Only Five Teams Remain In Place In NCAA DIII XC Women’s Coaches’ Poll

NEW ORLEANS — This past weekend had major implications on the NCAA Division III Women’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Polls.

NCAA Division III National Coaches Poll Top 5 – Women 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) SUNY Geneseo MIT Williams Johns Hopkins Washington (Mo.) View Complete Women’s National Coaches Poll

With the Louisville Classic serving as the Pre-National Meet and the Paul Short Run welcoming a number of ranked teams, we were bound to see some changes when the next poll was released a few days later.

It’s safe to say that happened as 30 of the 35 ranked teams in the most recent poll released Wednesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) moved around. The only teams to stay in place were unanimous No. 1 SUNY Geneseo (second week in a row with all eight first-place votes), No. 2 MIT, No. 10 Dickinson, No. 11 RPI and No. 30 UW-Eau Claire.

One week after dropping to No. 5 after being ranked No. 1 since the preseason, Williams jumped back into the top-3. The Ephs competed in the Women’s Gold Race at the Paul Short Run and finished 23rd out of 44 teams, a commendable result with the amount of NCAA Division I and NCAA Division II teams in the race. Williams’ top runner was Emma Zehner, who finished 75th overall in 21:07.2.

NATIONAL PDFs: Summary | Week-By-Week 2016 | Week-By-Week All-Time
Regional Rankings: Week 4 Summary | Week 4 Recap

MEN’S WEEK FOUR NATIONAL COACHES’ POLL

Though it’s what happened in the Women’s Brown Race that really shook up the poll.

NCAA DIII teams dominated the proceedings as six of the top-7 teams were from the third division. Middlebury won it with 110 points, St. Lawrence came in third (129), Ithaca was fourth (151), Johns Hopkins was fifth (219), Amherst was sixth (230) and Allegheny (Pa.) was seventh (248).

Thanks to the win, Middlebury jumped 15 spots from No. 23 to a tie for eighth. The Panthers packed up extremely well behind Abigail Nadler, who took fifth overall, and went 23-26-27-29 to round out the scoring lineup.

St. Lawrence had something cooking up front as Megan Kellogg and Lisa Grohn ran extremely well. Kellogg got the individual win in 20:51.7 and Grohn placed third to give the Saints important low sticks. St. Lawrence surged 13 spots from last week, going from No. 25 to No. 12 — its best ranking of the season.

Allegheny (Pa.) came into the meet ranked 31st, but its seventh-place finish helped the team jump 13 spots to No. 18 this week. The Gators were paced by Sarah Jane Guillaume, who finished 11th overall.

There were three teams that were new or returned to the poll this week: No. 25 Bates, No. 28 Otterbein and No. 35 Willamette.

As the season continues to evolve, so will the National Coaches’ Poll. We’ll see many of these teams — as well as several select individuals from others — in action at the 2016 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships come November 19 in Louisville, Kentucky at E.P. “Tom” Sawyer Park.