.png)
TSR's 2024 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Women): #10 Amherst Mammoths
- Kevin Fischer
- Sep 4, 2024
- 7 min read
Written by Kevin Fischer, edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve & Garrett Zatlin
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.
We have plenty of confidence that this Amherst team will be highly competitive this fall.
Coach Hannah Chappell-Dick's first year at the helm featured some ups and downs and ended in an 18th-place NCAA XC Championships finish that lined up fairly well with our preseason expectations. However, there were flashes throughout the 2023 season which suggested the potential for something even greater.
Now, with their entire varsity lineup returning, along with a high-level class of incoming freshmen, the Mammoths look like a complete team without too many unknowns. We can pretty comfortably expect the 2024 edition of this team to be improved from last year, it's just a matter of how big of a jump they can make.
* * *
Amherst opened up their 2023 cross country campaign with a close victory over their longtime rival, Williams, at the Little Three Championships. Despite this result coming in a small meet in September, it brought a lot of attention to the Mammoths, who began the season as one of our “Honorable Mention” teams.
Of course, Amherst saw a lot more of the Ephs last fall, with the first rematch coming at D3 Pre-Nationals three weeks later. While they dropped that head-to-head contest to their conference rival, the Mammoths still recorded a strong 4th-place team finish led by solid efforts from Sylvan Wold (16th) and Julia Schor (28th).
Those were two highly promising lead scoring efforts, but what really impressed us was seeing the supporting cast of Claire Callon (38th), Allison Lounsbury (46th), Daphne Witherell (60th) and Bella Lozier (61st) keep the gaps in this lineup fairly minimal. On paper, there wasn't a glaring weakness.
After running a “B” team at the Connecticut College Invitational, the Mammoths' top runners lined up at the NESCAC XC Championships. At their conference meet, they beat some national-caliber teams like Middlebury and Bates on their way to a runner-up finish, but it was a distant 2nd place behind Williams.
Wold (7th) was great, but the scoring potency needed to truly contend for conference gold simply wasn't there. Callon (13th), Lozier (15th), Witherell (17th) and Price (19th) all offered great scoring stability and few lineup holes. However, Schor (22nd) had a bit of an "off" day, making the 31-point gap between Amherst and Williams look larger than it likely should have been.
Even so, the Mammoths were still putting together decent results and defeating a number of very solid teams. Those head-to-head results against the Ephs were arguably more a sign of Williams starting to really click than anything negative for Amherst.
The Mideast Regional XC Championships yielded a similar result, as Amherst once again could not keep pace with Williams, but beat everybody else in a field that boasted seven eventual national qualifying teams.
An 18th-place team finish at the cross country national meet was a little disappointing for this group considering their success throughout the regular season coupled with their 12th-place NCAA XC Championships finish in 2022.
With Wold, their top runner throughout the season, finishing 223rd, and Schor not faring all that much better, the rest of the lineup was thrust into top-scoring roles that they were not used to.
All things considered, Amherst actually held their own fairly well. Sophia Price filled the top spot with a 102nd-place finish. Bella Lozier, who was Amherst’s seventh runner at the regional meet, wasn't far behind as the second finisher at the national meet.
The next group of Allison Lounsbury, Claire Callon, and Daphne Witherell all finished in the next 15 seconds and within the top-175. But even with a close spread from their first scorer to their last scorer, a lack of firepower (nobody in the top-100) proved to challenging to overcome for a program that was battle for a top-10 spot.
* * *
This fall, the Mammoths return everybody among their top-seven.
Thea Crowley, who placed 27th at the NESCAC XC Championships as a freshman in 2023, is not listed on their 2024 roster. Otherwise, there aren't really any notable losses to speak of.
This team will be running it back with just about everybody this fall -- and that's a scary prospect for any team that has to toe the line against the Mammoths in the coming months.
Sylvan Wold was the headliner of the show for much of last season despite a tough national meet showing, and although she did not race on the track this past winter or spring, she showed in 2023 how potent of a scorer she can be.
Julia Schor, meanwhile, is coming off of a huge jump on the oval this past spring after she ran 4:29 over 1500 meters. There may be some question regarding how that translates to the grass, but decent cross country pedigree along with a solid recent 17:23 (5k) result puts some of those questions to rest.
Together, Wold and Schor will once again be one of the more underrated 1-2 scoring punches in Division Three this fall. The fact that this squad still cracked the top-20 at last year's national meet despite both women struggling is wildly impressive. Now imagine how dangerous this group will be when these two women are firing on all cylinders.
Of course, the Amherst women will only go as far as their supporting cast will take them.
Allison Lounsbury, Bella Lozier, Claire Callon and Daphne Witherell look like they will once again be in position to be key pieces on this squad. All four of those women put down 5000-meter marks between 18:00 and 18:15 during the past academic year. Plus, Lounsbury holds a 5k personal best of 17:38 that she set in the spring of 2023.
That quartet of stable and reliable middle lineup scorers are some of the best in the country. They were super consistent and kept top-five gaps at a minimum last fall. Frankly, if they can just replicate last year's performances, then there is still a good shot at this group remaining in the top-10 portion of our rankings.
Truthfully the gap between Wold and Schor to the rest of this lineup last fall was fairly noticeable. Cutting down that gap and tightening the team's top-five time spread should do wonders for this squad in 2024.
Sophia Price did not see any action on the track this year, but she is also the top returning scorer from last year's national meet lineup. She is more than capable of being a contributor and she may actually be the one who ends up bridging the two halves of Amherst's scoring contingent.
Daphne Theiler will also be looking to play a part. She returns to this team after missing the 2023 cross country season and only being able to compete a few times on the track in 2024. It will be interesting to see what kind of fitness she is in, but she was the 116th-place finisher at the 2022 cross country national meet. If she can rediscover that form, then that will be a huge boost for the Mammoths.
* * *
Sidnie Kulik is a bit of a "wild card." An indoor national meet qualifier over 3000 meters in 2022 and the 5th-place finisher at the 2021 Mideast Regional XC Championships, she has all the accolades, on paper, to be one of this team's top runners.
However, Kulik has only raced a few times since the spring of 2022, and in those efforts, she hasn't come very close to recapturing her freshman-year form. But if her performances are anything like what we remember from the 2021-22 academic year, then that will be a massive development for a team that is already highly competitive.
Although, granted, that seems like a big “if”.
Amherst also went out and added some serious talent on the recruiting trail. It will be difficult for many if any of these first-year athletes to make an immediate impact considering the depth of high-level returners. Even so, a couple of names to look out for are Flora Biro out of DuPont Manual High School (Kentucky) and Addison McGoey of Kent Place School (New Jersey).
Those young women have 3200-meter personal bests of 10:37 and 10:41, respectively. They could immediately be in the scoring mix this fall if their transition to collegiate athletics goes smoothly.
* * *
The Amherst women are ready to start a new fall campaign with all of the key members back from last year's squad along with some new and old additions to reinforce the lineup. The only element holding this team back from being in the conversation for a podium spot is their comparative lack of proven firepower.
We really like both Schor and Wold, but the latter is the only name who has shown enough for us to say that she can be an All-American this fall. That isn't to say that Schor isn't talented enough to do the same, but her 2023 fall campaign didn't necessarily suggest that.
Even so, ensuring that this group remains as a top-10 team in 2024 could be done on their depth alone. On the off chance that the Mammoths don't produce an All-American, Amherst’s wealth of options and championship experience will still be highly formidable.
If Schor and Wold run closer to their potential and the rest of the reliable core takes a small step up (particularly if Price, Theiler and Kulik are near their top form), then this preseason ranking will look prescient.
