2023 D3 Cross Country Nationals Recap
The sun shone down upon the greenery of Big Spring High School in Newville, PA. Though by week the school is teeming with high school students, by weekend, the campus was transformed into the host site for the 2023 NCAA D3 XC National Championships with banners and flags and giant white tents. As student athletes made their final preparations for the big day via course previews and packet pick-ups on Friday, the school was inhabited, not by its usual high school students, but instead by the nation’s best college cross country runners. Some there were returning veterans, like Wilmington’s Simon Heys, who placed 15th in 2022 and 5th in 2021. Others would be there for the very first time, like WPI women who made their first ever cross country national meet as a team. There would be one more sleep until the big dance.
Vans, cars, and buses lined for miles down Mount Rock Road as athletes reached their destination after traversing rolling Pennsylvania dairy farmland Saturday morning. The campus gradually filled up with both runners and fans from all over the country–team flags rippled in the subtle breeze advertising school loyalty, half-clothed fans armored themselves in body paint, and athletes stood in line for the port-a-pots and took cover in quiet spaces to begin their pre-race meditations. A start gun shot off near the start line, signifying 30 minutes until go-time.
Men’s Race
When the athletes in the men’s race crowded into their starting boxes, a nervous buzz filled the air. As the referee blew his whistle, the fans and athletes prepared for the best thing in all of sports: the start of the cross-country race.
Photo Credit: Jen Reagan
Six months ago, La Crosse’s Ethan Gregg found himself in a similar situation. He stepped up to the starting line for the outdoor track national 5,000-meter final with the same focus and hunger. He was one of the athletes favored to win. All of a sudden, he stumbled. The official ruled Gregg’s misstep a false start, prohibiting him from continuing the competition. Fans will never know what would have happened that day in Rochester if Gregg were permitted to compete, which is part of the reason why what happened next was so special.
When smoke shot out of the starting pistol, Gregg bolted to the front, unhindered by rulings or stumbles or even expectation. He knew he would be in the top two finishers in this race and he was going to do what he’s known best for doing: Ethan Gregg was going to hammer.
Photo Credit: Jen Reagan
The men’s race started with a 1k loop that crossed over the finish before heading into the woods just after a mile. Gregg paced the field out front, crossing the mile mark in a blistering 4:38. Behind him, the rest of the field came through, packed all the way from second place to 291st. Lucas Florsheim of Pomona-Pitzer, Spencer Moon of Simpson, Christopher Collet of Wartburg, and Frank Csorba of Lynchburg were among some of the names leading the way. Whitewater’s Patzka lurked in 13th place.
As the field made its way up the course’s first major hill, spectators bolted for the woods, seeking out vantage points from which to cheer. Now the fun would begin. The wooded part of the course featured several v-shaped hills and valleys accompanied by twisting turns, somewhat resembling that of a BMX course. The next 2k in the woods and the giant hill just outside of it were undoubtedly the course’s most challenging parts and would determine much of how the final 3k would go for most.
Gregg made it to mile two in 9:29, now 19 seconds away from the field. Third-place finisher Sam Acquaviva from MIT now entered the mix alongside teammate Lowell Hensgen as MIT made a push for the podium. Pomona’s Derek Fearon and Colorado College’s James Settles moved up to the front, pulling Patzka with them. Plenty of players were still in the game, but it was going to take a massive move for any of them to catch Gregg at this point.
The field emerged from the woods and started the intense climb of the course’s most challenging hill, dubbed “kill hill” by some. As they rounded the top, they were rewarded briefly with both an excellent view of rural Pennsylvania and the promise that only 3k of the race remained.
At this point in the race last year, Gregg had already been overtaken by JCU’s Alex Phillip after employing the same strategy of running hard from the gun. This year, however, he would be uncontested as he crossed through 5k in under 15 minutes, having extended his lead over the field now by 24 seconds.
Photo Credit: Nico Klementzos
Fans soon began to realize that, unless Gregg seriously ran out of gas, a late move from Settles, who now led the chase, or anyone else in the field, would come up short to the hammering Gregg. Gregg’s teammate, Isaac Wegner now sat in third, and the scoring pack bumped the Eagles up to a comfortable first place at 5k with Pomona-Pitzer in a distant second tied with MIT, and North Central in fourth by just two points.
That’s when Whitewater’s Patzka finally made his move. In a mad breakaway from the chase group, Patzka jumped from ninth to second, pulling Settles and now North Central’s Max Svienty with him. Central’s Caleb Silver, Williams’s John Lucey, and RPI’s Cory Kennedy all remained loyal to the chase group, doing their best to hold on to their top-10 positions. At 6k, the two teams that were hyped up the most now sat one and two: UWL followed by North Central. 2k is a long way to go, however.
The men’s race finished in a swirl shape. While many expected the hills to be the most grueling part, it was carrying the momentum around the race’s final curves that proved to be the most demanding for many.
Nothing was going to stop the momentum of Gregg, however– the athlete who received a heartbreaking false start ruling in track, the athlete who went on a perilous mission to the front in last year’s freezing conditions in Michigan, the athlete who shocked the nation when he took down a loaded 3k field indoors, the athlete who became your 2023 national champion: Ethan Gregg.
He crossed the finish line, pumping his fists in celebration. He had just won his second national title ever and first in cross country.
Photo Credit: Seawon Park
18 seconds later, Gregg’s WIAC counterpart Patzka came storming up the short finishing straight, having overtaken Colorado College’s Settles. He would capture his second runner-up finish in a row. Just behind him, North Central’s Svienty had also overaken Settles, now en route to their highest career finish at any national meet and a massive improvement from last year’s 158th-place finish. Settles charged in for fourth, his highest XC national finish by 56 places. RPI’s Cory Kennedy rounded out the top five, a fifteen-spot improvement from last year and behind Kennedy came Williams’s John Lucey, Central’s Caleb Silver, and Kennedy’s RPI teammate, Vince Simonetti, tying for the best combined duo of any team at the championships with Whitewater’s Patzka and Gunner Schlender, who took 11th. After Simonetti came another impressive duo in Pomona’s Florsheim and Fearon, who rounded out the top 10.
Now bodies began to trickle in, many looking like shells of who they were when the race began. Once-strong team packs now showed separation, and, unlike last year when MIT was the clear champion, no one knew who had finished well enough to take the title. It would no longer be a matter of who ran the best but of who died off the least. The team battle was going to be close. A new nervous buzz filled the air, and this one was filled with anguish. A teary-eyed James McGlashon of North Central met the comforting embrace of his North Central teammates who stood along the fence beyond the finish line. Everyone waited.
When the results finally populated on the scoreboard, the results were shocking. Pomona-Pitzer, the 2021 defending champions, had won over UWL by a single point. The scores read:
Pomona-Pitzer 158
UWL 159
North Central 169
Williams 212
A short distance from the finishing chute, Pomona-Pitzer coach Amber Williams burst into a fit of ecstatic tears upon finding out her team had just won the national title. When the Sagehens all found each other, they let out shouts of pure elation, and Jack Stein hugged his teammates as tears streamed down his face. For the third time in five years, Pomona-Pitzer became XC national champions.
Photo Credit: Seawon Park
Their 1-point winning margin is the smallest in D3 history, and their point total of 158 is the third highest recorded score at nationals. Several other teams wrote their own history as well, as St. Scholastica, Berry, Manchester, George Fox, and Southern Virginia captured their first All-Americans. North Central made their 50th nationals appearance, and Haverford made their 40th. Gregg, Patzka, Florsheim, Fearon, Acquaviva, Gunner Schlender, and Simon Heys join a list of under 100 athletes to have captured three total All-American honors. The 2023 D3 XC National Championship showed the nation both the depth and growth of the division, as history unfolded before our eyes. All who were a part of the day will remember it as a time when D3 was at the precipice of something truly special.
Stu’s Five Takeaways
Don't count out the Champs
Pomona-Pitzer entered the National Meet ranked eighth. They had five of their seven from last year’s meet in the race, yet the mainstream media wasn’t hyping them up. Oh wait, the mainstream media did warn you not to count them out:
Emily telling you about Pomona in the National’s preview.
Regardless of hyping Emily up, outsiders looking at Pomona could have been worried given what happened at Pre-Nats when they finished fourth. The veteran squad came together when it mattered most. They had a strong postseason, had experienced leaders upfront, and it all came together. With Florsheim and Fearon out front early, the rest of the Sagehens followed suit as they put four in the top 30. Time and time again we see experience pays off at the National Meet and it did for Pomona-Pitzer this year. One thing to note about them is that they had a different coach in all three of their national titles: Jordan Carpenter in 2019, Kyle Flores in 2021, and now Amber Williams/Emma DeLira in 2023.
Position Matters to be an AA
When getting feedback on the course, I kept hearing how narrow parts of the course were and it could prove difficult to move up late. Some even suffered tragic tumbles in the crowded fields, such as regional champions Nicky Andrews of Geneseo and Matthew Porter of Carnegie Mellon. When looking at the results 27 out of 40 All-Americans were in the top 40 at the mile. Granted, that was the earliest split we had access to, but the point remains those who got out well benefited the most. That’s not to say that tactic won’t work in other courses, but you had a 67.5% chance of being an All-American if you were in that position early on.
Only three All-Americans were in the 100s through the mile: Eric Jackson of UC Santa Cruz was 119th and finished 40th, Nathan Tassey of Roger Williams was 100th and finished 22nd, and Nikhil Denatale of Williams was 110th and finished 20th.
Experience Matters
Looking at the results you’re going to see a lot of “SR” and “JR” designations next to names. There were only four sophomores in the top 40 and 20 underclassmen total in the top 100. The first freshman to cross the finish line was BJ Sorg in 92nd. With eligibility, it’s going to be difficult to sort through the juniors and figure out who all is coming back, but we could be in a new era of D3 running as 24/40 All-Americans were marked as seniors. For those that just missed making the National team, your time may be sooner than you think. This year’s results are a great reminder that you gotta be patient with running. A big theme we hear when we talk to a breakthrough athlete is that their consistency helped them to get to where they are.
Midwest > East Coast
Woah woah woah don’t jump to conclusions here. Just because I live in Chicago, went to school in Indiana, and love corn doesn’t mean I’m making false claims here. Even though no one asked, I went ahead and scored the meet as if Regions were teams. Yes, some regions had more teams qualify than others, which can skew things but I was interested to see the results.
An Ode to Carnegie Mellon
Carnegie Mellon has been running as a pack all year. Coach Tim Connelly said they even run that way in practice. On the biggest stage, their spread was 24 seconds. They ranged from 47th to 93rd. At the mile they were in 24th place. They finished 6th.
To execute at the degree in which they did is very impressive. At the mile their top five were in the following places: 112-121-129-133-136. While Ethan Gregg strung the pack out, they held back and picked off the poor souls who felt the early pace. Many strategies are thrown out there at the national meet. Running from behind is one of them, but it takes a special team to do it well. While they came up short of a trophy, they tied their program’s best finish. Kudos to you, Carnegie Mellon Tartans.
Women’s Race
Not much time was left between the results of the men’s race popping up and the start of the women’s race, but for the athletes on the line with teammates in the first race, all they could do now was focus on what lay ahead of them: one of the tightest women’s team races for the podium in history. NYU, Carleton, SUNY Geneseo, U of Chicago, Wartburg, and CMS all came into the weekend with hot streaks and loads of potential to stand atop the podium. The kicker? There are only four team trophies to award… but we’re getting to that part.
As the starter raised his arm above his head for the second time that day, runners took their marks. The pistol let out a succinct pop, and the mob of athletes were on their way. The women’s course would take on the same flat 2k as the men’s course before heading up a hill, into the woods, and up “kill hill” for 3k, and would finish mostly downhill for the final 1k. Where many of the men seemed to go backwards on their final 2k, the women had the opportunity to use the downhill finish to pass competitors, heightening the anticipation for the final results.
Photo Credit: Jen Reagan
The overwhelming favorite, Fiona Smith of Saint Benedict, quickly found her spot up front and began to run a race of her own. It’s not usually the case that a cross country runner finds themselves running completely solo up front at the most competitive meet in the country, but there are some cases. Gregg did so just an hour earlier in the men’s race, but everyone knew this was Gregg’s strategy. He had employed the same one last year and was eventually caught. In 2016, Platteville’s Ian LaMere was so far ahead of the rest of the men’s field that he had his own lead gator. Last year, Loras’s Kassie Parker braved harsh conditions in a brilliant solo effort that saw her victorious by 43 seconds over Smith. Before Parker, it was Wartburg’s Missy Buttry, who held the largest margin of victory at a national meet at 63.1 seconds with her championship record time of 20:00.
Now add to this list of greats Smith, who had been employing the solo strategy all season long. In her undefeated season record, she only had two races where the margin of victory was under a minute, and one of these was regionals the weekend prior. She had dipped under the 20-minute barrier for 6k on two separate occasions, when only Buttry had done so prior in the regular season. When one has their name next to Buttry in the history books, you can be sure they’re someone who is running at a different level than many around them. Smith, who passed through the first mile in 5:13, a whole 13 seconds ahead of the rest of the field, proved to be one of these people.
Photo Credit: Nico Klementzos
A chase pack formed behind Smith, consisting of many of the big names one might expect– Grace Hadley of WPI, Grace Richardson of NYU, Brigid Hanley of Emory, Penelope Greene of Geneseo, Natalie Bitetti of CMS, and Genna Girard of Williams.
Hopkins’s Stephenson, Eau Claire’s Shult, Stout’s Mckayla Felton, and Geneseo’s Hirschkind lurked not too far back in another pack. A mile in, Geneseo was leading the team battle by 75 points. Emory, Hopkins, and Carleton sat back all within 9 points of one another. Then came the woods.
As the field dropped their arms and powered up the course’s first major hill, they went behind a curtain that some spectators acknowledged would stay closed until they came back out from behind it. A lot could change on the back section’s intense hills and valleys and tight, winding turns. If athletes could make it up to the top of kill hill, however, they knew they would be rewarded with that sweet downhill finish.
Partway through the woods, results populated for the two-mile mark. Smith cleared the distance in a blistering 10:41, well on pace to run under 20 minutes if she could carry it the final 3k. 32 seconds behind her, Richardson, Hadley, Bitetti, and Hanley held on while Greene and Girard started to fade slightly. NYU freshman Morgan Uhlhorn moved up 48 places, propelling her team into first place, just ahead of U of Chicago, who went from 14th place to second, and CMS, who moved up from seventh to third. Carleton sat patiently in their place, holding down the fourth place position they secured last year. Geneseo and Emory fell back, making way for Williams and Lynchburg to enter the mix. With just under half of the race remaining, anything could still happen.
The field finally emerged from the woods and began the steep climb toward the water tower, signaling the top of “kill hill.” With the 5k mark in sight, now the fun would begin. Smith crossed 5k in 16:46.9, a time that would have placed her 6th overall in the outdoor 5k national final last year, right behind mile/1500 national champion Annika Urban. She would need to close her final kilometer in 3:13, the equivalent of a 5:11 mile, to break the championship record of 20:00. Her lead over the rest of the field was now creeping up toward a full minute.
NYU’s Richardson was still holding onto second, now chased by CMS’s Bitetti, who had been steadily moving up for the whole race. A few seconds back, Greene and Hadley were neck-and-neck with Eau Claire’s Carolyn Shult close behind, followed now by Chicago lead Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel. Emory’s Hanley was the last of eight competitors to cross 5k in under 18 minutes. There was no change to the team lineup from first through sixth place, but the scores began to creep closer to one another, asserting what we knew would be true when the race began: it was going to be close.
As Smith rounded the final corner to the short finishing chute, she smiled while kicking it in toward her first cross country national title. The clock read 19:54, a new championship record by six full seconds. She raised her hands above her head as she let her body relax and her heart fill with emotion. She wiped a hand over her eyes to wipe tears as she jogged to meet her parents in a warm embrace.
While Smith took in her moment, the rest of the field raced to the finish to snatch theirs. NYU’s Richardson and CMS’s Bitetti were on their way to the finishing chute, clearing the course’s last tiny hill, a satirical nod to competitors as if to say, “c’mon I had to give you just one more.”
As the clock neared its 21st minute, it was CMS’s Bitetti who would take runner-up. Last year, she took the second-to-last All-American spot, and this year she would finish as the second fastest D3 runner in the nation. Geneseo’s Greene kicked it in for third in her first All-American finish ever just before the top of the minute, and WPI’s Hadley finished in fourth in her XC national meet debut just as the clock switched. A few seconds later, Eau Claire’s Shult claimed fifth, her first ever All-American honor. Another nine seconds elapsed and Hopkins’s Stephenson came in at sixth, three spots better than her ninth-place finish from last year.
Photo Credit: Nico Klementzos
Then came the crowd. Chicago’s Maddie Kelly sprinted to the finish ahead of Emory’s Hanley. NYU’s Richardson claimed ninth to secure her best D3 nationals finish by 28 places, and freshman Audrey Maclean of Middlebury rounded out the top ten in a highly impressive rookie finish (NYU freshman Uhlhorn also ended up 15th). CMS’s Riley Capuano came in at 11th, completing the best duo of the meet between Capuano’s 11th place and Bitetti’s second place.
Finished athletes waited anxiously for their teams to come in. Chicago’s Kelly saw Battleson-Gunkel come in at 13th and Elisabeth Camic at 19th, and NYU’s Richardson saw Uhlhorn at 15th and Vivian Kane at 37th. Carleton’s Hannah Preisser and Phoebe Ward cruised in together at 14th and 16th while Helen Cross missed All-American by a single spot. Geneseo’s Greene saw Rachel Hirschkind at 24th. CMS added another All-American to the bunch in Elle Marsyla. This race was going to come down to the fourth and fifth runners.
Photo Credit: Nico Klementzos
Carleton and NYU’s fourths came in together at 46th and 47th. By 56th place, Geneseo had their third, and by 59th, Williams had four finishers as well. All of a sudden, in came Carleton’s Sophie McManus, who had moved up an astounding 26 places from 5k to finish 62nd. Carleton had their five, but would gather together to anxiously await what would happen from the other teams. As the final competitors crossed the finish line, everyone looked to the scoreboard. When the team results were populated, Carleton women erupted. Aliya Larsen cupped her hand to her mouth in disbelief and Ward bounced up and down in elation while joining her team’s group of hugs. The athletes sprinted to their coach, Donna Ricks, whose face was wet with tears as she exclaimed, “No way, are you serious?!” It was the Carleton women’s cross country program’s first national title.
It was no easy battle, either, as the top four podium teams were separated by just seven points. The results read:
Carleton 151
NYU 154
U of Chicago 156
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 158
NYU capped off a storied season that saw their first program UAA conference victory with their highest national finish in program history. Chicago captured their second-straight podium finish. CMS found themselves back on the podium after their 2021 runner-up finish. The podium finish was one of the closest in D3 history.
In fact, history was made from front to back of the women’s race, as WPI, Chapman, and Aurora saw their first All-Americans in school history, and WPI and Connecticut College made their first team appearance at the NCAA national XC meet. In addition to Carleton and NYU, programs Lynchburg, Emory, and Vassar saw new highest finishing records. Bitetti’s finishing time of 20:57 made Smith’s 19:54 the largest margin of victory in D3 history: 63.3 seconds to Buttry’s previous 63.1. Carleton women’s win was the fifth highest scoring victory and the fifth smallest winning margin in D3 history. All that in a 20-odd-minute day’s work. We all know, though, that the work has been happening far longer than that.
Stu’s Five Takeaways
Deepest Podium in D3 History
During the 50th anniversary year of D3, it only makes sense that the national meet showed out. In the 50 years of D3 XC as a whole and the 42 years of women’s cross country, the division has never seen a podium this close. Seven points separated four teams. The hype going into the meet was that this was going to be a close team battle and it didn’t disappoint.
I was trying to explain to someone who doesn’t follow running how close this podium was. The best way I could describe it to them was that to overcome three points you need two place changes in your favor, five points = three place changes, and seven points = four place changes. When you have packs of runners coming into the finish line together, it’s incredible to think how close this was.
With the rise of D3 running, not only have we seen individuals run fast time but the depth of teams have come with it. Look at Central College. They came into the season ranked 21st and 15th heading into the national championship and they finished 9th. Central matched trophy teams with three All-Americans. Oh, and this was their highest finish since they won the inaugural women’s D3 Cross Country title in 1981.
All Time Program Bests
While teams like Chicago and CMS grace the podium again, teams outside the podium made their own history. As mentioned above, you can see where they finished, but beyond that, it represents a new wave of programs. Sustaining success is difficult, but when you build a team to achieve an All-Time best performance, you’re going down the right path. Not only is it exciting for the programs, but it’s exciting for the division.
I hope this serves as inspiration for teams right on the cusp of a breakthrough that their time is close. I hope the teams that had their All-Time best finishes see this as a path forward. Not only is it exciting to see new teams come into the fold, but for them to achieve new program bests.
Be Patient
In both races, we saw different team tactics on display. Looking at UChicago on the women’s side, they moved from 14th to second in the span of one mile. Here’s how many runners they each passed in one mile:
Maddie Kelly - 65
Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel - 60
Elisabeth Camic - 88
Caitlin Jorgensen - 49
Sophie Tedesco - 43
Estelle Snider - 64
Maddie Kelly - 65
The amount of patience and trust that goes into this game plan is impressive. It’s so easy to get caught up in the pack and go out way too fast. The control UChicago showed is hammered home at practice and throughout the regular-season races to be this well executed.
Elisabeth Camic, who finished 19th, started the race in 129th. Out of all the All-Americans, Camic passed the most people throughout the race to earn those honors.
Fiona’s Legacy
With three total titles, on paper, Fiona Smith is starting to build her case to be up there as one of the All-Time greats in D3. She has never finished worse than 5th at a National Meet, fourth all-time in the outdoor 5k and second all-time in the 10k. She still has indoor and outdoor seasons to add to her legacy. It would not be surprising if she added four more titles and a couple national records. In recent years, D3 witnessed Kassie Parker, and now Fiona Smith, change the notion of what D3 runners are capable of.
The Power of the Close Spread
On the broadcast we mentioned this year, in particular, the team battle would come down to who had the best fifth runner and what their spread would be. It’s true in all aspects of cross country, but looking at these teams it was apparent that it was going to be close. Taking a look at the fifth runners, they went in order of how the podium finished:
Sophie McManus of Carleton finished 62nd
Janie Cooper of NYU finished 81st
Sophie Tedesco of UChicago finished 85th
Angela Gushue of CMS finished 88th
You layer in the 1-5 spread and it follows suit:
Carleton - 48s
NYU - 61s
UChicago - 65s
CMS - 85s
Carleton didn’t have three All-Americans like the other podium teams had nor did they have someone inside the top 10. They had the best fifth and a tight 1-5 spread that has been carrying them all year. It also helps when your fifth runner passes 26 runners like Sophie McManus did in the last 1000 meters.
As cliche as needing a big race from your fifth is, at the end of the day - it still rings true.