2017 NCAA DI Women’s Cross Country Regional Rankings — Week 2

NEW ORLEANS – There’s been movement.

Unlike the NCAA DI Men’s Cross Country Regional Rankings, the top-five spots in a majority of the nine regions on the women’s side saw a changing of the guard after this past week’s batch of meets. Additionally, for the first time this year, a new team overtook the top spot in one of the regions.

REGIONAL RANKING – SUMMARY PDF
REGIONAL RANKING – 2017 WEEK BY WEEK
REGIONAL RANKING – ALL-TIME WEEK BY WEEK

For those who don’t know, the USTFCCCA Regional Cross Country Rankings are determined subjectively by a single member coach in each respective region. The regional representative is tasked with weighing returning teams’ strength with current season results (if applicable) in determining predicted team finishes at the NCAA Regional Championships.

Great Lakes  Region

Ohio State crept into the top-five in the Great Lakes Region after a superb showing at the Commodore Classic. The Buckeyes placed first out of 17 teams, with five runners finishing in the top-20, led by Lainey Studebaker at third (17:34.8).

Michigan, Notre Dame, Indiana and Wisconsin held down the top-four spots, respectively.

Mid-Atlantic Region

While the Nittany Lions of Penn State were idle, they remained atop the standings in the Mid-Atlantic Region. But that didn’t stop Villanova from making a bit of a push, as the Wildcats moved up to second following a strong showing at the Main Line Invitational. Nicole Hutchinson (16:20.5) won the competition that saw six other Wildcats finish within the top-10.

Georgetown slipped one spot to third, while West Virginia (fourth) and Pittsburgh (fifth) rounded out the top-five.

Midwest Region

There were major shifts within the top-five of this region, including Minnesota’s rise to the top. The Golden Gophers were joined by Iowa State and Oklahoma State in making moves up a spot. The kicker here is that all three aforementioned teams were idle.

Missouri, who sat in first a week ago, slipped to fourth after struggling at the Commodore Classic. Despite Karissa Schweizer (16:25.4) leading the field, the Tigers fell to Ohio State and Vanderbilt during the meet.

Mountain Region

There wasn’t a tremendous amount of movement in the Mountain Region, with just Utah State and BYU flip flopping spots. The Aggies put together an impressive performance to defeat the Cougars at their home meet, with Alyssa Snyder winning the three-mile race with a time of 16:28.0.

Colorado and New Mexico remained in the top-two spots, respectively. Montana State and Nevada both moved up four spots each to eighth and 10th, respectively. The ranking for the Wolfpack was the highest since the third week of the 2014 campaign, while the eighth-place ranking for Montana State returned to the top-10 for the first time since the fourth week of the 2015 season.

Northeast Region

Providence held down the top ranking in the Northeast Region, but the former second-place team tumbled a bit.

Harvard fell from second to sixth after finishing third at the Harvard/Yale/Princeton meet. Yale finished second, moving them to the runner-up spot in the regional rankings, while Syracuse, Columbia and Cornell all moved up one spot to round out the top-five.

South Region

After placing second at its own meet, the Commodore Classic, Vanderbilt jumped to second in the South Region rankings ahead of Mississippi State. The SEC claimed the top-three spots in the region once again, with Ole Miss leading the way after a nice finish at the Rebel Invite.

Florida State rose to fourth after winning the VT Alumni Invitational, with Militsa Mircheva, Jodie Judd and Megan Mooney finishing 1-2-3 in a field of 116. Alabama fell one spot to fifth.

South Central Region

Move along. Nothing to see here.

The entire top-15 of the South Central Region remained intact from a week ago, with Arkansas atop the leaderboard after posting a victory at the UCR Invitational. Following the Razorbacks in the rankings were Baylor, SMU, Texas and Abilene Christian.

Southeast Region

Another region with not a lot changing from last week to now, the Southeast Region only saw shuffling at the bottom of the top-10.

NC State, Furman, Louisville, Eastern Kentucky and Wake Forest were in the top-five spots once again. However, North Carolina made things a little interesting with a three-spot jump to seventh after winning the Mountains to the Sea Open. Morgan Ilse won the meet with time of 17:13.61 in what was her season debut.

West Region

With a majority of the West Region sitting idle, so did the rankings. Oregon held down the fort at the top of the polls, while Stanford came in at second. San Francisco, Washington and Boise State rounded out the top-five. Of the aforementioned teams, only Stanford and Washington competed this past week.

Arizona leaped to eighth after coming in at 10th a week ago. The Wildcats scored a five point victory over Arizona State, who slipped from eighth to 10th, at the Dave Murray Invite.