TSR's 2024 D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Women): Update #1

TSR Collaboration
Oct 14, 2024
10 min read

Written by Conor Daly, Garrett Zatlin & Gavin Struve

Edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve & Garrett Zatlin

NOTE: These rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at a singular meet or (eventually) at the 2024 NCAA XC Championships. Click here to learn more about our ranking criteria (which was published in 2023).

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. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas (-7 / 3)

It was tough to gauge the efforts of the women of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in their first couple of meets as they competed against Division One competition. However, we got a very good look at the Athenas at the Lehigh Paul Short Run, where they competed in the D3- specific "White" race.

And, unfortunately for them, it didn't exactly go to plan.

CMS lacked an up-front scoring presence of the caliber that their elite peers boasted, as lead scorer Riley Capuano placed 15th. The middle portion of the lineup was still stellar with Angela Gushue (20th) and Sadie Drucker (23rd) finishing in the next 10 places, but the gap back to two underclassman back-end scorers (who placed 78th and 97th) was too large.

As a result, this podium favorite finished a modest 6th place. That's hardly a "bad" result, but the Athenas finished behind every other top-10 preseason team in the field and lost to RPI as well.

We still haven't seen Elle Marsyla (preseason TSR #11) race this season. Her presence likely would have given CMS more scoring potency and cut off some of the excess points from one of the two backend pieces. Had Marsyla raced and finished close to the top-10, her team would have been in contention for 2nd place rather than 6th.

With that in mind, it's too early to bounce CMS from our top-10 or the podium discussion altogether. Even so, it feels fair to suggest that we expected more from this Los Angeles-area squad than what we've seen so far.

9. SUNY Geneseo Knights (-5 / 4)

These New York-based Knights began their season in promising fashion, beating a couple of in-state Division One foes at the Yellowjacket XC Invitational. But like the above-listed team, their fortunes took a turn for the worse at the Paul Short Run.

SUNY Geneseo finished one spot above CMS, something that should have been a welcome development for our preseason TSR #4 team, but was expected considering Marsyla's absence for the Athenas.

The most visible shortcoming for the Knights was preseason our TSR #1 individual Penelope Greene placing 4th at the Paul Short Run. While that wasn't ideal, the three-point difference from her projected finish to her actual finish didn't have a sizable impact on team scoring.

One could argue that Lilly Fowler-Conner made up those few points by placing 15th, giving SUNY Geneseo a second low-stick effort ahead of several All-Americans. What ultimately hurt the Knights was the gap (nearly 40 places) that opened up from Fowler-Conner to the rest of the lineup.

Ari Reback (53rd) was the Knights' third scorer, and while it would have been nice if she had been a bit closer to Fowler-Conner, it's hard to fault a freshman who's filling a critical lineup role. Three more SUNY Geneseo women finished in relatively short order (59th, 67th and 71st), but the damage was done in terms of scoring.

The Knights likely need more of a leap from juniors Sierra Doody and Ann Brennan if they wish to finish in the top-half of these team rankings. Those two women are newly minted upperclassmen with NCAA Championship experience and, on paper, should be able to complement their team's two stars and promising freshman.

SUNY Geneseo's home meet -- the Mike Woods Invitational -- next weekend will provide as good a chance as any to get back on track against national-caliber competition.

8. Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (Unranked)

Johns Hopkins also competed at the Paul Short Run, but their women's varsity contingent did so in the "Gold" race against the best competition that the meet could offer.

While they didn't place anyone among the top-50 individuals, the Blue Jays were seemingly rewarded for their gambit as they finished near the middle of the team standings and their scorers produced an average time that was faster than every Division Three team in the "White" race.

That experience running and largely succeeding in a deep and talented field should benefit them heading into the postseason and lend them confidence in the interim.

Freshman Carter Brotherton continues her emergence, as she placed 57th in the "Gold" race and ran faster than all but five D3 women at the meet. The Blue Jays' final four scorers (while a ways back from her) were all relatively close to each other with a 15-second spread from the second runner to the fifth.

While it would otherwise be somewhat difficult to fully interpret Johns Hopkins' result against mostly D1 competition, we thankfully saw them succeed against their peers two weeks earlier at the John McNichols Invitational. In that setting, the 'Jays had their other finishers considerably closer to Brotherton and finished 4th among D3 teams, losing only to a troika of squads who are in the top-five of our rankings.

7. Carleton Knights (-2 / 5)

There's truthfully not much to discuss when it comes to the Carleton women, a team that has secured two wins against decent, but not necessarily amazing, fields.

A 19-point victory at the St. Olaf Invite over the host Oles was roughly expected after seeing Hannah Preisser, Sophie McManus and Aliya Larsen go 1-2-4, respectively. However, there was a bit of a drop-off to their final two scorers who placed 12th and 16th, respectively.

It was a similar deal at the Carleton Running of the Cows where the Knights went 1-2-3, but then saw a significant gap open up at their top scoring trio crossed the line.

The emergence of Larsen as a true low-stick is huge, but Carleton's challenges with depth could hurt them in larger fields. Even so, we haven't seen this team face many national-caliber teams yet this season. Until then, we'll keep the Knights at TSR #7.

6. Emory Eagles (+2 / 8)

The Paul Short Run "White" race is the biggest and most competitive field that we've seen the Emory women compete in this fall. There, they faced a number of top-tier D3 programs, including national title and podium threats.

On that stage, the Eagles' firepower looked great. Brigid Hanley (6th) delivered a potent low-stick result while Liesl Scherrer (12th) was a surprisingly great second low-stick who came a bit out of nowhere. From there, gaps began to form, but Elizabeth Csikai (37th), Madison Tiaffay (45th) and Rowan Miller (51st) stayed fairly compact. That tight backend scoring group was enough for the Eagles to salvage a runner-up effort over NYU, RPI, SUNY Geneseo, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Middlebury.

Emory did fall to the Amherst women, but they stayed within 20 points of the Mammoths, a somewhat close margin given the mass size of the field.

The rise of Scherrer as a lead scoring talent feels like a big deal for the Eagles. We know that Ciskai can be better moving forward, theoretically giving this team three All-American contenders. That should be enough to put this team in the podium conversation, although we still need to see this squad run up to their full potential before that happens.

5. NYU Violets (-4 / 1)

When the NYU women faded to 3rd place at the John McNichols Invite, we truthfully weren't all that worried. Despite entering the season as our TSR #1 squad, we still felt like the Violets had plenty of room to improve from their first major meet of the season.

After all, we figured Kate Cochran could be better in the future and the same went for Vivian Kane. In fact, their top scoring ace, Morgan Uhlhorn, had fallen at the John McNichols Invite and had recorded a DNF! Surely this team would be better in future races, right?

Well, unfortunately for NYU, the Paul Short Run "White" field was not one of those races. Janie Cooper (10th) was a great low-stick as expected and Josephine Dziedzic (16th) had a sneaky-good day as well. However, a large number of women simply didn't have their best days with the Violets' final three scorers settling for finishes of 25th, 60th and 75th.

Now, in fairness to NYU, both Morgan Uhlhorn and Kate Cochran recorded DNF results at that meet. We also didn't see Vivian Kane race. In the grand scheme of things, seeing the Violets secured a 3rd place team finish was fairly respectable.

Even so, we're now preparing to reach the postseason and we have yet to see this NYU squad at full strength. That's not the most encouraging sign moving forward. For that reason, we've dropped them to TSR #5 in our rankings.

4. Colorado College Tigers (Unranked)

The Colorado College women pulled off one of the single-biggest upsets in recent memory when they earned gold over U. of Chicago and NYU at the John McNichols Invite.

There, the Tigers' top-three of Isabel Olson, Sydney Rankin and Alison Mueller-Hickler were brilliant, going 2-3-6, respectively, against D2 competition. That lethal injection of scoring was complemented by Elliot Singer in 15th place among D2 runners. Yes, there was a significant drop-off after Singer, but that didn't matter in the end as Colorado College secured a monster win, finishing just eight points ahead of U. of Chicago.

Truthfully, we haven't seen this team toe the line for another competitive meet since their trip to Indiana State. We also have to admit that both U. of Chicago and NYU were not at full strength for that meet. Those are ultimately the reasons why we didn't list this team any higher, but there is clearly enough talent for this team to enter the national title discussion as long as they can replicate that September showing in November.

3. Amherst Mammoths (+7 / 10)

We knew that Amherst was going to be good this fall given that they returned all seven women from their 18th-place finish at last fall’s national meet. And in their first two meets, they showed just that, taking home a narrow win at the Little Three Invite and a more sizable victory at the Wesleyan XC Invitational.

But it wasn’t until their performance at the Paul Short Run that we thought “holy cow!" There, the Amherst women pulled off an unbelievable upset over a stacked field in the D3-centric "White" race that featured six of our top-10 ranked teams at the time.

The key to their success? Four freshmen in their top-six. In fact, this has been the case in each of their three races this season!

At Paul Short, freshman Flora Biro led the way for Amherst in 9th place, taking down multiple NCAA Outdoor Championships qualifiers in the process. With four more names in the top-40 and backup in 44th place, the Mammoths took home a momentum-building win thanks to their rookies. To put their depth in perspective, Amherst’s eighth runner that day was another star freshman with 10:41 (3200) credentials.

While rookies tend to be more variable than veterans, it’s not uncommon to see freshmen be instant-impact names at the national level on the women’s side. And by the looks of it, Coach Hannah Chappell-Dick brought in the requisite reinforcements for this program to instantly level up this fall.

At the Paul Short Run, Amherst proved that they’re a team of the present. But this is our first sign that they have the potential to be an even scarier team in the future.

2. U. of Chicago Maroons (0 / 2)

We were really excited to see U. of Chicago battle top-ranked NYU at the John McNichols Invitational early this season. However, Coach Chris Hall made a curious decision to not send all of his best runners (at least on paper) to that meet. Instead, the trio of Rose Wiltse, Elisabeth Camic and Sophie Tedesco raced at the ONU Midwest Classic the day before.

Those women went 1-2-4, respectively, which was to be expected from a star freshman, a returning top-half cross country All-American and a sub-17:00 (5k) talent.

Meanwhile, at the John McNichols Invitational, U. of Chicago finished runner-up behind Colorado College by a narrow margin of eight points.

Even in the loss, there was a lot of good to take from that effort. Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel looked outstanding, emerging as the top Division Three finisher by over 25 seconds. Even when not at full strength, the Maroons still finished ahead of conference rival NYU (who was preseason TSR #1) and for the most part, the lineup ran well relative to expectations.

We figured that once we saw U. of Chicago at full strength at D3 Pre-Nationals, the Maroons would excel. However, U. of Chicago just look like themselves at Pre-Nationals. By the time MIT had put four women ahead of U. of Chicago’s first finisher, the team battle was essentially wrapped up.

While we thought she could be a top-10 name, Camic finished 31st. It was the same story with Sophie Tedesco in 72nd place and 5k/10k national qualifier Estelle Snider in 49th.

The absence of Battleson-Gunkel (rumored to be due to an injury which is unverified) certainly affected the team score by a significant margin, but even if you add her to the results, the Maroons still trailed MIT by a large margin. In short, they didn't perform as anyone had hoped.

Although the Maroons maintain their spot at second in our rankings, we feel much more uneasy about them than we did entering the season. Their hopes of rebounding hinge on Battleson-Gunkel's return and a talent-dense roster around her.

1. MIT Engineers (+6 / 7)

Not only does MIT return all of their runners from last year’s cross country national meet, but many of those women have leveled up on the track in the time since. With uncertainty as to how those spring improvements would carry over to the grass, we opted to leave the Engineers in the back half of our preseason top-10 team rankings.

After a small meet against Dartmouth in September, the Engineers took on their first large-scale Division Three test at Pre-Nationals. In Terre Haute, MIT opened their season in dominant fashion with a convincing win over U. of Chicago. It was so dominant that if you took out MIT’s first three runners and rescored the meet, they would still win!

Kate Sanderson (3rd) was the elite low-stick that we expected, while it was nice to see Lexi Fernandez (10th) in strong form after only racing twice on the outdoor oval this year. With four runners in the top-15 and six in the top-25, depth wasn’t an issue, either.

A lot still needs to go right for MIT to remain our top-ranked team for the rest of the season. But with a performance and lineup structure like they just showcased, they have made the best bid for this spot so far.