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TSR's 2024 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Women): #7 MIT Engineers
- Conor Daly
- Sep 7, 2024
- 7 min read
Written by Conor Daly, 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.
Gosh, how did the MIT women fare so well last fall?
There’s no doubt that the Engineers' 2023 group was full of talent, but they did not have experience on their side. At the cross country national meet, MIT lined up three freshmen, three sophomores and a junior to represent their program. They were also competing without one of their low-stick stars.
While fielding a team that youthful can often end in disaster, this group finished an impressive 11th place at the NCAA XC Championships.
As exciting as last year was, it’s even better news that the entire lineup returns for this year. No, they’re not a flawless group by any means, but after another year of development, the Engineers will be a force to be reckoned with in 2024.
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The MIT women got the ball rolling against Division Three competition last fall at the Williams Purple Valley XC Invite, where they steamrolled a highly regarded Williams program. Finishing side by side were Kate Sanderson, Gillian Roeder and Lexi Fernandez, a very encouraging front trio that placed 2-3-4 in that order.
The remaining scorers were quite solid as well, as the Engineers comfortably took home a win in an encouraging fashion.
A larger task came at D3 Pre-Nationals, where the group looked very strong once again. Roeder established herself as a highly potent low-stick thanks to her 4th-place finish in a very talented field. Fernandez was once again strong in 11th place, but Sanderson had a bit of an "off" day, fading to 34th place.
To make up for that, Christina Crow stepped up as a solid middle-lineup name in 24th place, and freshman Heather Jensen finished 30th to contribute to the team effort. Rujuta Sane’s 36th-place finish gave the team some nice cushion beyond the five scorers.
Even with Sanderson roughly 20 spots further back than expected, that performance did not impact the team result that day as MIT finished a distant runner-up. It was not a perfect race, but Pre-Nationals was generally an encouraging experience for the young group.
The NEWMAC XC Championships weren’t all that much of a test for MIT, as they put all of their scorers in the top-10 en route to an easy team win. Rookies stepped up for the Engineers, as freshmen were the team’s fourth, fifth and sixth runners on the conference stage.
The most notable part of that meet for MIT was not who ran but who didn't. We ultimately did not see Roeder race at all in the postseason.
After cruising through their regional meet in a similar fashion to their conference meet, the Engineers headed to the 2023 NCAA XC Championships on a two-meet winning streak. Although, neither victory came over any particularly notable squads.
There, Sanderson and Fernandez were respectable strong lead scorers, finishing 34th and 48th, respectively. Crow (83rd) was solid as well, followed by freshmen Jensen and Liv Girand, who closed out the scoring in 127th and 186th place, respectively.
In general, many of these runners were about 20 places back from where they were expected to finish. But in a race as overwhelming as the national meet, they still produced a more-than-respectable 11th-place team performance.
The absence of Roeder was definitely felt, though. If she had placed 40th (which is a conservative estimate), her team would have jumped to 7th place on the national stage.
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This is the part where we’d usually harp on who’s departing the program and the impact of those losses. But as we mentioned before, the Engineers' entire varsity lineup will be returning to Boston.
Kate Sanderson enters this season with a fantastic reputation throughout Division Three. It’s fair to consider her 34th-place finish at 2023 D3 Pre-Nationals last fall as an obvious fluke. Other than that, she was a consistent high-level talent.
The MIT ace will look to improve upon finishes of 3rd place at the NEWMAC XC Championships, 4th place at the East Regional XC Championships and 34th place at the NCAA XC Championships. Those 2023 efforts helped Sanderson earn our TSR #17 individual ranking entering this season.
On the track, Sanderson focused her efforts between the 5k and the 10k. The then-sophomore qualified for both the 2024 indoor and outdoor national meets with marks of 16:52 (5k) and 35:08 (10k). Both of those times were among the best in Division Three and set Sanderson up well for further improvement on the grass.
Simply put, we really like the value that Sanderson could bring to the table as a lead scorer. She won't be able to improve much at her conference and regional meet, but she could certainly cut off a decent amount of scoring on the national stage. There's a fairly realistic scenario that Sanderson ends her season as a top-10 talent.
Lexi Fernandez was not as strong as Sanderson on the whole last fall, but she did beat her two out of the five times that they toed the line together. Some of her 2023 highlights included placing 11th at D3 Pre-Nationals, 2nd at the East Regional XC Championships and 48th at the NCAA XC Championships.
A mile/3k specialist on the track, Fernandez consistently ran in the mid-to-low-4:50s and around 9:50 in those respective events on the indoor oval. Her indoor national meet showing was very impressive, as she anchored her team to a 4th-place DMR result and finished 5th in a loaded mile field.
The outdoor track season was a bit more spotty for her, as she only raced twice. In the second of those races, Fernandez posted a 1500-meter PR of 4:30 to qualify for the outdoor national meet, although she ended up scratching out of that opportunity. Health and availability may be something to monitor, but having an entire summer to return to top form leaves us with few concerns about her ability to be a top scorer.
Christina Crow is an underrated middle-lineup name. Her body of work last fall -- 24th at D3 Pre-Nationals, 5th at the East Regional XC Championships and 83rd at the NCAA XC Championships -- was very solid, and she figures to continue to be a valuable scorer for the Engineers.
Reliability and stability are going to be crucial for MIT in the fall of 2024. There are still a number of younger runners who will have an impact on this lineup. And in theory, that leaves the Engineers a bit more volatile based strictly on youth. Thankfully, having someone like Crow brings a level of steadiness that other teams can't always boast.
After racing only once on the track the previous year, Rujuta Sane was a name who broke through as a solid scorer for the Engineers last fall.
Her finishes of 36th at D3 Pre-Nationals and 9th at the East Regional XC Championships were both crucial for her team. She admittedly had a sub-par day at the national meet, finishing outside of the top-200, but has made incredible improvements since then.
Sane has completely leveled up in 2024, now holding 4:59 (mile) and 16:54 (5k) personal bests. That 5k mark, in particular, suggests that she could be capable of being an All-American in November. And if that happens, then we'll likely need to give the MIT women a boost in our rankings.
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There’s also Heather Jensen, Liv Girand and Erin Hovendon, a trio of then-freshmen who were part of MIT's 2023 national meet lineup. It’s not uncommon for sophomores to far exceed their freshman-year results, so it’s very plausible that this group could be in for even bigger things.
Jensen and Girand were frequent scorers for this Cambridge-based group last fall. Jensen’s runs of 30th place at D3 Pre-Nationals and 127th at the NCAA XC Championships were a pair of admirable efforts. Since then, she’s seemingly only furthered her fitness, running 17:22 (5k) and 11:03 (steeple).
The story is largely the same with Girand, the 7th-place finisher at the East Regional XC Championships who was 186th at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships. Also taking on the steeplechase, she dropped an elite 10:48 mark over the barriers and water pits this past spring as well as a 17:26 (5k).
Not many teams can say that they have a pair of sub-17:30 (5k) women who they consider to be “depth pieces."
Hovendon, meanwhile, was a step behind her two first-year peers. That’s not to say that finishing 65th at D3 Pre-Nationals or 15th at the NEWMAC XC Championships were poor results at all. She differs from her classmates in that she’s more of a middle distance talent, running 2:15 (800) this past year and staying away from any event longer than a mile on the track.
In our discussion of this team’s top returners, we can’t leave out Gillian Roeder, someone who was absent in the postseason after her incredible 4th-place finish at D3 Pre-Nationals in early October. It doesn’t make us feel any better that this 2023 NCAA 1500-meter bronze medalist hasn’t raced on the track at all in 2024.
While the status of her availability does make her a bit of a "wild card," Roeder is wildly talented. When healthy, she makes for a potent low-stick to add to this already-stacked lineup. Roeder has, after all, run 17:13 (5k) and 4:23 (1500).
If the Engineers needed any other options, then they also have a very strong incoming freshman class highlighted by three sub-11:00 (3200) runners.
Ava Hartman holds the fastest mark (10:49) over that event while also entering college as the Louisiana Division Three state champion in cross country. Kate Friedman was the 14th-place finisher at the Connecticut State Open Championships, while Katie Stabb has run 17:25 over a three-mile cross country course.
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The future of this program looks bright. The Engineers have some wildly impressive talents who still have many years ahead in Division Three.
There are truly no glaring concerns for this program. They have a well-built team with Fernandez and Sanderson as reliable low-sticks (in addition to Roeder if she is available) and considerable depth returning. Some of these backend pieces, in particular, have made a lot of progress on the track.
We learned last fall that the Engineers don't necessarily need Roeder in order to compete at a high level as a team. This ranking is baking in part of our uncertainty about her 2024 status. That being said, she probably has the highest ceiling on the squad, and the Engineers hold podium potential if they have a fully healthy lineup.
With everyone returning and a few others trying to break in, MIT has a difficult varsity lineup to crack this fall. Their surplus of depth and potential (given that many of these women were underclassmen last fall) makes them feel like a shoo-in for a top-10 finish so long as nothing major goes awry.
