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TSR's 2024 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Team Rankings (Women): #10 Utah Utes
- Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
- Aug 23, 2024
- 7 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 certain occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
I'll be honest: Going into last fall, I completely wrote off the Utah women.
Sure, they had great team success in 2022, but the Utes had lost their top-four scorers and their depth wasn't particularly impressive. And while Utah's newest additions were promising, they were not expected to be high-impact scorers as soon as last fall.
Of course, Utah had other plans.
Last year's team from Salt Lake City didn't seem to care how good they were "supposed to be." Instead, they shattered expectations and potentially altered the long-term trajectory of this program.
Now, as we prepare for the fall of 2024, the Utah women have gotten stronger -- much stronger. And with plenty of experience under their belts, we can't help but wonder if another leap is in store for Utah this fall.
* * *
The Utah women kicked-off their 2023 fall campaign by venturing to the Griak Invitational, a meet which featured nationally ranked foes such as California Baptist and Colorado State.
In her first-ever collegiate race, true freshman Annastasia Peters put together a spectacular 3rd place finish! That was a huge statement performance which gave Utah a low-stick result that they may not have known that they had. With Mckaylie Caesar (5th) also emerging with a better-than-expected performance, the complexion of this Utah team had changed dramatically.
Morgan Jensen (9th) and Clara Mayfield (12th) were excellent support scorers. And together, this team had a formidable top-four that was giving California Baptist a serious run for their money.
However, with the team's final scorer fading to 35th place, the Utes simply didn't have enough scoring potency to take home the win...but they almost did. When the dust settled, CBU had defeated Utah by a singular point.
With their momentum at a high, the Utah women later ventured to the Nuttycombe Invite. And while the final result wasn't quite as strong as what we saw at the Griak Invitational, their collective performance still demanded respect.
Yet again, Peters was fantastic, placing 23rd overall to validate her early-season effort. That scoring potency would turn out to be huge as the rest of her Utah teammates were fairly spread out.
Caesar (76th) gave the Utes a valuable secondary scoring option while Katarzyna Nowakowska (97th), yet another freshman, came through with a wildly clutch result after struggling mightily at the Griak Invitational. With Jensen (112th) and Mayfield (115th) closing out the scoring relatively quickly, the Utah women were able to secure a very solid 15th place finish at the nation's largest non-national meet.
Unfortunately, Utah had their first hiccup of the season at the PAC-12 XC Championships. And while that meet was exceptionally deep, the Utes still had a shot at upsetting a few key teams.
That, however, didn't happen.
This time around, Caesar was the team's top scorer, placing 9th overall. The freshman duo of Nowakowska (15th) and Peters (16th) offered respectable scoring stability while Jensen (20th) kept the core of this lineup in tact. However, a challenging "off" day by the rest of the team meant that Utah's final scorer didn't cross the finish line until 46th place.
That, in turn, ballooned Utah's team score to 103 points, giving them a 5th place finish, just two points ahead of Oregon State.
After comfortably getting out of the West region, the Utes toed the line for the NCAA XC Championships. And on a stage that could have easily overwhelmed a relatively inexperienced group, Utah still found success.
Caesar had the race of her life, offering incredible firepower with a 26th place effort. Not only that, but Peters also came through in a major way, snagging 33rd place to give Utah two All-American low-sticks.
That upfront scoring and firepower turned out to be something that Utah very much needed. While Jensen (89th) did end an underrated season with yet another strong result, it wouldn't be until 162nd place and 167th place that Utah's final two scorers crossed the finish line.
In the end, the Utes walked away from the national meet with a 13th place finish.
And truthfully, we think that they could have been even better.
* * *
Last year's Utah team was shockingly good. The quartet of Caesar, Peters, Jensen and Nowakowska were all better than we expected them to be...by a lot. And thankfully, as we prepare for the 2024 cross country season, all four of those women are set to return.
The lethal 1-2 punch of Mckaylie Caesar and Annastasia Peters was a ton of fun to watch develop last fall. Both women showed up when it mattered the most and they significantly changed how we look at this team.
It should be noted that we haven't seen Peters or Caesar race since late February, per TFRRS. However, Caesar did run unattached, producing an excellent 33:06 (10k) PR.
As long as Caesar and Peters replicate their best performances on a consistent basis, then it's highly unlikely that Utah falls out of the top-15 of our rankings. Of course, consistency is something to consider as Caesar wasn't quite as strong at Nuttycombe and Peters wasn't quite as strong at the PAC-12 XC Championships.
As for Morgan Jensen, there is truthfully not a ton to say about her, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Utah talent was metronomically consistent last fall. And while certain performances were better than others, she was as reliable as you could reasonably ask her to be.
We also really liked that she ran a 5k PR of 15:58 last winter. She also ran a huge 10k PR of 33:02 while racing unattached. Could that mean that Jensen is entering low-stick territory?
We then come to Katarzyna Nowakowska, the freshman counterpart to Peters last fall.
And her resume is...well, a little confusing.
Nowakowska struggled greatly at the Griak Invitational, but was a pivotal scorer for Utah at the Nuttycombe Invite. The Polish distance talent later held her own at the PAC-12 XC Championships, but did not fare well on the national stage.
The best version of Nowakowska is exceptionally valuable. She plugged a handful of gaps last fall that could have seriously hurt Utah's scoring. But at the same time, her consistency leaves her as a bit of wild card. Thankfully, consistency can often come with age and experience.
Nowakowska was, after all, only a freshmen coming over from a different country last year.
* * *
Yes, it's true, Utah did lose two women from last year's national meet lineup: Clara Mayfield and Karli Branch. The former in particular had a few quietly decent runs in 2023, placing 12th at the Griak Invitational and 112th at the Nuttycombe Invitational.
Losing two women from a team that was already thin on depth isn't ideal, even if they weren't focal scorers for this squad last year. And for as good as the Caesar-Peters-Jensen-Nowakowska quartet is, that group alone isn't quite enough to make Utah a top-10 team this year.
Thankfully, there are reinforcements.
And they are very, very good reinforcements.
Sona Kourilova is a new addition to this team from the Czech Republic. She may end up being one of the most important names who Utah has this fall. That's because the Czech distance standout has run a head-turning time of 9:56 in the steeplechase. She also placed 14th at the 2021 Czech XC National Championships.
Despite her truthfully limited experience racing beyond 3000 meters, the talent that it takes to record a mark of 9:56 in the steeplechase could at least be partially translatable to the grass. And frankly, Utah doesn't need Kourilova to be a low-stick star -- they just need her to be a solid and reliable backend scorer in the same way that Jensen is.
Of course, if she ends up as a low-stick, then that's great, too.
We also can't forget about Lindsey Peters (no relation to Anna Peters), a former Air Force runner who actually transferred to New Mexico. However, when Coach Joe Franklin left the Lobos to go to Louisville, Peters was left looking for a new home yet again.
That new home turned out to be Utah.
NCAA regulations didn't allow Peters to compete last fall, but she still has some great marks and finishes that could absolutely make her an instant impact runner. This past spring, Peters ran a very solid 5k time of 16:05. And during her time at Air Force, she left us stunned during the 2022 cross country season. That year, she placed 30th at the Cowboy Jamboree and 20th at the Nuttycombe Invite!
When she's healthy and truly firing on all cylinders, Peters is a wildly valuable cross country scorer. In fact, she could probably best be described as a low-stick if you look at her 2022 Nuttycombe Invite result.
Of course, consistency, both in her availability/health and in her results, will be the biggest aspect to monitor with Peters. If she's in top form and we see the same 2022 version of her this fall, then Utah will absolutely be better than this ranking suggests.
Speaking of 2022 results, we also need to highlight Erin Vringer, one of the more underrated women on this subtly awesome Utah roster.
During the 2022 cross country season, Vringer was truthfully not a high-impact scorer. She did, however, finish 136th at the NCAA XC Championships that year. Then, this past spring, Vringer ran a new 1500-meter PR of 4:16 and was able to qualify for the outdoor national meet in that same event.
We're not entirely sure what we'll get out of Vringer this fall. She very clearly is at her best on the track, but there was enough promise shown in her 2022 national meet performance to make us think that she can be a meaningful contributor this fall.
Other women such as Kyla Martin and Marika Couture could also find themselves cracking their top-seven should they make the necessary improvements. Couture is a new addition to Utah, coming in as the runner-up finisher at the 2023 U20 Canadian XC National Championships. She also made an appearance at the 2023 U20 World XC Championships.
* * *
Last fall, the Utah women caught us, and likely their competition, by surprise.
That, however, will not be the case in 2024.
The upcoming cross country season will come with very different expectations for Utah along with more pressure. The window for this team to capitalize on the incredibly promising talent in front of them could very easily close after this year, especially with Caesar and Jensen finishing their eligibility this fall.
Improvements still need to be made and the Utes' consistency needs to be better. But if that happens, then maybe, just maybe, the ladies of Salt Lake City can stand on the podium come November.
