The Gators may have been the best "Cinderella story" of the 2018 cross country season. In the team’s second year under coach Chris Solinsky, Florida earned their first National Championship berth since 2012. They ultimately finished 16th overall after coming in ranked at #21, capping a phenomenal breakout season. This fall, the team loses two of their top seniors, but with the return of Jessica Pascoe, a key junior transfer from Bucknell, and a promising young core, the Gators have a good chance at making it back to NCAA's and staying competitive on the national stage. * * * Jessica Pascoe was a huge factor in the success of Florida last fall. A relatively unknown runner coming into last season, Pascoe opened up her season with wins at the UNF Cross Country Invitational and the Mountain Dew Cross Country Invitational. She finished runner-up to future NCAA 1500 meter champion Sinclaire Johnson at the Arturo Barrios Invitational and later won the SEC title over a handful of elite Arkansas women. Pascoe finished her season by placing 32nd at NCAA's and earning her first All-American honors while leading Florida to a 16th place finish. She seemingly came out of nowhere, but Pascoe was the star low-stick that Florida could rally around and lean on throughout the cross country season. On the track, Pascoe continued to find success. She set indoor personal bests in the mile, 3000, and 5000, and although she DNF’d at Indoors Nationals, she quickly bounced back to qualify for Outdoor Nationals in the 5k where she placed 9th in Austin. Coming into this fall, Pascoe’s performance will be a huge factor in where Florida ends up. The Gators have a handful of solid runners, but Pascoe is head-and-shoulders above her teammates, meaning if she has a bad race, the entire Florida team will struggle substantially. That said, if Pascoe races to her potential, she could be pushing for a top 15 finish come NCAA's. * * * Despite the grand success of Pascoe, many of the women behind her will have to step up if Florida wants to repeat their 2018 magic. With last year's #3 and #4 scorers (Morgan Hull and Caitlin McQuilkin-Bell) now gone, the rest of the Gators will have some gaps to fill. Elisabeth Bergh looks like the clear favorite to fill the #2 spot this fall. She was the second Gator at a handful of meets in 2018 and finished the season very well, placing 6th at SEC's and 8th at the South Regional Championships. She is clearly better suited for smaller meets given her 123rd place finish at Nationals, but it's clear that she is a reliable scoring option after Pascoe. Bergh opted to redshirt the indoor season this past year, but returned for outdoors where she primarily focused on middle distance events. Based on her cross country season last year, Bergh looks poised to help Pascoe up front and give the Gators a strong 1-2 punch. The one concern is that during her outdoor season, Bergh struggled to match her personal bests. Is it possible that she was injured during the winter? It's tough to say, but it will be something to watch as we enter the 2019 cross country season. Regardless, a healthy Elisabeth Bergh means a strong Florida Gators team. Imogen Barrett is another woman on our radar who looks poised for a big season this fall. As a true freshman, Barrett had a solid cross country season that saw her finish 32nd at SEC's and 21st at the South Regional Championships. Both of these performances were impressive, but where Barrett really found her stride was in the 1500 meters this past outdoor season. After finishing 5th in the mile at the SEC Indoor Championships, Barrett came away with the upset victory at the outdoor SEC meet by running a personal best of 4:17 during the final. She carried that momentum through the East regional meet where she was the last woman to qualify in the 1500, ultimately placing 19th at Outdoor National Championships. During her freshman campaign, Barrett showed that she was capable of competing with the best in the NCAA. This fall, Florida will look to her to continue that trend of progression as the team searches for a #3 scorer behind Pascoe and Bergh. Barrett will certainly need to improve on her 2018 cross country performances if the Gators hope to compete this fall, but that should be no problem given her notable improvements over the past 12 months. * * * Gabrielle Wilkinson was Florida’s other strong freshman who showed flashes of talent at a relatively high level. This past outdoor season, Wilkinson qualified for the National Championships as a true freshman, placing 15th overall in the 800 meters. That performance surprising given that Wilkinson finished only 9th a month prior at the SEC Championships and was only 6th at the same meet during indoors. Although she had a great track season, Wilkinson is a bit of a wild card when it comes to cross country. She only raced in four meets during her freshman season with her best finish being a 59th place run at SEC's. Any judgement on an athlete's first season in the NCAA should be taken lightly, especially for someone who was as talented as Wilkinson was in high school. Still, there should be a bit of skepticism for the Gators rolling into this fall. She has enough raw talent to be a legitimate and reliable scorer for Coach Solinksky's group this fall, but we'll need to see whether or not that will translate to the grass. Despite the uncertainty that Wilkinson brings to the table, Florida can take solace in the fact that they'll have a veteran supporting scorer entering the program. Payton Capes-Davis is a transfer from Bucknell who finished 9th in a quietly competitive Patriot League Championship and then 52nd at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships this past fall. She also owns personal bests of 9:48 (3k) and 10:41 for the steeplechase. Admittedly, her times and finishes don't jump off the page, but she has shown that she could at least be a contributor on this squad. On a team that is a bit thin on depth, her addition to the Florida roster becomes increasingly more valuable. * * * But what could be the x-factor in all of this is the youth of the Florida Gators. Their 2019 roster holds eight freshmen and five sophomores. The potential growth we could see from this young core is extremely exciting, especially with these women having yet another year of Solinsky's training under their belt (which has clearly made a difference in the short time that he's been here). Rising sophomore Grace Blair and incoming freshman Emily Culley have produced strong results and could see major jumps in fitness over the next few months. They'll likely make up the bottom half of this lineup, but don't be surprised if they become reliable scorers at the #3 or #4 spots come October and November. * * * Florida is a team banking on big improvements from their backend this fall. Pascoe will provide a low-stick up front and Bergh is a very solid #2 runner. Even Barrett seems like a relatively reasonable scoring option at the #3 position. However, the openings behind those women will likely dictate the Gators' overall success this fall. Between Wilkinson, Capes-Davis, Blair, Culley, and maybe a few others, they should have enough women to put together a complete scoring five. If they are able to make the necessary tweaks and jumps in fitness, the Gators will be in the hunt to replicate their 16th place showing from 2018.

The last team not named Northern Arizona to win the NCAA team title began its reign last year with top 10 aspirations. And truthfully, why shouldn’t they have had high expectations? Even with the loss of Justyn Knight and Colin Bennie, the Orange were returning Aidan Tooker, Noah Affolder, and Iliass Aouani – all of whom were prospective All-Americans. Unfortunately for the Syracuse men, the season wasn’t what many anticipated. Aouani wasn't the contributor many thought he could be, and Affolder dealt with health problems towards the end of the fall. While there were certainly bright moments, the end of the season was a tough pill to swallow for a team who had won a national title three years prior. How Syracuse bounces back from their solid, but less-than-ideal 2018 season will tell us a lot about the program and what the future will hold for the men in orange. * * * It is ironic that the season had a frustrating end because the start looked very promising. In TSR’s preseason rankings , Syracuse earned the #12 spot back in 2018, and even that ranking seemed low after their strong start. At the Battle of Beantown, the Orange put five runners in the top 13 and absolutely dominated a field that held top programs such as Washington and Ole Miss. Tooker and Affolder led the squad with a pair of top five finishes while the depth behind them looked like some of the best scorers in the country. Syracuse’s next challenge was at Pre-Nationals in the White race where they would once again face a strong Washington team, along with other national contenders (i.e. BYU). As a sign of things to come for both squads, Syracuse ran respectably to earn a 3rd place finish, but were crushed by the Huskies who avenged their early season loss to the Orange. The bright spot was the performance by Tooker who had the race of his life to finish runner-up in between a pack of BYU runners. Other lineup options such as Simon Smith and Joe Dragon had solid races finishing 56th and 59th, respectively. The ACC Championships provided yet another surprising result as the Notre Dame team that Syracuse had beaten a few weeks earlier upset the Orange to bring home the ACC title. Syracuse didn’t run poorly – the Irish just ran better. Tooker struggled to replicate his previous race, but there were plenty of others who stepped up. Dragon finished one spot behind Tooker to earn a 9th place run while Kevin James ran well to finish 12th. ACC's also showed that Syracuse had plenty of depth that should help them in the future. Underclassmen Nathan Henderson and Dominic Hockenbury produced top 25 finishes while junior Simon Smith placed 26th. While it was disappointing not to win, the future of the team appeared to take some steps forward. Optimism for the present and the future continued at the Northeast Regional Championships where Syracuse dominated. Tooker, Dragon, and Hockenbury finish 6th, 7th, and 8th, while Smith came in right behind in 17th. The young squad was headed to Nationals where there was hope that they could match their 13th place finish from last year. It was not to be. Dragon earned the only top 100 finish as he was the 90th runner to cross the line while the rest of the team struggled mightily. As the dust settled, they finished the season as the 26th best team in the country. * * * When news came out that Noah Affolder was headed west and transferring to Oregon , the future of Syracuse cross country seemed a bit unclear. However, this past track season proved that the ACC runner-ups will continue to be competitive for years to come. Tooker ran sub-4 indoors in the mile and earned a PR in the 5k with his 13:48 before his season ended early with an injury. The rest of the squad ran lifetime bests in the 5k from Dragon at 14:05 to Smith at 14:16. James, Dragon, and Hockenbury also all ran under 30 minutes in the 10k. These improvements - paired with solid performances from freshman Matthew Scrape, Noah Beveridge, and Michael Phillips - show that Syracuse will have plenty of depth this fall. To replace Affolder and Aouani, the Orange are bringing in two solid freshmen who could not only bolster the team's depth, but add high-potential firepower to their lineup. The first, Kevin Robertson, hails from Ottawa, Canada and brings with him some significant foot-speed. With PR's of 3:41 in the 1500 and 9:00 in the steeple, he looks like he will fit in perfectly next to Tooker. The second, Alex Comerford, is a 9:01 3200 runner who finished 8th in the New Balance Indoor Nationals 5k with a time of 15:07. Both of these youngsters, Robertson specifically, are nice additions as the team continues to build back towards a podium finish. The key for this year - as it is for many - is internal growth. For the past few years, Syracuse has recruited some of the best young talents in the United States and Canada. Some of their top recruits haven't been unleashed into collegiate competition yet and have instead been redshirted while slowly refining their fitness. Guys like Thomas Witkowicz and Nathan Lawler were two superstar recruits who saw little to no action during the 2018-2019 academic calendar. They could be extremely valuable x-factors when all is said and done. * * * For the Orange to earn this #17 ranking and exceed it, they will need big improvements from the backend of their lineup and more consistency from their top two of Tooker and Dragon. The Orange have so many solid runners that a few should take a step forward – and with a top low-stick, this is a team that might surprise people. After a national meet where everything went wrong, this year’s Syracuse team - with all their depth - will be one of the most consistent, if not dominant, teams in the country. One last point. Another aspect that we may have underrated in Syracuse’s "down" season was the loss of Coach Chris Fox who left to coach Justyn Knight professionally and Reebok TC. New coach Brien Bell was Fox’s right hand man as they built the Syracuse powerhouse, so the transition appeared seamless. Of course, just with any change, there is a chance for new issues to bubble up. Based off of their performances last season, it may seem safe to suggest that the Orange peaked a bit early. That is something that will likely be addressed this fall as Bell further crafts his plan and vision of what Syracuse cross country can be. After a year one test run, Bell will have a much better idea of how he wants to approach 2019 and beyond. * * * In the grand scheme of things, it seems almost absurd to think that Syracuse won't be a competitive team this fall. Tooker is a better low-stick than most people realize while both Joe Dragon and Kevin James are underrated veteran supporting scorers who have showed flashes of brilliance at meets like Beantown and ACC's. The team has incredible depth and room to grow in the second half of their lineup. In other words, the options are endless. The inconsistencies, admittedly, are a legitimate concern and their frontend firepower isn't quite at the same level as other teams in our Top 20. Still, the overwhelming talent throughout this Syracuse roster will make them a major threat to reclaim the ACC title in 2019.