Division I Women’s Individual Preview: Who Wins Country’s Most Unsettled Title Race?

NEW ORLEANS – Of the four major NCAA Division I cross country title chases set to play themselves this weekend in Terre Haute, Indiana, none are as unsettled as the competition for the individual women’s title.

The No. 1 Colorado men, the No. 1 Michigan State women and (depending how much you want to read into his regionals loss to Maksim Korolev) defending men’s national champion Edward Cheserek of Oregon have all emerged as clear favorites in their races.

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Not so for the women’s individual race. Each successive weekend of the 2014 season has seemingly been a revolving door of new frontrunners.

Entering the season it was 2013 national runner-up and 2014 NCAA outdoor 10k champion Emma Bates of Boise State. Then Bates was sixth in a late-September Roy Griak race that was won by Arizona State’s Shelby Houlihan – a top-ten finisher from a year ago in her own right.

That same weekend, Liv Westphal of Boston College crushed the field at the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown.

The following weekend saw big wins from Stanford’s Elise Cranny at Washington, Florida State’s Colleen Quigley at Paul Short and New Mexico’s Charlotte Arter at Notre Dame – giving each a claim to NCAA frontrunner status.

Two weekends later, it was the two women who finished directly behind Houlihan at Griak who took center stage.

Crystal Nelson of Iowa State throttled the field in the closing two-kilometers at the loaded Wisconsin adidas Invitational over many of the aforementioned favorites and Rachel Johnson of Baylor cruised to an easy win at Pre-Nationals. Right around the same time, news broke that Stanford’s Aisling Cuffe, fourth at NCAAs a year ago, was out with injury.

Fast-forward to conference championships weekend. The final weekend of October saw Westphal easily take down Quigley at ACCs, Nelson and teammate Katy Moen top Johnson at Big 12s, Houlihan beat Cranny at Pac-12s, and Bates defeat Arter (by a big margin; Arter was 6th) at Mountain Wests.

All while the Michigan State duo of Leah O’Connor and Rachele Schulist – both of whom were top 10 both at Griak and Wisco – went 1-3 at Big Tens.

But wait, there’s more. Though Dartmouth’s Abbey D’Agostino eventually won last year’s NCAA title with Bates finishing runner-up, it was Iona’s Kate Avery who led much of that race before ultimately finishing third. After a long track season that included a fourth-place showing in the Commonwealth Games 10k, she finally debuted at MAACs, only to win by nearly two minutes. Naturally, she vaulted herself back into national title conversation.

Just this past weekend at regionals: Houlihan again beat Bates and Cranny in the West, Avery trampled Westphal (who finished fourth) in the Northeast, O’Connor (continuing her impressive late-season surge) and Schulist ran away in the Great Lakes, Dominique Scott of Arkansas took down Johnson in the South Central, Quigley looked to get back on track with a win in the South, and Nelson/Moen conserved energy while UMKC’s Courtney Frerichs took the Midwest win.

Long story short, there’s a big group of women who have distinguished themselves as top-10/15 contenders based on head-to-head meetings (of course there are others who are also in contention but have not competed head-to-head with these women many times. Like Georgetown’s Katrina Coogan, for example).

Below is a table showing how that group breaks itself down. Wins and losses are equivalent to head-to-head finishes over or behind other women on the table. A detailed breakdown of these head-to-head match-ups can be found here.

How Might Saturday’s Race Go?

So given all of that, how might this particular race with all of these women play out? It’s not unreasonable to think that Avery might once again shoot out to an early lead – after all, she opened up a three-second gap on eventual champion Abbey D’Agostino and the field by 2k and maintained it into the final third of the 6k race.

Already looking significantly stronger this year (though in a small sample size), such a strategy might be the surest way for Avery to take the title. With no clear frontrunner like 2013 D’Agostino to chase her down, why not declare herself the frontrunner and make the rest of the race follow her terms?

There would be others who would benefit from such a strategy, namely Nelson. The Cyclone admitted on our QA2 Max Podcast after her big Wisconsin win that she doesn’t consider her finishing kick to be among the best out there. Case in point: she suffered her only non-regionals loss of the season at Griak in a half-mile dash to the finish against reigning NCAA 1500 meters champ Houlihan and third-place steepler Johnson – certainly not a good position for her based on her comments.

Three weekends later, she avenged her loss to Houlihan at Wisconsin by starting her kick – if you consider a full third of the race a kick – with a 2k left and stringing out the field behind her. Michigan State’s Schulist (who actually made the move that Nelson eventually covered) responded well to the tactic, as did Houlihan in third, Westphal in fourth, Moen in fifth and, to a lesser extent, Bates in sixth.

Nelson used that same strategy at Big 12s to get redemption against Baylor’s Johnson – who herself had won Pre-Nats after making her move early in the race to separate herself from the field – to score another decisive victory.

Where Nelson was able to shake Westphal with this tactic at Wisconsin, Avery was able to break her with it at the Northeast Regional. The two came through the halfway point side-by-side, but when Avery turned on the jets, it was over. Avery ended up winning in 19:49.45 with a 10:06 final 3k. Westphal? She dropped two spots to fourth overall in 20:16.02 with a 10:33 second half.

What if the pace ends up being held back? The advantage would seem to shift back toward Houlihan. The Griak win is just one example of the Sun Devil’s devastating late-race wheels.

At the West Regionals, however, Bates pushed the pace hard early, but Houlihan was still able to dial it down even further with less than a kilometer left to go to shake off Bates and win by nearly three seconds. Cranny didn’t respond nearly as well, dropping back a full 14 seconds after running with the lead pack two-thirds of the way through.

More Individuals to Keep an Eye On

Certainly those aren’t the only women who will be near the front. After all, just one year ago Avery entered NCAAs as the fifth runner from the Northeast Region before finishing third overall at nationals.

Sarah Disanza of Wisconsin was runner-up in the Big 10 just behind O’Connor and way ahead of Schulist (though Schulist and Disanza flip-flopped for the regional meet). Michigan State will likely have a pack of women at the front as they have all season long, including Lindsay Clark, Julia Otwell, Allie Wiersma and Sara Kroll.

Though No. 18 Michigan’s title dreams have been all but dashed with Erin Finn and Shannon Osika out for NCAAs, the Wolverines’ Brook Handler will still be running as the probable UofM No. 1, and will need to finish very high in the standings to give Michigan the best chance to record a strong team finish.

Ivy League champ Meg Curham of Princeton was the runner-up at Pre-Nationals behind Coogan, through was fourth at the Mid-Atlantic behind her and a pair of West Virginia runners with team podium aspirations on their mind in Jillian Forsey and Katie Gillespie.

Down at Arkansas, Scott has a teammate who’s also been running well in Grace Heymsfield, who finished runner-up in the ACC, 10th at Wisconsin and just behind Rachel Johnson in the South Central Region. Finishing just behind Heymsfield at SECs was South Region runner-up Tennessee’s Chelsea Blaase, a lone Volunteer with nothing to run for except individual glory.

Out West, Cranny isn’t the only frosh runner making noise. Bethan Knights of Cal was fifth at Pre-Nats, third behind Houlihan and Cranny in the Pac-12 and fourth behind Houlihan, Bates, and Cranny at the West Region.

In the Midwest, while Nelson and Moen were in cruise control and Frerichs ran away with the title at the region championships, unheralded Summit League champ Erin Teschuk of North Dakota State and returning Oklahoma State All-American Monika Juodoskaite rounded out the top three. Juodoskaite defeated Rachel Johnson at Big 12s.

While Arter has been in a bit of a rough patch since winning at Notre Dame, her teammate Alice Wright has stepped up and was the Mountain Regional champion for the No. 9 New Mexico Lobos. She could join Cranny and Knights in that discussion for top frosh runners. Also from the Mountain Region, No, 8 Colorado will need a strong run from region runner-up Erin Clark to make a move for the podium.

While much of the attention coming out of the Northeast Regional focused on Iona’s Avery totally dominating a field that included national frontrunner Westphal, two more runners also came in before the star from Boston College: Avery’s teammate Rosie Clarke and Lauren Sara of UConn.

From the Southeast, the duo of region champ Annie LeHardy of North Carolina and Carolyn Hennessy of team champ William and Mary will both try to be as low of sticks as possible for their respective No. 15 and No. 14 teams to position themselves for runs at top-10 team honors.