Before we begin, we’d like to thank you all for your support this season! It’s truly been a blast bringing you this coverage and highlighting Division 3 running. Stu and Noah will be in Indy to broadcast on the Livestream but we’ll have other team members getting photos, videos, and interviews. So if someone asks for an interview, they’re most likely with us!

We launched national merch again this year. If you haven’t gotten your shirt or crewneck, what are you waiting for? Orders end Sunday. Alright, thanks for reading now enjoy the preview. When noting rankings, we are using D3GD Rankings and will release soon.

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A calmness covered Three Fires Golf Club in Holland, Michigan when teams arrived in vans and buses for the 2022 Great Lakes regional championships. Athletes unloaded their charters with headphones over ears and blankets over shoulders. An anxious energy mixed in with the clear, biting air. As teams began to suit up for their warmups, a cold rain began to spit from the sky. 

Eventually, knotted braids and mist-covered limbs took to the start line. Just as the gun went off for the women’s race, the temperature dropped and rain turned to snow flurries. Athletes squinted to shield their eyes from the stinging snow pellets. Spectators speed skated across the slick grass, kicking up compacted chunks of ice. Toes and fingers numbed in the wet cold.

Despite adverse weather conditions, a warmth radiated from each competitor as they ran with fire and heart. This was the regional meet, after all, the implications of which could mean earning a spot on the start line of a race with the highest level of competition in D3 cross country: the coveted NCAA national meet. 

The snow didn’t matter so much with that goal in mind. 

Across the country, nine additional regional championship races were taking place as well (some with much better weather). Only 32 teams and 70 individuals in the entire country would advance to nationals. On Sunday, the NCAA announced at-large team bids and official qualifiers:

Despite what weather was granted at each region’s championships, all will convene in Lansing, Michigan for the NCAA championships and be at the mercy of a November weekend in Michigan. The current projected forecast predicts a high of 22 degrees with 15 mile-per-hour winds:

Whose idea was it to hold nationals in Michigan again? Alas, the show will go on, and what a show it will be: two defending champions return to the start line, Pomona-Pitzer attempts a threepeat, and Midwest rivals Wartburg and U of Chicago settle their tiebreaker on the largest stage possible. Here’s what to watch out for this last weekend of the year in D3 cross country. 

Women’s team preview

The women will kick off Saturday’s action at 11am EST. With three different teams holding the top spot in the nation, and that doesn’t include the reigning champs, you know Saturday is going to be a wild race. SUNY Geneseo came into the season as the top ranked team, returning their entire top seven after a third place finish last season. Midway through the year, UChicago took down Wartburg by three points at the Augustana Interregional and claimed the No. 1 ranking. The last change in the pole position came over the weekend when Wartburg got the better of UChicago at the Midwest regional.

Going into the national meet without a clear cut winner makes for extra drama. While there isn’t one team that will run away, many can be considered in the hunt for the national title. Though that brings stress and pressure for the runners in the race, the fans are in for a fantastic showing. Let’s dive into the contenders.

Wartburg will enter the national championship with the No. 1 seed a near-perfect season. Their only blemish against D3 competition came last month when they fell to UChicago by a measly three points. Their roster is the makeup of a national champion team. They have a front runner in Aubrie Fisher and a strong supporting cast that has the ability to put themselves in the top pack. In their two biggest races of the year (Augustana and Regionals), all five runners were inside the top 17. In both those races Fisher finished runner-up, and their 2-5 had a spread of 13 and 14 seconds. The key for Wartburg will be how close their number two can be to Fisher. When they lost to UChicago at Augustana it was 47 seconds, but last weekend at Regionals, it was 10 seconds. Closing this gap will be crucial.

When speaking with Fisher, she told us that the team isn’t putting much pressure or expectations on themselves. They’ve been focusing on one race at a time and making sure practices are staying light. Positive vibes and a strong pack will lead Wartburg to the podium.

In the best of three series, UChicago will rely on their condensed 1-5 spread to get them to take the rubber match against Wartburg. Despite just a 14-ssecond 1-5 spread, UChicago fell nine points shy of the Midwest title. After being ranked No. 1 for the first time in program history, they’ll look to regain that spot when it matters most. Chicago finished sixth last year and only two of those runners ran at the regional meet this weekend. They’ve put themselves in the top spot despite putting out a nearly brand new line up. That speaks to their biggest strength this year, which is their depth. 

At Regionals, they had all seven runners finish inside the top 20 to earn All-Region honors. When looking at ways to improve, it’s hard to find one. Their top two runners finished fourth and fifth, and they have a 1-5 spread of 14 seconds. Looking at the finishing times from regionals, it’s going to come down to the race inside the race. UChicago needs to spot every Wartburg jersey and do what they can to edge them out. 

Out East, SUNY Geneseo looks to reclaim their No. 1 ranking from earlier in the season. Similar to UChicago, their depth is one of their major strengths–so much so that they sat their entire top five at SUNYACS and still put their entire top seven inside the top ten. In a similar fashion to Aubrie Fisher, Kathleeen McCarey said they don’t even think about their rankings and go out to each race to have fun. The only near-blemish from Geneseo’s perfect season came when they faced Carleton at Rowan. Carleton came within a point of the Knights, but Windsor Ardner was not in the lineup. We saw her return to action at regionals, where she was just two seconds behind McCarey in a 1-2 finish. 

Of the two schools mentioned, Geneseo may have the best 1-2 punch of the group. The key for them will be for McCarey and Ardner to work together to get inside the top 15, which isn’t too much of an ask considering that last year McCarey was 14th and Ardner was 21st.

Remember, SUNY Geneseo returns their entire top seven from last year’s third place team. They surprised the nation as they went into the national meet outside a podium spot. This year with more experience, they’ll look to move up. Erin Eivers, Rachel Hirschkind, and Sierra Doody had a 14-second spread at the regional meet and had 25 seconds between Ardner’s runner up performance. Last year at nationals, they had a 14-second spread between 3-5 but with a 17-second spread between 2-3. The formula is there for SUNY Geneseo to repeat or better their performance from last year.

Assuming each of these three teams takes a podium spot, only one spot remains. Several programs look to be in good standing, but it will take each of their runners showing up at the same time. West coast powerhouse CMS comes into the weekend with the No. 4 ranking following their 36-point regional victory over Pomona-Pitzer. The only glimpse we’ve gotten into how they stack up against other D3 teams was at Paul Short, where they won the Brown Race by 132 points with a 60-second spread from one to five. 

Last year, they finished as national runners-up by a narrow two-point margin to champions Johns Hopkins. This year, they return four out of seven athletes from their 2021 roster, including Natalie Bitetti, who has only a single D3 loss on her record this season, which came from Emory’s Annika Urban at Paul Short. She comes off of a fresh victory at the West regional championship in Spokane, which she told D3GD was one of the coldest races she’s ever run in. The biting conditions in Michigan could come as somewhat of a shock to the California-native and her Claremont-based teammates, but Bitetti says they will enter the weekend treating it like every other race. 

Sitting at No. 5 behind CMS is last year’s national title team Johns Hopkins, whose 2022 season has been somewhat of a rebuilding phase. They graduated more than they returned from last year’s national roster, including 9th place All-American Ella Baran and four-five scorers Ashley Heidenrich and Diana Vizza. Returning All-American Alex Ross has stepped up significantly this year and remains undefeated against D3 competition so far this year. Look for her to be Hopkins’s low stick. 

This team’s biggest challenge, however, is the separation between Ross and the rest of the roster. At the Panorama Farms Invitational, No. 2 runner Sydney Fridel finished a full minute behind Ross and their No. 5 finished another 30 seconds back, making a 90-second split. In a race like NCAAs, 90 seconds allows way too many scoring bodies into the equation, making a podium finish very difficult. Hopkins’s best chance at defending a podium position is to tighten up their pack time and finish as close to Ross as possible.

The dark horse of the field is Carleton. The fire power they have up front with Clara Mayfield allowed them to get within one point of SUNY Geneseo at Rowan and take home MIAC and North region trophies. All coaches hope their first-years can have an impact, but don’t expect it given it's their first year in college. However, first-year Hannah Preisser has made an instant impact on their team. She’s been their number two runner all year and has finished no worse than fourth in all her races this year. Carleton has overcome a large 1-5 spread thanks to their ability to get their pack in the front of their races. At the North regional, they went 2-3-6-10-20. Anytime you can put four in the top 10 of a race, it’ll negate the large spread. That’s going to be their key to success on Saturday: keeping that spread under 90 seconds. We currently have Carleton at No. 7.

Checking in with teams from the East coast that will look to stay inside the top 10 and even sneak in for a trophy are MIT and Williams. In the D3GD rankings, we have MIT at No. 6. The key for them is to continue following the game plan that has worked for them all season long. They’ve been working as a pack and move late in races as the rest of the field fades. At the East regional, MIT had a 25-second spread and put their scoring five inside the top 13. Add in their sixth and seventh and their entire spread is just 40 seconds. MIT may not have a standout name that will get them a low stick, but their strong pack will punish teams that go out too quickly.

Williams, who we currently have at No. 9, has steadily improved throughout the season. They’re a prime example of not taking early-season meets too seriously in terms of where a team stands. After losing to Amherst at Little Threes and Purple Valley, Williams has transformed into a new team. Each runner has steadily improved over the course of the season which has led them to NESCAC and Mideast titles. A big lift for them has been Genna Girard, who returned midway through the season. The Ephs will look for her to match her 15th place finish from a year ago to help maintain their top 10 goals.

This is a national meet and if you’re thinking you should count out WashU, you would probably be wrong. No matter the season, WashU should always be in the conversation. Jeff Stiles has his program ready to go when the lights are the brightest and this year should be no different. While they have fallen under the shadow of UChicago for most of the season, the Bears return three runners from last year’s fifth place finish. 

They were without UAA runner-up Emily Konkus at the regional meet and getting her back at nationals could mean closing the gap between Wartburg and UChicago. WashU loves running in a pack, which could be seen last year when they had four runners finish within four seconds of each other at the back-end of the All-American honors. 35-37-40-41 as a top four is a pack running dream. Look for them to deploy similar tactics this year as they attempt to get back to a top five finish. 

To round out the top ten we have UW-La Crosse, another team that has been known for pack running and a team you don’t want to bet against because they will let you know when you’re wrong. La Crosse has a front runner in Maddie Hannan as she finished fourth at the North regional. Behind her is a strong pack that seemingly works together at every meet. From live results, it’s clear this pack likes to be patient and move up in the latter half of the race. This will be a good tactic to use at the national meet as the race tends to go out hot. La Crosse edged out St. Olaf by two points at the regional. Their 2-4 runners were separated by seven seconds, and if they can replicate this spread in Lansing, it should get them into the top ten with sights on something higher.

A big congratulations to Widener and George Fox as they have qualified for the national meet for the first time in school history. Additionally, Madison Lowery from Pfieffer, Ruby Krasnow from Clark, Cera Gaston from Alvernia are their schools first ever qualifiers as well. Bradyn Olmstead is the first male individual qualifier from Milikin!  If we missed anyone, let us know!

Women’s individual preview

One name stands out among the rest in the individual race: Loras’s Kassie Parker. Now alongside her team, who advanced after a fourth place finish at regionals, Parker returns as the defending national champion. In a post-race interview with D3GD after last year’s XC title, she cited wanting to run 20:00 for 6k, a goal she’d have to defer to this year’s season. After a productive year in track, which added two national titles and three runner-up finishes to her resume, the wait proved to have been worth it. Parker won the mid-season Augustana Interregional Invitational by over 48 seconds. Her final time? 20:00.1.

Wartburg’s Missy Buttry is currently the only athlete in D3 history to have dipped under the 20-minute barrier for 6k. She is also the only athlete in D3, male or female, to have won three consecutive XC titles. Parker will make a run for her second consecutive title this weekend, which would have her joining just five other women in D3 to have won two or more in their careers. Along the way, she may just find herself in Buttry’s company on the sub-20 list, too.

Few have been daring enough to challenge Parker during her reign as one of the top female distance runners in D3–last fall we saw Trine’s Evie Bultemeyer take a stab in cross, Wellesley’s Ari Marks made two unsuccessful attempts indoors followed by two successful victories outdoors, and this fall at Pre-Nats, St. Benedict’s Fiona Smith challenged Parker through the mile only to fall off pace by mile two. The question this weekend becomes: who, if anyone, will challenge Parker?

There are a few names we feel are worth noting here. Smith is certainly one–her only losses this year have been to Parker and Winona State D2 All-American Lindsay Cunningham. Smith was fifth last year, the highest place of any returner besides Parker, and comes off of a track season in which she garnered three fourth place finishes and one third place finish at NCAAs. Just last weekend, she edged out Carleton standout Clara Mayfield at the North regional championship. Smith has shown that she has the guts to make a push at Parker, but Parker has already once refuted such an attempt. 

Returning to the start line after her sixth place finish last year is Wartburg’s Aubrie Fisher, whose only D3 losses have been to Parker. However, Parker has edged out Fisher by a sizable margin three weekends in a row, indicating that the national meet will be no different. Fisher must also consider the team race, knowing a smart race from her as the low stick for Wartburg has major implications on her team score. If Smith or others choose to go with Parker, Fisher will need to keep them in sight in order to assure she can finish ahead of as many athletes as possible. 

An athlete who has yet to face Parker this season is Emory’s Annika Urban, who is the only athlete in the field with a true winning record. Urban has won each of six races this season outright, beating several large-school athletes along the way. Her first head-turning performance of the season happened at Paul Short, where she ran 20:22 over 6,000 meters to secure the individual victory over D1 runner Eve Feuerbach and CMS’s Bitetti. Her time was a full 11 seconds faster than that of JHU’s Ross, who raced in the Gold Race. 

Urban followed this performance up with an equally impressive victory at the UAB Blazer Classic, in which she outcompeted several D1 athletes, taking the win by a full nine seconds. If anyone has a shot at taking down Parker, surely it has to be Urban. Even if she falls back but still lands somewhere in the top five, it will be her highest NCAA finish ever. Last year she was 12th, and in 2019? 266th. Freshman at NCAAs this weekend, take notes. Growth is possible. 

An athlete traveling to her second NCAA XC meet who may understand such sentiments is that of Aurora’s Deyanneira Colon Maldonado, who placed 213th as a freshman last year. Now, Colon is one of the most prominent runners in the Midwest and the nation, having just captured a ninth place finish at Midwest regionals among names like Parker, Fisher, and Anna Kenig-Ziessler. Though a top-10 finish might not quite be in the cards for Colon yet, look for the sophomore to take a stab at All-American this year, and certainly remember this name in the coming years. If her quick come up from freshman to sophomore year is any indication of her trajectory, Colon is a name to expect at the nation’s front. 

Other names to watch out for in this weekend’s women’s front pack include Geneseo’s McCarey who comes fresh off of a Niagara region victory, Hope’s Ana Tucker, who was 11th last year and just claimed a sweeping win over the Great Lakes region, Bates frontrunner Jillian Richardson, who took the win at East regionals, and RPI’s Morgan Lee, who enters her first ever XC national meet as the winner of the Mideast region. Lastly, something of interest for you is this will be Milana Straub from Marywood’s second EVER cross country race. Her first? Regionals where she finished seventh. She didn’t even compete in high school.

After 20 cold minutes, one will be crowned champion and seven will celebrate a team title. The women’s race is sure to catalyze the start of an exhilarating nationals weekend–the race for the team title is likely to be the most exciting action of your whole pre-Thanksgiving Saturday. 

Men’s team preview

Last year, Pomona-Pitzer pulled off a shocking race strategy that saw them moving from 28th place at 1k to first place by 5k. After moving up 27 places in a crowded field, they held off their position in the final 3k to secure their second consecutive national cross country title. This year, they will look to add a third title. 

The Sagehens return five of the seven competitors from last year’s title roster in Lucas Florsheim, Derek Fearon, Colin Kirkpatrick, Ethan Widlansky, and Jack Rosencrans, and add to the mix the talents of national qualifying steeplechaser Cameron Hatler as well as 14:39 5ker Ian Horsburgh. 

In the latest D3GD Contenders podcast episode, Florsheim hints that the Sagehens’ starting lineup at NCAAs will not be the same as their West regionals lineup, and fans can expect 1500m All-American Rosencrans to return to competition after a weekend off at regionals. This casual swapping in and out on the roster shows the unrivaled depth showcased by Pomona-Pitzer, who had 18 athletes run under 15 minutes in the 5k last spring. 

Depth of this caliber will be the Sagehens’ greatest strength this weekend. Their greatest weakness? Some might say the cold, as the forecast in their homebase of Claremont, Calif. shows sunny 70’s every day this week, but Florsheim will tell you otherwise.

“I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so I’m pretty used to the cold,” he told D3GD. “I know our team gets a little bit of flack around the country for being the soft, SoCal boys, but a lot of us are actually from cold weather places.”

Their biggest competition will be that of East-coast, true-cold-weather, Bostonian rivals MIT, who enter as the No. 2 seed this weekend and perhaps also with the best shot at dethroning Pomona-Pitzer. So far undefeated against D3 teams this year, MIT has major wins against No. 4 Williams from Connecticut College and No. 3 North Central from Pre-Nats. At Pre-Nats, they placed all five of their scorers within the top 20, finishing with just 40 seconds elapsed from their first finisher to their fifth. Now familiar with the course, the Engineers will return hoping to replicate a similar performance against Pomona-Pitzer as they face off for the first time this year. 

Their last encounter on the cross country course with Pomona-Pitzer was nationals last year, when they took a noble national runner-up finish. Similar to PP, they employed a conservative race strategy, passing through the 1k mark in 12th place. As the Sagehens moved to the front, MIT followed, but they could never quite close the gap to the swarm of blue and orange Pomona jerseys. Five of their athletes finished inside the top 40 for All-American status, a stat that would be much more impressive if not for one minor detail: Pomona-Pitzer finished with six All-Americans. 

In the race for the title, look for these two teams to pack as many individuals as they can inside the top 40 once again. The crown will go to the team who can not only seamlessly execute the race plan, but race with grit and determination to prove that they are, in fact, the best D3 cross country team in the nation.

As for the two remaining podium spots, don’t count out any program currently inside the top 10. No. 3 North Central has been on a roll ever since they opened their season with a D3 win over ranked Johns Hopkins and 2021 podium team John Carroll at the MSU Spartan Invitational. They come off of a Midwest regional victory over No. 6 Wartburg in which they placed four athletes ahead of Wartburg’s second finisher. A program who went from a streak of 12 top-5 national finishes in a row (all but one were top two) to 15th in the nation in 2021, North Central is determined to regain their position atop the national podium.

The key to a podium finish for this squad will be keeping their fourth and fifth fishers close to their top three. The triple threat of Connor Riss, Max Svienty, and Braden Nicholson have averaged a split of 21 seconds per race over the course of the season, their smallest spread a narrow six seconds at Pre-Nats. Keeping fourth and fifth men Andrew Guimond and Julian Higueros close will be crucial for the Cardinals this weekend. 

Williams moves up to a No. 4 podium-contending spot in the D3GD rankings this week following their 17-point victory over previously ranked No. 6 RPI at Mideast Regionals. After finishing third in the nation last year, Williams returns their entire nationals roster with the exception of fourth-place finisher Aidan Ryan, whose absence this year leaves a bit of a hole up front for the Ephs. They will rely on the savviness of national runner up Elias Lindgren who will once again make a push for the national title as he did last year when he challenged national champion Alex Phillip in the final kilometer of the race. 

Behind Lindgren, this squad boasts talent from cross country All-American and outdoor 5k runner-up Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos, as well as returning qualifiers John Lucey, Charles Namiot, and Will Spollen. This squad’s key to a podium finish will lie in keeping a tight pack time to low stick Lindgren by claiming at least three total All-American finishes as they did last year. 

While these four programs have seemed to turn the most heads so far this year, anything is possible at the national meet. No. 5 RPI and No. 6 Wartburg sit in great position for a podium finish following their season-long successes. Though both suffered losses at regionals, they each know revenge is a dish best served cold, and cold it will be on Saturday in East Lansing. 

In positions seven and eight in the rankings, WIAC rivals UW-La Crosse and UW-Whitewater come off of a nail-biting regional meet that saw alternating finishes among the top four: Whitewater’s Christian Patzka followed by La Crosse’s Ethan Gregg followed by Whitewater’s Gunner Schlender followed by La Crosse’s Isaac Wegner. In fact, Whitewater beat La Crosse at every scoring position except that of their respective fourth finishers. 

Alas, Whitewater’s fifth scorer sealed the deal by finishing six places ahead of La Crosse’s fifth. The final score was 75 to 83, Whitewater. Though rivalry runs deep between the two WIAC powerouses, it is rivalry which can work to each of these teams’ advantage. Racing each other at nationals like they did at regionals has the propensity to catapult each program closer to a podium finish. 

Rounding out the top 10 are Mid-Atlantic region programs Carnegie Mellon and Johns Hopkins, who just faced off last weekend in Pennsylvania. CMU made this regional meet look like a walk in the park, sweeping positions two through five and placing their fifth scorer inside the top ten ahead of Hopkins’ second. Pack running appears to be the Tartans’ greatest strength, so if they can band together amidst the cold and chaos this weekend, they could just surprise the entire nation.

Men’s individual preview

The race for the individual title is shaping up to be an interesting one. Last year’s defending champion Alex Phillip of John Carroll has once again put together a dominating season, but one that has also left us guessing a bit about how fit he truly is. Having only raced two regular season races largely against D1 and D2 runners, it’s difficult to gauge Phillip’s true potential against D3 competition this season. 

He showed last year that no one in D3 was any match for him when he won the cross country title in the fall, 5k and 3k titles in the winter, and 10k title in the spring, and in this year’s postseason, has cruised to two easy victories at the OAC championships and Great Lakes regional championships. This weekend, as Phillip prepares to face the nation’s best, he will show off just what he’s truly capable of accomplishing. If he wins the title for the second year in a row, he will become just the fifth man in D3 history to win two consecutive national cross country titles. 

His biggest competition will be that of Williams’s Lindgren, who challenged Phillip multiple times last year: once in cross and once in the outdoor 10k. Both times, he fell short, but perhaps the third time could be the charm for the Williams distance standout. Lindgren won the Mideast regional by a full 15 seconds over RPI’s Matt Lecky, but don’t count out Lecky, who was a 38th place All-American last year, to breach this weekend’s top 10 as well. Listen to his interview with D3GD on this week’s XC contenders episode. 

Another name that has been catching fire ever since his exhilarating outdoor steeplechase victory against Whitewater’s Patzka last spring is that of Wartburg’s Christopher Collet. After finishing 80th at NCAAs last fall, Collet contrastingly has only one loss on his entire record from this season to former Eastern Illinois athlete Jaime Marcos, who bested him with a lean at the early-season Redbird Invite. Collet’s ability ranges from 3:46 in the 1500m all the way to 23:47 in the cross country 8k. This combination of speed and strength makes him a major threat come Saturday. 

He will face off with Patzka again for the first time since the pair finished just 0.3 seconds apart in the national steeplechase final. Look for Patzka as well as his conference rival Gregg, who won pre-nats but lost to Patzka at regionals, to also be in contention. If Wilmington’s Simon Heys’s 2021 pre-nats victory and NCAA fifth place finish is any indication of the correlation between these two races, then Gregg and, by default, Patzka, are sure to both finish close to top five. 

Heys will also be a familiar face on the starting line looking to match or better his fifth place finish from last year. This year, he is joined by teammates Noah Tobin and George Rickett, who both finished outside the top 50 at regionals last year only to both finish in this year’s top 15, punching their tickets to their first national meet.

Other familiar names from last year to expect up front are CMS’s Henry Pick, who finished third last year and comes off of a runner-up regional finish to Pomona-Pitzer’s Florsheim last weekend and Colby’s Tyler Morris, who was seventh and comes off of a controlled East region victory.

In a race with clear favorites for both the team and individual titles, the afternoon excitement will lie in the unexpected. Against the biting cold, runners throughout the day will line up ready to exceed your expectations and perhaps even their own. The wintery weather is not all that overlaps for and bonds these athletes together–they all step to the starting line of a race at the pinnacle of D3 XC: the NCAA national championships.

The cold doesn’t matter so much with that realization in mind.