9/15-9/16 D3 Recap

This week, we’ll take you through some notable results from across the country. From awe-inspiring solo efforts to team pack runs, many athletes impressed with their mid-September performances. Some are holding nothing back, while others are choosing to keep their cards close, heightening the anticipation for the post-season that much more. Here’s what happened in D3 cross country this week.

New York State of Mind

Two programs seemed to conquer New York this weekend: SUNY G women and RPI men.

While SUNY G men chose to rest their varsity this past weekend, SUNY G women ran full-force at the Yellowjacket Invitational in Rochester. Their steepest competition was that of D1 program Cornell, who won with a score of 26 points. Cornell’s scoring pack, however, was broken up by three SUNY G athletes in Rachel Hirschkind (third overall), Penelope Greene (fifth overall), and Lily Fowler-Conner (seventh overall), who all finished within 12 seconds of each other.

Their fourth and fifth runners came in 48 seconds later, finishing within one second of each other to round out Geneseo’s runner-up score of 48. If this team closes the gap from their third to fourth runners, they show they are a force to be reckoned with.

At the home RPI Harvest Festival, RPI men were all business. They claimed the top seven finishing spots, posting a highly impressive 21-second spread from their first runner, Cory Kennedy, to their fifth. They even packed an additional two runners into a 25-second span. Seven runners finishing within 25 seconds of each other in the front of a race is the kind of description that mirrors that of MIT men at nationals last year. With a strong opening weekend, it will certainly be interesting to see how this squad measures up to teams in and outside of their region as we approach the heart of the season.

RPI women posted a runner-up finish to D1 program Albany by just 11 points. They were led by Olivia Pisacano, who took runner-up in the individual race to RPI alum and 2016 19th-place cross country All-American Jaime Lord.

A Look Out West

From Altitude to the dusty roads at UC Riverside, the West Coast schools began building their resumes and reminding the nation why the West Coast shouldn’t be slept on.

Starting off with the headliners from out West, Pomona-Pitzer and CMS. Both squads rolled deep to the UC Riverside invitational. Filled with strong competition and a fast course, both teams turned heads.

On the Men’s side, Pomona-Pitzer finished 6th behind D1 and D2 competition. Last year, they were 4th with 197 points and an average time of 24:28. Comparing the numbers, Pomona had a 24:25 team average and scored 165 points. This shows the competition has increased with a deeper field and faster times. The 2019 and 2021 champs are ready to take back their title after being led by Lucas Florsheim in 24:01, their fifth man was only 38 seconds behind. A strong pack with a front-runner will be a key for PP this season. While we won’t get to see Pomona at Augustana this year, the Sagehens will be at the Pre-National meet

Their SCIAC rival, CMS, was led by Oliver Pick finishing 43rd. The Stags finished 10th as a team with a similar result to last year. They had a 19s 1-5 split but an even more impressive six second split between Gus Albach, Mason Ratkovich, and Nicholas Taubenheim which were their second through fourth runners. The Stag may not have the firepower to challenge Pomona up front but a strong pack performance like this will give them a shot at the conference meet.

On the Women’s side, CMS came out firing on all cylinders. They improved their team average by 19s (21:10 average!) and went from 12th last year to finishing third this year. Led by Natalie Bitetti, CMS looks poised to challenge for the podium once again this season. They have about a minute gap between their one and five but with Bitetti as a front-runner, they can afford that type of gap. What is impressive about CMS is their spread within their 2-5. They currently have a 31s spread between 2-5 which can prove influential at the national level if Bietti is up in the lead pack.

The Pomona-Pitzer women raced in the open field where they finished second. The Sagehens had an 18:33 team average and were led by Katie Cline. It’s hard to compare the two given they ran different races. However, with a 47s spread 1-5, the Sagehens should head back to campus optimistic.

Moving to the Pacific Northwest, Kayla Aalpoel opened up her season with a victory to help George Fox to a third-place finish behind Portland and Portland State. The George Fox program has been on the rise the past few years and are starting to build something out West. Ellie Rising was 25s back from Aalpoel forming a nice 1-2 punch. They ran a 90s spread 1-5 this meet and if they can get that closer to a minute, that should help them at the West regional when they’ll be battling for an At-Large Bid.

To finish up out West, we head to Colorado where the only D3 School competing at Altitude faced off against strong D2 competition. James Settles came away as the meet champ running 24:50 which is five seconds faster than last year AND the course was marked short that year. Alittude makes things difficult to analyze. However, we’ll get a better idea of where Colorado College sits in the nation when they head to the Augustana meet. Right now, their fifth is a little over two minutes behind James and that’ll need to tighten up for them to look for a bid to nationals.

On the women’s side, Colorado College finished second as a team and had a great one-two punch with Willow Lott and Elliot Singer finishing fourth and fifth. Kendall Acceta was missing from the lineup this weekend, but add her back into the mix and CC may have a nice trio to work with the rest of the way.

Across the country to the East, Little 3

There aren’t many dual meets or three team meets at the college level so when you see Little 3s on the schedule, you have to get excited. The battle btween three of the oldest D3 institutions face is a yearly tradition these NESCAC schools look forward to. They trade off hosting duties as other two schools make their way to their campus.

On the women’s side, Amherst came in as defending champs and will leave as the current champs. They had a narrow 30-33 victory over Williams and were led by a 1-2 finish from Syvlan Wold and Julia Schor. Williams was led by first-year Morgan Eigel but were without All-American Genna Girard. Amherst is a team to keep an eye on this year. While losing Mary Kate McGranahan, they return a solid core and ride the momentum of back-to-back Little 3 champs into the meat of the season.

On the Men’s side, the Williams men prevail again as Champions. With a commanding victory over Amherst, the Ephs won their fourth straight Little 3 title. Led by John Lucey, Williams swept the top three spot with Charles Namiot and Nikhil DeNatale close behind. Williams appears to be without Grahm Touhy Gaydos this season. The 5k runner up from 2022 hasn’t race since last April. While he is not on the roster, Williams has a strong core to make up for his absence.

Wisconsin packs it up, Smith does what Smith does

Three big meets came out of the north this past weekend: Running of the Cows, Tom Hoffman Invitational, and the St. Olaf Invitational. Though at different meets, Whitewater and La Crosse employed very similar strategies: pack it up. Whitewater stud-duo Christian Patzka and Gunner Schlender ran up front in a pack of five at Tom Hoffman with Justin Krause, Craig Hundley, and Dan Anderson. The finish must have looked like a blanket as all five finished within less than a second of each other. Whether this race was just a workout or Coach told the Warhawks to practice keeping a pack together, it was clear that this was a planned execution. Behind this power five, a single Platteville runner bridged the gap to Whitewater’s next four finishers, meaning they claimed nine of the top 10 finishing places.

The women’s team ran a similar race, albeit slightly more spread out with the pack of Abby Wedwick, Katie Erb, Paige Fassbender, Payton Scoggin, and Jocelyn Ramirez, who claimed spots four through eight with just 15 seconds of spread between them. Both teams captured sweeping victories over the other teams despite using a more conservative strategy, displaying their controlled dominance.

At Running of the Cows, La Crosse had the same idea. The results looked something like results to a Monday workout might look like: in several different pace groups. La Crosse standout Ethan Gregg led the first pair alongside Elias Ritzke. Ten seconds behind them, Joey Sullivan and Zach Slevin trickled in, and ten more seconds off of that, Will Aurit and Isaac Wegner led another group of four together. The next group of three was led by Ben Stangel just five seconds off of the previous group. Again, with minimum effort, La Crosse easily won over challengers Carleton.

Their reserved strategy led the way for Mohammed Bati to command the race and ultimately capture the win. The Augsburg sophomore had an impressive freshman showing last year, qualifying to the national meet on his very first try. Bati will certainly be a name to watch out for the remainder of this season.

The women’s race was dominated by St. Benedict’s Fiona Smith, who has and will continue to impress us all year long. Coming off of her 16:41 5k last week, Smith ran her season debut in the 6k in a blistering 20:12, a full minute and a half ahead of runner-up MaKenna Thurston who, by the way, is a 17th place D2 All-American in cross country. Smith continues to get better with every year and this year has the potential to set her up for some D3 record-breaking following her predecessor Kassie Parker.

In the women’s team battle, Carleton barely edged out La Crosse, winning by just five points. Though La Crosse’s Maddie Hannan was the next D3 finisher after Smith to beat Carleton’s Hannah Preisser, Carleton beat La Crosse at every following position after Hannan, giving them the winning advantage.

St. Olaf’s Will Kelly was the star of the show at St. Olaf’s home invitational. Not only did he capture a first place finish but he made history in Northfield, MN. Kelly ran 24:47, a 30-second win and a new course record by five seconds. The previous record was held by fellow Ole Grant Wintheiser from his 2014 campaign that he capped off with a national cross country title. Whether or not history repeats itself, Kelly will be one to watch in November.

Heys, Webster, Khosla best of Ohio

The All-Ohio Championship is a unique event that pits all the schools in Ohio against each other, regardless of division. Dating back to 1955, this meet holds a wealth of Ohio cross country history. While many of the Ohio D1 schools opted out this year, the results were no-less impressive by those who did attend. (Perhaps it was even a good thing they didn’t attend, as there were a whopping 464 finishers in the single men’s race).

Of these 464 finishers, Wilmington’s Simon Heys was second overall, losing only to Findlay’s D2 national qualifier Noah Fisher. Four-time All-American Heys covered the course in 24:27, just missing his course PR of 24:22 from last year. Regardless, Heys added another entry to the course’s top-25 fastest times in history since Cedarville took over hosting duties in 2010. As the new fastest D3 man in Ohio, Heys brings both talent and experience to this year’s cross country season.

Ohio Northern won the team race for D3, beating several D2 and NAIA schools as well as nationally ranked John Carroll, who appeared to run at partial strength. With many key players having moved on from the Great Lakes region on the men’s side this year, national qualifying teams out of this region could look a lot different from last year.

The women’s race was commanded by the team from Wittenberg, who not only won the meet for D3 over national qualifying team John Carroll, but placed two women in the top five overall results. Sophomore Ella Webster is having someone of a breakout season, having run as Wittenberg’s number one two weeks in a row now after finishing last cross country season as their seventh. She finished in fourth overall, covering the course in 21:48, just outside of the course’s top 25 performances. She was followed closely by teammate Sydney Khosla, the breakout steeplechase runner-up from last spring, who finished fifth overall in a time of 22:04.

Though Wittenberg finished eighth in last year’s Great Lakes regional championships, they now appear to have the pieces to make a run for the regional title. The key will be to condense their pack from runners three to five, as their spread this past weekend was over two minutes.

More Midwest madness

Several other meets happened around the Midwest this weekend, producing impressive results from Midwest rivals Wartburg and U of Chicago.

Iowa-powerhouse Wartburg traveled to the state of Illinois this past weekend to compare their talents with several D1 programs at the Redbird Invite. The women’s team delivered, placing second overall to Illinois State by a mere 14 points. This squad placed an impressive three runners in the top five, including Lexi Brown, Shaelyn Hostager, and Aubrie Fisher. Brown led the way, winning the meet overall in a time of 21:39, a full 11 seconds faster than she ran on this course last year. Only 25 seconds elapsed from runner one to runner three, but a bigger gap existed from one to five–a full minute and 41 seconds. Wartburg women continue to produce solid results out of their frontrunners and will need all the points they can get from their fourth and fifth runners to contend for a national title in November.

One of their biggest competitors will be that of U of Chicago women, who posted a perfect victory at the Gil Dodds Invitational on Saturday. Led by Maddie Kelly and Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel, who finished within two seconds of each other, the scoring squad of Sophie Tedesco, Caitlin Jorgensen, and Elisabeth Camic all finished under 22 minutes with a 36-second spread. They even packed three more athletes across the finish line within just over a minute of Kelly’s winning time, meaning that this team continues to boast their notorious team depth. They beat nationally ranked squad WashU by 43 points. If they run like they did this weekend at nationals, U of Chicago women cannot be beat.

U of Chicago men also had an impressive showing, winning the team title over WashU by a narrow seven points. Their biggest pickup is adding former Case Western runner Jack Begley, who took runner-up to Midwest rival Enrique Salazar of Manchester. Salazar won by just one second. After Begley, Chicago put two additional athletes ahead of WashU’s second runner, posting a 58-second spread from Begley to their fifth runner. Look for both Midwest schools to be competitive at the national level this season.

From coast to coast, D3 cross country continues to thicken its plot as we approach upcoming interregional competitions. Though many have begun to show what they bring to the table this year, there are many teams who have yet to reach their full potential. It is only just the beginning. Stay tuned for more D3GD XC coverage.