TSR's 2024 D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Women): Update #3

TSR Collaboration
Nov 11, 2024
6 min read

Written by Kevin Fischer, Conor Daly & Gavin Struve

Edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve and 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 (Unranked)

Truthfully, we have yet to see the Athenas face a national-caliber field since underwhelming at the Lehigh Paul Short Run. However, it's beginning to feel more and more like that effort was the exception rather than the norm for a team that was less than 10 points away from a national title last year.

CMS put four women in the top-six to win the SCIAC XC Championships to win a conference title with relative ease. In an effort that mirrored her team's, Riley Capuano won the individual conference title on the heels of also winning her previous race following a less-than-her-best effort at the Paul Short Run.

We know that this CMS squad isn't the same caliber as last year's after losing two key All-Americans. Even so, it's been nice to see the Athenas do what was expected of them in recent weeks: dominate.

9. Washington U. Bears (Unranked)

The Washington U. women climb back into our rankings after earning a commendable 3rd-place finish at the loaded UAA XC Championships.

The Bears only had one runner finish in the top-10 (and just barely as Jilliah Heth placed 9th). However, they fit five women into the top-20 and two more in the top-25 to beat a ranked team and a "Just Missed" team.

That's a lineup construction that should serve them well at the cross country national meet later this month. In theory, their scoring structure and reinforcements should raise the ceiling of this program a good bit.

8. SUNY Geneseo Knights (0 / 8)

These New York-based Knights predictably won the Empire 8 title in their most recent outing. In a similar manner to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, SUNY Geneseo has continued to stack momentum after a result at the Paul Short Run that didn't feel reflective of their true potential.

The Knights produced a perfect score at their conference meet two weeks after beating stronger competition on their home course at the Mike Woods Invitational. We wouldn't rule this team out of the podium conversation or focal star Penelope Greene out of the individual national title discussion just yet.

7. Emory Eagles (-3 / 4)

At the UAA XC Championships, Brigid Hanley and Liesl Scherrer put on a show by going 1-2 ahead of a number of likely All-Americans. Beyond that duo, however, Emory's lineup struggled. The Eagles’ final three scorers settled for 22nd, 27th and 34th place in the field of 72 women.

While that wasn’t a bad team performance per se, a 4th-place finish isn’t the most encouraging result on paper.

But when you look more closely, this result isn’t as bad as it seems at first glance. Not only did Emory go up against a field that featured four of our top-10 teams, but they will also likely be much better in the future. That’s because the Eagles were missing two important women.

Both 2023 cross country All-American Elizabeth Cskai and Luna McCauley -- who also holds the potential to score after being as high as Emory’s third runner this season -- were rumored to be sick and missed the meet. If those two women run, it’s more than reasonable to think that Emory places 3rd, a result more on par with expectations.

Even when that pair reenters the lineup in the coming weeks, we don’t expect Emory’s depth to light the world on fire. However, their reintroduction will provide a scoring improvement that will make a noticeable impact on the team level and give the Eagles a shot at the podium.

6. Williams Ephs (+3 / 9)

The Ephs are one of those teams that seemingly never have an "off" year. After a dominant win at the NESCAC XC Championships, it seems that this team is heating up at just the right time entering the final months of 2024.

The trio of Kate Tuttle, Tamar Byl-Brann and Kate Swann delivered a big-time 4-5-6 finish in that order, producing performances that could be considered each woman’s best of the season.

All three finished ahead of the 5th-place finisher from the Connecticut College Invitational and the 13th-place finisher from D3 Pre-Nationals (two separate runners), as the three Ephs put themselves in the low-stick conversation early in this postseason.

With five runners in the top-11 and seven in the top-16, Williams outclassed their Northeast rivals. While this team relies heavily on underclassmen, it's a group that showed it's talented enough to do big things as soon as this month.

5. Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (+2 / 7)

The field at the Centennial Conference XC Championships was no match for the Johns Hopkins women, who swept the top five spots.

The meet was held on last year’s cross country national meet course, and the Blue Jays' times would have placed them 8th at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships. If you ask us, that’s pretty impressive for a low-stakes run three weeks prior to the 2024 cross country national meet.

While that performance doesn’t really change our view of Johns Hopkins, it was nice to see them get the job done with all of their varsity lineup healthy after some absences earlier in the season. The Blue Jays are very much a podium contender, but their rise in this rankings update is mostly due to substandard performances from teams previously ahead of them (Amherst and Emory).

4. NYU Violets (-1 / 3)

In a year in which they haven't quite met expectations after occupying our preseason TSR #1 spot, the Violets’ runner-up finish at the UAA XC Championships was a step in the right direction. Janie Cooper (3rd) continues to be a consistent low-stick, while having a nice pack that went 9-11-13 was very strong, especially when you consider just how good that conference is.

Seeing their final scorer dropping to 25th place wasn’t ideal, but it ultimately didn’t really matter since the NYU women simply were not touching U. of Chicago (who ran phenomenally) that day. The gap to their fifth runner doesn’t necessarily worry us since we believe that sophomore Olivia Jackson will step up and re-emerge as a scorer for NYU.

3. U. of Chicago Maroons (+2 / 5)

The Maroons bounced back in a major way to win the UAA XC Championships after what had been something of an underwhelming season up until that point.

Even in focal star Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel's continued absence, they managed to dismantle the deepest conference field in the country for a convincing 22-point win ahead of three other TSR top-10 teams. Just two weeks after finishing behind Washington U. at the Augustana Interregional Invitational, the Maroons put five women ahead of the Bears’ second scorer.

The key to their victory was a 20-second spread between their five scorers, led by a 4th-place finish from Elisabeth Camic. This was the Maroons' most complete team performance of the season, which is an encouraging sign that a national title push may be back in the cards for our preseason TSR #2 squad.

2. Colorado College Tigers (0 / 2)

We haven't learned all that much new about Colorado College since our last rankings update. They faced no real competition at their conference meet en route to taking the top six spots on their way to a perfect score.

We’ve seen an impressive body of work from the Tigers all year, in which they have gone undefeated against Division Three programs, including several of the top-10 teams. That's enough for them to maintain the second spot in our rankings and remain in consideration as a serious threat to take the team crown at the looming NCAA XC Championships.

1. MIT Engineers (0 / 1)

The NEWMAC field was no match for the Engineers, as they notched an unsurprisingly dominant victory over conference runner-up Coast Guard.

An interesting development on an otherwise predictable day was the continued progression of Gillian Roeder. The multi-time All-American (on the track) showed some promising signs in her season debut at the Connecticut College Invitational on October 19th, but her 4th-place NEWMAC finish indicates that she is really rounding into form when it matters most.

With Roeder looking like a key contributor once again, this MIT team just got even more difficult to beat than they were in winning D3 Pre-Nationals and the Connecticut College Invitational in September and October.