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TSR's 2026 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Women): #1 NYU Violets
Written by Conor Daly, edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve
NOTE #1: 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.
NOTE #2: The Stride Report is aware that a number of meets have already taken place during the 2026 cross country season. However, The Stride Report believes that these early-season races (often called "rust-busters") hold little-to-no importance on a team's national standing due to the limited competition and the lack of top names being entered at these meets.
This one sparked fierce debate among our TSR staff.
At first, we did not plan to give the defending national champions (who return four of their five scorers) TSR's #1 spot.
There are other teams that have shown more consistency and availability. There are other teams that have shown greater progression on the track over the last nine months. There are other teams that offer greater depth and higher-impact newcomers.
Yes, NYU is a very fragile team, with a top quartet that needs to be healthy and pretty much zero margin for error. However, we kept coming back to the fact that when this team is firing on all cylinders, the Violets are definitively the best team in the country.
And considering they have been the best team in the country with many of these women before, we could not help but to give them the preseason edge.
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The Violets kicked off their 2025 cross country season right where they would end it: in Spartansburg, South Carolina. The NYU women got over the national meet course at the Eye Opener XC Meet in August, which is probably the extent of the news that came from that meet, considering they did not face off with any comparable competition there.
Their first true effort came at the Paul Short Run “White” race, where NYU proved to be the clear class of the field.
Despite barely being a top-100 runner in the country a year prior, Emory transfer Ashlyn Pallotta (4th) seemingly came out of nowhere and ran the race of her life. Josephine Dziedzic (5th) was right by her side with an equally impressive result, but one that was far less surprising. In that race, two of the three women Pallotta and Dziedzic lost to became the eventual top-two finishers at the 2025 cross country national meet.
Behind them, NYU showed a complete top-five, with Olivia Jackson, Lucy Gott and Daniela Sekhar going 14-15-17, respectively, to act as fringe low-sticks in their own right. It was a performance so dominant that only one team had two runners ahead of NYU’s fifth scorer.
The Connecticut College Invitational was even more stacked, with many of the top-10 teams in the country coming to battle. Without low-sticks Ashlyn Pallotta, Stella Kuttner (who hadn’t raced since the season opener), Janie Cooper (who hadn’t raced all season to that point) and Kate Cochran (who also hadn’t raced all season, nor would she), the ladies from the Big Apple weren’t a factor in the team battle.
However, there were encouraging individual developments, with Dziedzic (3rd) proving that she was one of the best runners in the country. Gott (25th) and Sekhar (28th) continued to be reliable, and the real excitement came from the prospect of how good the Violets' lineup would be if all of their best toed the line at the same time.
We saw the fullest version of NYU to date at the UAA XC Championships, where the Violets made the most competitive conference in Division Three look like a dual meet. Pallotta (1st) validated her breakout performance, while Dziedzic placing 3rd no longer came as a shock.
The biggest hero of the day was Grace Rowley (4th) in her first race of the season. The return of Stella Kuttner (8th) -- who had not raced since August, but showed no signs of rust -- was similarly encouraging. With Gott (9th) closing out the scoring, NYU had no void of firepower or depth.
That was the Violets' final test before the national meet, as they faced a soft Niagara regional meet to qualify for the national meet. NYU seemingly did not run all out on the regional stage and instead rested many of its top athletes (Pallotta, Kuttner, Rowley).
There was, however, one major development. Cross country All-American Janie Cooper raced for the first time all season. She looked flat-out incredible and was the region's runner-up.
She was a crucial piece of NYU’s three-headed beast at the national meet, with the Rowley-Cooper-Dziedzic trio going 8-10-11 in the results, respectively. Pallotta (29th) could have been right with them on her best day, although that did not matter in the end.
Kuttner (38th) completed her best-ever season on the grass to give NYU an unprecedented five All-Americans. And keep in mind, this is all while Gott (160th) had an "off" day and could have been a sixth star.
It was a dream national title-winning day that NYU had been planning behind the scenes for months.
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As we alluded to at the top of the article, the nucleus of this team remains intact.
However, late-season hero and multi-time All-American, Janie Cooper, has graduated.
The same can be said of Lucy Gott, someone who was a very strong scorer in some of the biggest invitationals and postseason meets. She was so effective that most teams would dream of having her at the front of their pack.
Even if she did not compete last fall, the graduation of 2026 NCAA indoor 5000-meter bronze medalist, Kate Cochran, leaves NYU with one less proven multi-time All-American option.
We can’t overlook the departure of Daniela Sekhar, either. She was a scorer on four occasions last fall and a trusted backstop, especially when the Violets did not field a full lineup.
Even with the departures of those stars, that still leaves four 2025 cross country All-Americans returning to New York City. That’s an immense amount of proven firepower.
The most consistent of them is Josephine Dziedzic, who placed top-five at hyper-competitive fields like the Paul Short Run “White” race, the Connecticut College Invitational and the UAA XC Championships. That made her 11th place season finale look like a fitting result for a star of her caliber.
Since then, she’s racked up three more All-American honors via the indoor 5k (4th), outdoor 10k (5th) and outdoor 5k (7th). Not only does that add to her high-level consistency, but she has proven to have the credentials to be at the front of the best races in the country.
And if that hasn’t already convinced you that Dziedzic is a superstar, then her 34:28 (10k) personal best from this spring should do so. She's ranked at TSR #6 in our preseason individual rankings.
The next three (!) of NYU’s low-sticks could finish in any order depending on the day, but we are going to go by the order we settled on in our individual rankings.
Ashlyn Pallotta had an unbelievable breakout season last fall in her first stint in New York after transferring from conference rival Emory. Her performances in the Paul Short Run “White” race (4th) and UAA XC Championships (1st) are some of the single best performances of any returning D3 woman, and they suggested that she was a top-10 runner last fall. Even if she didn’t quite reach that potential in her season finale, she was still comfortably an All-American in her “worst” race of the fall.
However, Pallotta has only raced three times on the track since November, and "only" ran 17:14 (5k) at her best. That skimpy track resume leaves some lingering concern that we can’t overlook. That's why we have her at TSR #13 despite her having top-five upside.
Grace Rowley (TSR #14) only raced twice on the grass last fall, but she came up huge when she did. A 4th place finish at the UAA XC Championships was stunning, but an 8th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships was even more so.
As a true long distance-oriented talent, her upward trajectory continued on the track, where she recorded a top-half finish in the 10k at the outdoor national meet.
Stella Kuttner (TSR #16) was responsible for a top-10 finish at the UAA XC Championships and an All-American finish at the NCAA XC Championships in 2025. Those are a pair of downright impressive runs and are not performances that should belong to someone who's merely a “depth piece” on paper, especially after the track season she had.
Kuttner landed double All-American honors during the indoor track season before running 16:33 (5k) in the spring. Of course, the caveat there is that she only raced once more on the outdoor oval and did not even toe the line at the outdoor national meet.
However, seeing her run a conservative effort at the Vassar Season Starter in recent weeks was good to see and alleviates most of those availability concerns.
And right there are four women who are not only heavily favored to be All-Americans, but also are favored to be top-half All-Americans. That firepower is unbelievable, but it is reliant on all of these women being healthy, which is no easy task, especially given a history of spotty racing from some.
So if 100% postseason availability even comes close to fruition, that mitigates the need for a great fifth scorer, not to say NYU will not have one.
The fastest rising option for that role is a woman who was not even in the postseason lineup last fall. That would be 4:28 (1500) runner Katherine Frank, who cut over 15 seconds off of that personal best in the last year.
Sure, her cross country resume is very limited. Her brightest spot comes via an 86th place finish at the Connecticut College Invitational, which doesn’t scream serviceable fifth scorer, but we are willing to give her a favorable projection based on her track success.
Or if you are looking for someone who is more proven on the grass, Olivia Jackson may be the strongest candidate for that fifth spot.
Jackson’s performances at the Paul Short Run “White” race (14th) and the UAA XC Championships (17th) last year suggest that she is more than capable of being a good enough fifth runner for the top team in our rankings.
Even though the steeplechase does not always correlate to the cross country course, to think that a 10:44 steeplechaser is safely a top-100 runner in the country does not feel like a stretch given her fall 2025 campaign. Jackson also has cross country national meet experience, placing 164th at the 2024 iteration of the meet before improving last fall, but not making the Violets' postseason lineup.
And if neither a 4:28 (1500) runner nor a 10:44 (steeple) talent can close out the scoring soon enough, there are a few rookies who could do so.
The duo of Abby Oglevee (4:59 for 1600m) and Claire Andrzejek (5:00 for 1600m) are the most talented of the group and have the pedigree to make an impact if things break their way in the coming months. However, both come from more of a middle distance background that makes us a bit hesitant to project much this fall.
If you’re looking for a more aerobically equipped newcomer, then Clara Dye (10:50 for 3200m) must be who you are looking at to close out this lineup.
In addition to her fellow classmates, Dye also requires a very optimistic projection to be a contributor to another national title-contending NYU team.
* * *
The story here boils down to this. If the NYU women all race on the same day, they will be very, very hard to beat.
But history suggests that’s far from a guarantee, and we will likely be left with fears about missing personnel at what other teams prioritize as crucial mid-season invitationals.
The tremendous low-sticks and proven talent that the Violets have are plain to see, but we just need to see it when it matters most.
That's why we are not nearly ready to hand NYU the trophy.…yet.
