, 6th at the MIAA XC Championships, 11th at the Great Lakes regional meet and then 60th at the national meet.
Ruiter-Diaz has a wealth of cross country experience, competing on the national stage as early as 2019. And her recent track times, while nothing groundbreaking, shows us that she’s continuing to improve late into her career.
She could be primed to jump up another level, as this ranking suggests.
18. Rachel Hirschkind, Senior, SUNY Geneseo
A multi-talented distance threat, Rachel Hirschkind is staring down her last opportunity to cash-in on her potential at the cross country national meet -- and we expect that she’ll be motivated to do so in 2023.
Most recently, we saw Hirschkind in action at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in late May where she won her preliminary heat in the steeplechase and placed 5th in the finals. Weeks prior, she had won the event at her conference meet and set a new personal best of 10:22 over the barriers at the Penn Relays.
She also ran a new 5k PR of 16:48, an event that she contested at the NCAA Indoor Championships. Hirschkind also reached the NCAA XC Championships this past fall as well. However, she faltered on that stage in December, placing 111th overall.
That national meet result came as a bit of a surprise after a successful regular season in which Hirschkind never finished lower than 7th place. It also came on the heels of her placing 4th in the steeplechase at the 2022 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
The SUNY Geneseo star has now contested six different NCAA Championship meets, twice finishing as an All-American, and enters this fall with the raw talent and bonafide talent to finally achieve that feat on the grass.
Between her clear aerobic ability, refined racing style, a plethora of experience and regular season consistency, there is enough on Hirschkind's resume to suggest that she is a top-20 name coming into the fall months.
17. Kayla Aalpoel, Sophomore, George Fox
Kayla Aalpoel raced with impressive strength, maturity and tactical nuance beyond her years as a freshman throughout the fall 2022 -- so much so that we see her as one of the biggest candidates for a breakout season in 2023.
In fact, while we want to categorize her as a dark horse contender for a top-10 finish at the NCAA XC Championships in November, I’m not sure how much of a shock that would be.
Aalpoel built confidence and momentum throughout her debut collegiate season last fall. She began with a 10th place result at the Lewis & Clark Opener Chase Race over three miles before finishing runner-up at the PLU Invitational at the traditional 6k distance. She then placed 15th at the D3 National Preview. That was nothing worth redefining the national picture, but it was an impressive result for a first-year athlete.
After finishing runner-up at the Northwest Conference XC Championships, sandwiched between two more solid results, Aalpoel accomplished a rare feat for a freshman at any level, earning All-American honors with a 32nd place finish.
While she didn’t wow us to the same degree during the winter and spring months, there’s no reason to believe that Aalpoel won’t build upon her eye-opening rookie year and establish herself as one of the premiere long distance athletes in Division Three this fall.
But until we have one more season of results to gauge, a spot towards the backend of our top-20 preseason rankings feels like a fair landing point.
16. Shaelyn Hostager, Junior, Wartburg
Like a number of her contemporaries in these preseason rankings, Shaelyn Hostager is undoubtedly trending upwards in her fitness. And while that’s the ideal development, it’s hardly the status quo among all collegiate athletes season after season.
After a very respectable 71st place run at the 2021 NCAA XC Championships, Hostager enjoyed an improved and more complete fall campaign in 2022. Following a couple of smaller meets, the Wartburg ace placed 16th at the Augustana Interregional Invitational and then 4th at the American Rivers Conference XC Championships. She then put it all together to finish 33rd at the 2022 NCAA XC Championships.
Hostager carried that momentum into the winter, finishing 9th at the NCAA Indoor Championships with a 5k PR of 17:06 before coming away with a 6th place All-American result in the 10k at the outdoor national meet. That was one spot higher than where she finished in the event in 2022.
While you could argue that Aalpoel holds more upside given her youth, Hostager has competed on the cross country national stage twice already and earned higher billing on the oval. Frankly, she feels like as much of a lock to be a top-20 runner this fall as anybody outside of our top-10.
With dynamism between the grass and the track, as well as a history of success in high-stakes meets, Hostager is the type of low-stick that every team wants, but few have.
