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TSR's 2024 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Team Rankings (Women): #19 Wisconsin Badgers
- Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
- Aug 14, 2024
- 10 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.
Over the last few years, specifically in the post-Alicia Monson era, the Wisconsin women have been considered to be a "good" cross country team. They've often had respectable depth, good pack-running and maybe an occasional woman who has emerged as a lead scorer.
And yet, at times, it has felt like this team has stalled.
Few teams feel "safer" than Wisconsin does. They almost always have a high floor and they are rarely going to have a truly awful outing regardless of the stage. Structurally, they've been fairly stable. However, in order for this team to go from "good" to "great," they were going to need a scoring spark.
Thankfully, the introduction of Coach Lindsay Crevoiserat to Wisconsin's staff has, so far, resulted in a handful of promising developments. The Badgers' recruiting, specifically from the transfer portal, has been bolstered and the aerobic growth of this team has been fairly evident.
Sure, Wisconsin is far from being a perfect squad. But in 2024, this group has the potential to truly take that next step and remove themselves from a tier of being "good enough."
* * *
The first legitimate test of Wisconsin's 2023 cross country season came at the Loyola Lakefront Invitational. That meet was fairly new in the rotation of nationally competitive opportunities, but the Badgers were still left with handling many strong opponents such as Furman, Ole Miss, Lipscomb, Gonzaga, Ohio State and more.
On that stage, Leane Willemse emerged as the team's lead scorer, securing a solid, but somewhat unexciting, 10th place result. She was flanked by veteran Alexa Westley who earned a very solid 14th place effort in her own right.
The rest of the team -- Vivian Hacker (21st), Danielle Orie (23rd) and Victoria Heiligenthal (27th) -- didn't necessarily offer much of a scoring spark, but they didn't necessarily need to. That backend trio was fairly solid and they didn't allow their team score to inflate beyond a reasonable point.
In the end, that result gave the Badgers a respectable 3rd place effort. They fell behind Furman and Ole Miss (each by fairly noticeable margins), but they still fended off a Lipscomb team that would turn out to be far stronger later in the year.
Of course, all of that was simply a competitive tune-up for their next meet: The Nuttycombe Invitational.
While the ladies from Madison, Wisconsin did have the home course advantage, they would need to be able to replicate a stable backend scoring group in an effort to properly support the inevitable low-stick result that Leane Willemse was going to offer.
Sure, enough, Willemse held her own with an admirable 34th place finish. Alexa Westley (69th) held her own in the team's secondary scoring role. The rest of this Wisconsin team was fairly respectable in their own right as Danielle Orie (94th), Emma Watcke (104th) and Vivian Hacker (124th) kept things in check.
It was abundantly clear that the floor of this team was fairly high -- it was going to take a truly brutal day for this lineup to collapse. And yet, if this group was going to truly stand out, then they needed to place greater scoring assistance next to Willemse and Westley.
In the end, Wisconsin settled for a 16th place finish. It was a fairly decent result, but it also wasn't an effort that was going to move the needle in one direction or the other as far as our feelings for this team were concerned.
At the BIG 10 XC Championships, saw a fairly predictable runner-up effort from Wisconsin behind the Michigan State women. Willemse (2nd) was excellent once more, seemingly gaining momentum as the fall months progressed. Westley (9th) was also a great secondary scorer in what could be argued as her best race of the season.
From there, the backend scoring trio of Kylie Finger (21st), Bella Jacobsen (24th) and Samantha Stieve (25th) closed out the team's top-five while Danielle Orie (26th), Emma Watcke (31st) and Mya Bunke (35th) weren't far behind.
While we truthfully didn't learn anything about the Badgers at their conference meet, it was nice to see that their depth and latter-end scoring group was extremely interchangeable. That's not a luxury that most/many teams have or had.
Fast forward to the NCAA XC Championships and Wisconsin concluded their fall campaign with a 22nd place finish -- two spots lower than where TSR had listed the Madison-based women earlier that summer in our preseason rankings.
The structure of Wisconsin's lineup was largely no different than what this team had shown us from earlier this year. Willemse (44th) concluded her season with a steady near-All-American performance. However, without a complementary secondary scorer to support her effort, the Badgers struggled to make up ground.
Hacker, Jacobsen, Orie and Westley placed 133-137-152-154, respectively, in the overall results to close out the team's scoring. And while it wasn't necessarily the most exciting way to end the season, seeing the Badgers continue to boast stable depth was nice to have in our minds as we prepped this year's preseason rankings.
* * *
Alright...let's rip off this bad news bandaid and get it over with.
The Wisconsin women lose A LOT of runners from last year's group. If you're reviewing results from the Loyola Lakefront Invitational, then the Badgers lose four of their top-five scorers. But if you're reviewing results from the NCAA XC Championships, then they lose three of their top-five scorers.
Of course, if you're looking at all of the varsity options that Wisconsin had throughout last fall across all meets, then the number of departures exceeds just a few names.
Alexa Westley is gone.
Danielle Orie is gone.
Vivian Hacker is gone.
Samantha Stieve is gone.
Victoria Heiligenthal is gone.
Madison Mooney is gone.
So...yeah. Not great.
The one thing that allowed the Wisconsin women to be such a steady and strong team throughout the fall of 2023 was their depth. While the latter-half of their scoring group was almost always changing and fairly dynamic, the Badgers never let their team point total reach an irresponsible level. Sure, they certainly needed more firepower, but they at least kept things in check.
That, of course, may end up being a challenge for this team in 2024. With Wisconsin set to lose so many instrumental veterans who often made up their backend group, the once-high floor that kept the Badgers' scoring cohesion intact will need to be reloaded or even rebuilt.
We'll admit, that massive loss of depth is not something to take lightly. Even so, we're not quite as worried about that as a few others may be. That is simply because we believe that the scoring structure of this lineup may be changing this fall -- and for the better.
Returning Leane Willemse is huge. Not only was she a great lead scorer who gave her team some much needed potency last fall, but the veteran distance ace also super consistent. And on a team that just lost a lot of scoring stability, having someone as reliable as Willemse should not be overlooked.
But...where is the rest of the scoring on this team coming from? Sure, there are decent returners who offered solid value last fall, but those women can't be enough to justify ranking Wisconsin at TSR #19, right?
Yes, that is true. While Wisconsin does have a decent set of returning names, those women would need to make fairly noticeable improvements in order for this ranking to be valid. That, ladies and gentlemen, is where the transfer portal comes in.
Lindsay Cunningham is an incoming graduate transfer from Winona State, a somewhat small Division Two school in Minnesota. However, make no mistake, there is nothing "small" about the talent and accomplishments of this star distance talent.
This now-former D2 distance ace has run times of 9:10 (3k), 15:41 (5k) and 32:43 (10k) on the track. She has racked up four D2 national titles, has amassed countless D2 All-American honors, has secured the D2 indoor 5k record and sits at NCAA #3 (D2) All-Time in the 10k.
Her 33:55 (10k) mark at the NCAA D2 Outdoor Championships came at 4600 feet in Pueblo, Colorado. That mark would roughly give her a 33:41 conversion.
The best version of Cunningham means that she's just as good, if not better, than Willemse. And if that's the case, then the scoring structure of this team will look fairly different compared to last year. That, of course, is hardly a bad thing. Additional firepower behind Willemse was, after all, one of the key things that the Badgers desperately needed last fall.
The catch, however, is that Cunningham hasn't competed since mid-February. After a couple of "good," but not "great" races on the indoor oval, the Winona State talent seemingly shut down her D2 career in a presumed effort to prep for Madison, Wisconsin.
Cunningham's recent and prolonged absences aren't exactly encouraging. Even so, this strength-based standout is the perfect fit for an aerobic-centric squad that has built their reputation by developing long distance runners.
* * *
Of course, we have only spoken about two projected lineup runners so far. And while both Willemse and Cunningham could be a scary 1-2 punch, they can't carry this team completely on their own.
Thankfully, Fiona McLoughlin is another new name to this distance program. The now-former Stony Brook runner was a very respectable name for the Seawolves during her time in the northeast. Now, she'll be aim to bring her promising long distance momentum to a squad that would love to have her replace some of their lost veterans.
McLoughlin had a very solid year on the track this past winter and spring, running a respectable 5k time of 16:16 and a solid 10k mark of 33:40. That latter result was a great step in the right direction for someone how placed 25th at Paul Short last fall and 25th at the Northeast Regional XC Championships.
Sure, none of those results jump off the page in a major way. But frankly, they don't need to. McLoughlin clearly has the ability to be a serviceable backend scorer for this team in 2024. That's especially true after seeing the progress that she made this past spring.
The same can largely be said for UW-Eau Claire graduate transfer, Carolyn Shult. After joining the Badgers in the winter, Shult already began to find success, running new personal bests of 16:26 (5k) and 34:07 (10k). And let's not forget, she was already a 5th place All-American at the NCAA D3 XC Championships last fall.
Shult feels like a fairly major x-factor. Her talent is seemingly beyond that of a backend contributor, but she's not quite a lead scorer, either. Instead, emerging as a crucial middle-lineup scorer who offers tremendous value and stability for Wisconsin would be huge. And if that happen, then the backend departures from last year's group become less and less important.
Regardless, as long as both of those women can step into this team's varsity group and match expectations, then that would/should be considered a success.
However, the true heart and soul of this team will likely be the women who are returning from last year's squad. I am, of course, referring to Kylie Finger, Bella Jacobsen and Emma Watcke. The former was 21st at the BIG 10 XC Championships, the second name placed 137th at the national meet and the latter placed 104th at the Nuttycombe Invite (which is a strong result for a backend scorer).
Sure, none of those three women are expected to play massive scoring roles for Wisconsin this fall. But as a collective group, the trio of Finger, Jacobsen and Watcke should be plenty valuable. They gained pivotal big-meet experience last year and they each showed moments of being impactful scorers who can keep this team score in check.
While Willemse and Cunningham will certainly be the names grabbing all of the attention for the Badgers this fall, it's those latter three women are going to be the determinants for how high this team flies in 2024. They will, however, have to replicate their best performances from last year on a more consistent basis.
There is one more name who I want to mention before we wrap up: Shea Ruhly.
Truthfully, we don't know if Ruhly is returning this fall. She was listed as a redshirt senior on Wisconsin's 2023 cross country, but she didn't race at all last fall. And given that she's be in the NCAA since the fall of 2018, it's possible that she has since concluded her time in Madison, Wisconsin.
And yet, if Ruhly is returning, then that is a massive development. Remember, in the fall of 2022, Ruhly was this team's lead scorer, placing 54th at the Nuttycombe Invitational, 8th at the BIG 10 XC Championships and 94th at the national meet. Those are a huge series of performances which put her closer to the tier that Willemse is in rather than the tier that other women on this team reside in.
A potential return from Ruhly would almost certainly put the Badgers in a position to surpass this preseason ranking -- maybe even easily. Of course, it's been quite some time since she's last raced on the grass and, as we already alluded to, we're not entirely sure if she'll return.
* * *
This fall the Wisconsin women are almost certainly going to field a lineup that looks very different than what you saw last year. In fact, there's a (somewhat) realistic scenario where four of their top-five runners are women who you didn't see at all last fall in a Badger singlet.
That new personnel should, in theory, put this team in a slightly better position than they were in last year. Of course, that also assumes that certain women are going to translate their recent successes seamlessly to Madison, Wisconsin.
It's also impossible to ignore that the core names who made up the entire latter-half of the Badgers' 2023 lineup are gone, leaving us with less certainty as to what the team's depth and varsity options are going to look like.
Regardless, this is the same Wisconsin team that you've grown accustomed to seeing in recent seasons. This year's group will have more firepower and greater upside, thus making them as dangerous as they have been in a while.
If everything breaks in favor of the Badgers, then this preseason spot will look like a gross under-ranking from us at The Stride Report.
