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TSR's 2024 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Team Rankings (Women): #15 Oregon Ducks
- Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
- Aug 18, 2024
- 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 certain occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
The Oregon women are a perplexing team to rank. Truthfully, we don't feel like there is a perfect spot for them. There are so many different variations of arguments that you could make for and against this squad.
Part of that is because the Ducks have such a massive roster and numerous women who could come in and out of this lineup. But there are also a ton of major question marks surrounding many of the most important names for Oregon's projected top-seven.
The ceiling of this squad is somewhere within the top-seven or top-eight portion of our rankings. That's what makes this team so scary to list at TSR #15. However, they'll need to answer a few questions before we can list them closer to our top-10.
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The beginning of Oregon's 2023 cross country season was admittedly unexciting in the sense that they didn't see much competition before October. While the Dellinger Invitational was a nice rust-buster, that meet didn't hold much emphasis as it had in years past.
The first true test of the Ducks' fall campaign came at Pre-Nationals. There, they would face the likes of BYU, Arkansas, Virginia and Tennessee, four teams that eventually finished within the top-15 of last year's national meet.
On that stage, Maddy Elmore extended her breakout track season to the grass, securing a fantastic 2nd place finish. That unexpected boost in scoring potency was a welcomed development for Oregon given that veteran Izzy Thornton-Bott faded slightly to a still-respectable 14th place finish.
From there, gaps began to form. Klaudia Kazimierska (26th) held her own, but their final two scorers dropped back to 38th and 39th place. In turn, the Ducks' team score inflated to a point where they couldn't keep pace with the above-mentioned teams. Oregon would settle for a slightly underwhelming 4th place finish, although it was hard to fault them for losing to the teams that they did.
Fast forward to the PAC-12 XC Championships and the final results largely matched our expectations. While Washington and Stanford battled for the conference title, the Eugene-based women fought to keep Colorado, Utah and Oregon State at bay.
Elmore's 4th place finish was great validation of her earlier Pre-Nationals result and Izzy Thornton-Bott was slightly better than her last outing with a respectable 11th place finish. Yes, there were still gaps at the backend of this lineup, but Anika Thompson (22nd), Katie Clute (24th) and Klaudia Kazimierska (27th) packed together fairly well.
That was enough to give Oregon wins over Oregon State and Utah, but they had to settle for 4th place overall, just one point behind Colorado.
After cruising through the West regional meet with an automatic qualifying result, the Oregon women took to the national stage where they had the single-best race of their season -- and it wasn't close.
Izzy Thornton-Bott secured a 40th place All-American finish after a season where she didn't look quite that sharp. Elmore admittedly faded a bit to 52nd place, but that was still a strong effort for someone who was so new to the highest tiers of competition.
However, arguably the most impactful results came from Anika Thompson (104th) and Katie Clute (111th) who offered subtly great stability behind their lead scorers. And with Klaudia Kazimierska (134th) closing out the scoring relatively quickly, the Ducks were rewarded with an applause-worthy 10th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
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This year's Oregon team has a variety of different scoring weapons who they could lean on going into the fall of 2024. However, their focal veteran from last fall, Izzy Thornton-Bott, is out of eligibility and will not return.
The Ducks were a "good" team throughout last fall, maybe even "really good," but their national meet performance was admittedly an outlier. Now, they are losing their lone All-American from last fall and trying to make up for that scoring potency with another star low-stick isn't necessarily guaranteed.
And if they do find another low-stick ace to replace Thornton-Bott (maybe Silan Ayyildiz?), then that will still leave Oregon to fill the backend gaps of their 2023 lineup.
We really like Maddy Elmore. We think she can be a top-20 name in the country (in fact, we already have her listed in the top-20 portion of our preseason individual top-50 rankings). But despite her incredible success on the track this past spring, running 15:15 for 5000 meters, her absence throughout the 2024 outdoor track postseason was simply not encouraging.
If an injury did sideline Elmore back in May and June, then it's hard to know what her recovery and training timeline for this summer looks like. It feels more likely than not that she'll be good to go by the time October rolls around, but it's also hard to say for sure.
Silan Ayyildiz is who we expect to be the other low-stick talent for this squad over the next few months. However, just like Elmore, her recent spring campaign leaves us with plenty of questions, albeit for a different reason.
The South Carolina transfer had a monster 5k race on the outdoor oval last spring, running 15:15 at the Bryan Clay Invitational despite being viewed as more of a miler. However, her postseason efforts in that event weren't great.
Ayyildiz did not score a point in the 5k at the PAC-12 Outdoor Championships and she barely qualified for the outdoor national meet in that event (she was the final woman in). On the national stage, Ayyildiz took 16th place.
History suggests that women who run under 15:20 for 5000 meters are almost guaranteed to be a cross country All-American at some point in their career. But given the up-and-down nature of Ayyildiz's long distance efforts -- and the fact that she only raced twice on the grass last fall -- trying to figure out exactly how impactful this Turkish distance standout will be later this year has become quite the challenge.
Of course, it's plenty possible that Ayyildiz finds her rhythm and becomes a superstar ace who can carry this team in the scoring. And if that happens, then this ranking will most likely be too low for Oregon.
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The rest of this roster is where things get very interesting.
The number of possible scoring combination that Coach Shalane Flanagan could put together this fall are seemingly endless. It feels like nearly everyone on their roster has the credentials or the upside to crack the the Ducks' top-seven.
However, just like Elmore and Ayyildiz, the women who have the most potential to make the biggest impact are also the ones with the most question marks.
The initial expectation was that we would see Victoria Patterson this fall, a veteran who transferred from Columbia to Oregon last summer. She hasn't raced since the spring of 2023, but that's likely because she had to serve her "sit out" period.
But Oregon's TFRRS roster is seemingly updated for this fall. And upon review, Patterson isn't listed for the Ducks. That's a fairly brutal departure as we felt confident that the best version of Patterson would give this team a potential third low-stick.
Mia Barnett was in a similar boat last year after she transferred over from UCLA. And just like Patterson, Barnett had to sit out from competition last fall due to transferring twice in her undergraduate career.
Thankfully, we've actually seen Barnett race this past winter and spring. She ran a promising 4:33 mile PR on the indoor oval and she qualified for the outdoor national meet back in June. Admittedly, Barnett didn't look quite as sharp as she did in the spring of 2023, but there is no denying that she is still fit and could contribute valuable scoring.
Remember, Barnett finished a pleasantly surprising 44th place at the 2022 NCAA XC Championships. And while that result was truthfully a bit of an outlier, it still showed us how dangerous this collegiate veteran can be on the grass. In fact, we listed her at TSR #49 in our preseason individual rankings from last summer!
At the very least, Barnett can be a key stabilizing scorer who this team can lean on while they figure out the rest of their lineup. We do need to see how she'll fare in her return to cross country, but simply having her as an option should provide great value to the Ducks.
Dalia Frias is someone who many astute distance running fans may point to as a possible scoring option for the Ducks -- and usually, we would agree. The former Duke runner was a high school superstar, held her own on the grass back in 2022 and ran a 9:01 (3k) PR on the indoor oval this past winter.
Unfortunately, Frias has recently been seen sporting a walking boot, indicating that she's recovery from what may be a significant injury. If she's able to rally back for this fall, then that would be huge for the Oregon women, but we're not entirely sure if that's a fair expectation.
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So far, we've only established three women who will likely be entered in Oregon's lineup this fall: Maddy Elmore, Silan Ayyildiz and Mia Barnett...what about everyone else?
Someone like Katie Clute could be a key name to watch. She wasn't necessarily a major scorer for this team last fall, but she did offer nice backend value. It wasn't until she hit the track where she truly began to shine, running 9:59 in the steeplechase at the outdoor national meet.
Clute placed 111th at the NCAA XC Championships last fall in what was truthfully her best race of the season. If she can replicate (and build off of) that result more consistently while translating her steeplechase fitness over to the grass, then this rising sophomore could be one of the more dangerous middle-lineup contributors in the nation.
Anika Thompson is another solid name who also had her best cross country performance at last year's national meet, placing 104th overall. She made tremendous progress on the oval, specifically this spring when she ran 32:54 for 10,000 meters.
If the recent momentum that Thompson has established can be carried over to the grass, then this Oregon team will likely be flirting with the top-10 portion of our rankings (assuming that the other women deliver on expectations). And at the very least, having a steady and stable veteran scorer with national meet experience will give the Ducks good insurance.
And how about Harper McClain? She's a veteran who should also, in theory, provide great depth and support. However, McClain struggled last fall and hasn't competed since the NCAA XC Championships. Don't forget, this is someone who was the 89th place finisher at the 2022 cross country national meet and took 11th at the PAC-12 XC Championships during that same year.
We could go on and on about all of the other women who have a chance at cracking this lineup, but doing so would be an exhausting exercise. We feel pretty confident that someone from the last two recruiting classes (including their most recent group of names) will find a spot in Oregon's lineup this fall, but we just don't know who.
Between Lily Cridge, Kate Peters, Isabel Conde De Frankenberg, Ella Thorsett, Allura Markow, Nicole Humphries, Sam Humphries, Charlotte Sinke and Landen Leblond, the youth-based upside on this team could potentially yield a breakout star.
Of course, that's assuming women like Klaudia Kazimierska, Sam McDonnell and maybe Tatum Miller don't also make significant leaps in their fitness. The former did run 4:00 for 1500 meters at the Olympics earlier this month and did enough last fall to emerge as a backend scorer. Don't sleep on her.
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If someone wanted to rank the Ducks at a spot closer to our top-10, we wouldn't blame you. We would probably assume that you value depth and upside, two very important traits for any nationally competitive cross country team.
Of course, the health/availability status of Elmore and Frias, the unknown cross country fitness level of Barnett, the head-scratching resume of Ayyildiz and the absence of Patterson, along with a handful of other questions, has truthfully left us a bit unsure what to expect from this group in 2024.
But if we put those uncertainties aside, then we can still appreciate that this is one of the NCAA's more balanced distance squads. They have two low-sticks, established veteran scorers, great depth, tons of youth and great momentum from last fall.
What's not to like?
