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TSR's 2025 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Women): #6 U. of Chicago Maroons
Written by Conor Daly, edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve
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.
There’s no other way to say it: The women from the University of Chicago have been incredible over the last few years.
On the track, U. of Chicago has had All-Americans in nearly every distance event. The Maroons won a DMR national title as recently as this past winter. On the grass, they’ve placed top three at the last three NCAA XC Championships.
But this year will look a bit different. That's because there’s a great changing of the guard in Chicago.
Many of the multi-time All-Americans who have long made up the identity of this national powerhouse are gone. The Maroons will have to fight without the help of household names like Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel, Elisabeth Camic, Claudia Harnett and Sophie Tedesco.
While these losses will certainly sting, the Maroons have so much talent on their roster that they remain favored to be a top-10 team, even with a shot at the podium!
But before we get too excited about the future, let’s rewind to revisit the Maroons’ 2024 cross country season.
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The U. of Chicago women simply busted some rust at the Saints Twilight Invite in late August of last year, in what was essentially a team time trial.
The hope was that it would prepare them for one of the most stacked Division Three regular-season matchups we had seen in a very long time: the John McNichols Invitational. There, the Maroons battled with NYU in an early season showdown between our top two preseason teams.
Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel (4th) was the national title-contending low-stick we expected her to be, coming up big as the top Division Three finisher by nearly 30 seconds. Sophomore Estelle Snider (34th) wasn’t quite as potent a second scorer as her breakout track season over 5k and 10k would have suggested, but she still turned in a nice run.
Anna Watson (42nd) and Laura Baeyens (46th) provided a passable middle lineup presence, but the Maroons' fifth runner falling out of the top 70 quickly inflated the team score.
To our surprise, it was neither of the heavy favorites that emerged victorious among Division Three teams that day. The Maroons finished behind the Colorado College women, but ahead of UAA rival NYU.
It was a performance far from expectations, but the pieces for success were there.
Things looked to be okay when you considered that U. of Chicago was missing 2023 cross country All-American Elisabeth Camic. She ran at the ONU Midwest Classic the previous day and seemed to be in decent form, so the thought was that the team would be in way better shape when she was added to the lineup.
Camic returned for D3 Pre-Nationals, where things didn’t necessarily look all that much better.
The absence of Battleson-Gunkel due to injury was a massive blow, but Baeyens (17th) and Watson (20th) stepped up their game to lessen the impact. Nora Holmes (40th) was an important part of the scoring effort, one of the first signs of the breakout year she was in for.
However, poor runs from Camic (31st) and Snider (49th) were far from the All-American form the duo was capable of. A runner-up team result at Pre-Nationals seems pretty good at first glance, but when you consider how handily MIT won the race and the modest caliber of the teams behind the Maroons, there wasn’t all that much to be excited about.
Their slump continued at the Augustana Interregional Invitational. Camic (15th) inched back toward her best form, but she was the squad's only scorer in the top 25. Help came from the quartet of Watson, Baeyens, Emma Kelly and Snider, who went 27-29-31-36. That was a promising development for Kelly, a middle distance runner who has not always been able to translate her talents to the 6k, but for the rest, the pack was far from where they needed to be.
Up to that point, the women of Chicago had turned in an underwhelming season. With much of the group running below expectations, we doubted whether the team that was once thought of as a national title contender would deliver on those expectations.
This skepticism was addressed in an emphatic way at the UAA XC Championships. Camic (4th) continued on her upward trend while Watson (5th) and Baeyens (7th) continued their breakout seasons with their best performances to date, taking down some very good runners.
Snider (10th) and Holmes (12th) had surprisingly nice performances of their own. Even without Battleson-Gunkel, the Maroons toppled NYU, Washington U. and Emory by a comfortable margin in a huge bounce-back performance.
At the Midwest Regional XC Championships, Battleson-Gunkel returned to racing at just the right time. She showed no weakness and was in stellar fitness to break the tape. With the remainder of the scorers in the top 11, the team looked to be heating up at the right time from top to bottom. The Maroons easily won their regional meet and advanced to the pinnacle of the season.
At the 2024 NCAA XC Championships, U. of Chicago rode recent momentum to a spectacular showing. Battleson-Gunkel (5th) emerged as a postseason hero, salvaging her injury-filled season with an outstanding finish.
Watson (31st) peaked at just the right time, while it’s largely the same story with Camic (32nd). Arguably, the biggest overperformer relative to expectations was Snider (37th), who finally ran up to the level her track times suggested she was capable of.
Holmes (76th) closed out the scoring well, but not quite quickly enough to clinch gold for a team with "only" one top-half All-American. In the end, a runner-up team finish was an excellent result. It was nearly a perfect day for the Maroons' top five, and the performance delivered on the preseason hype we were so close to giving up on in the middle of the season.
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Out of this group that contributed to the late-season magic, only a minority will return. The identity of this team is going to be drastically different in 2025, with many of the veteran faces who helped build the program’s perennial success departing.
Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel, a seven-time All-American, saw her time as a Maroon come to a close. She flourished in so many different race situations over the last two years and fearlessly took on some of the best names Division Three has to offer. The low-stick value that the five-time top-five national meet finisher offered will be greatly missed and irreplaceable for the foreseeable future.
The Maroons will likewise miss the veteran presence of Elisabeth Camic and Claudia Harnett. Both women earned individual All-American honors twice and were top-20 finishers on the grass in 2023 (Camic) and 2021 (Harnett).
U. of Chicago also said goodbye to a quartet of incredible 5k specialists. Anna Watson, Laura Baeyens, Sophie Tedesco and Cat Wimmer all hold personal bests between 16:33 to 17:00 in that event.
Although we wish we could give these athletes their flowers at greater length, we need to keep in mind that our main objective is to talk about the upcoming season.
And who else better to start with than Estelle Snider?
The junior is seeking her second All-American honor and an expanded role to be the new star of the team. With a fantastic body of work over the past two years, she’s been preparing for this moment for a while now.
Snider admittedly had some rough outings in the middle of last fall, but she rallied when it mattered most in the postseason. In nearly matching her personal bests this past track season, Snider showed that she is still in very strong form. Her sub-17:00 (5k) and sub-35:30 (10k) marks are some of the best among D3 returners. Particularly if she is able to translate her track talents to the grass more consistently, she could be in for a huge fall.
Believe it or not, Snider may not be the Maroons’ top runner this season. That’s because U. of Chicago brought in superstar Sydney Rankin from Colorado College. Having placed 43rd and 24th at the past two NCAA XC Championships, Rankin is a terrific athlete who is battle-tested at the Division Three level. On paper, she’ll offer a low-stick presence alongside Snider.
It doesn’t hurt, either, that she is coming off the best track season of her life. A 16:53 (5k) personal best puts her in outstanding company. If she's able to adapt to a different team and training regimen immediately, she could give the Maroons another All-American individual. Rankin resides in the “Just Missed” section right outside of our preseason top-25 individual rankings.
Having shown hints of scoring potential previously, Nora Holmes finally put together a breakthrough season last fall. A 12th-place run at the UAA XC Championships and a 76th-place run at the NCAA XC Championships were promising results that, with more development, could put her in the All-American conversation come November.
Coming in with good momentum over 3k (9:43) and 5k (17:06), Holmes looks primed for the challenge of playing a larger role this year.
Beyond those three stars, there are numerous women who could rise to the occasion.
Senior Emma Kelly tends to be a more middle distance-centric runner, but she has shown flashes of promise on the cross country course. In 2023, she was 15th at the UAA XC Championships. Last year, she was 31st at the Augustana Interregional Invitational.
Couple that with 2:13 (800) and 4:36 (1500) marks and a favorable pedigree, and Kelly isn’t that far away from being a contributor. It’s just that she needs to reach the top ends of her fitness more consistently.
Maggie Horn ran 17:35 (5k) on the track last November as only a freshman, which is one of the better marks among the returning roster. However, she hasn’t raced since February, causing uncertainty about her form. If she’s able to make a comeback close to that fitness by the latter part of this season, she’s someone we can feel fairly confident in.
Another returner who didn’t make the postseason lineup last year, but has shown progress on the track is Eva Devlin. A personal best of 17:55 (5k) hasn’t convinced us that she’s ready to make the varsity lineup, but it doesn’t indicate anything to the contrary, either.
There’s also rising sophomores Rebecca Sonn-Lees and Rose Wiltse, whose still-young collegiate cross country careers include 56th and 66th place finishes at 2024 D3 Pre-Nationals, respectively. Similar to Devlin, those are not results that blow you away, but they undoubtedly suggest potential for the duo to be contributors with the right progression.
U. of Chicago tends to attract some talented recruits, many of whom could be names that the Maroons lean on in October and November. Sub-11:00 (3200) rookies Logan Rettino and Sylvia Snider both have displayed talent over the longer distances during their prep days, and 4:58 miler Vivian Kelly could be a threat if she can be effective over the longer distances.
Part of the reason why we’re so high on the Maroons is the fact that these freshmen are playing with house money. The team is in a position where they don’t need to rely on their rookies to come through in a huge way.
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We’ve seen many teams crumble when they enter a season with a new cast. But the Maroons have proven time and time again that they’re far better than most teams.
This UAA powerhouse has women ready to fill in all the roles needed for a strong season. Estelle Snider and Sydney Rankin have shown convincing signs that they will produce low-stick performances. That duo is plenty experienced on the biggest stages, and the same can be said for Nora Holmes. That’s an experienced core of upperclassmen that is exciting to build around.
Beyond them, there is just too much talent for U. of Chicago to have challenges with depth. Between the eight women we mentioned for the backend spots, we feel at peace knowing that at least some of them will break through.
This year’s U. of Chicago group will have to accept that they may not have the talent to be a national runner-up program once again this fall, but a run at a podium finish could be just as rewarding.
