2023 NCAA DIII Women’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll – Week 8
NEW ORLEANS – From hundreds to 32.
The field has been set for the 2023 NCAA DIII Cross Country Championships.
Now is time to find out who is favored to either win the national title or earn podium spots at Big Springs High School in Newville, Pennsylvania. Therefore, here is the newest edition of the NCAA DIII Women’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll, as released on Tuesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
NCAA Division III — Women's Cross Country
This Week's National Top Five
1
NYU
NYU
2
Carleton
Carleton
3
SUNY Geneseo
SUNY Geneseo
4
Wartburg
Wartburg
5
Chicago
Chicago
Cross Country Polls & Rankings
Four different teams earned first-place votes from the electorate after Regional Championships Saturday: No. 1 NYU (four), No. 2 Carleton (four), No. 3 SUNY Geneseo (one) and No. 4 Wartburg (one). Three of those four teams won regional titles this past weekend with the top-ranked Violets being the only outlier (NYU finished runner-up to SUNY Geneseo).
NYU is favored based on its overall body of work entering the NCAA Championships. The Violets showed their grit four weeks ago when they beat then top-ranked UChicago at the UAA Championships. NYU ran as a pack this past weekend at the Niagara Region Championships, seeing its top-4 runners finish within 0.8 seconds of each other. It was said that the Violets trained through the race this past weekend in anticipation of the upcoming climatic meet. NYU has never won a national title and its best finish was sixth back in 2013.
Carleton continues to impress and is poised to improve upon its program-best fourth-place finish at NCAAs last year. The Knights, who rolled to the team title at the North Region Championships this past weekend, are led by sophomore Hannah Preisser. Carleton won’t let her go alone, though, as the squad put three other runners in the top-10 this past weekend.
Niagara Region champion SUNY Geneseo and Midwest Region champion Wartburg are separated by just one ranking point. The New York-based Knights continued their dominance with an emphatic 20-point score in Houghton, New York. SUNY Geneseo went 1-2-3-4-10 with Penelope Greene winning the individual title in 20:53.3. The Iowa-based Knights put four runners in the top-10 to beat UChicago by ten points, 37-47. SUNY Geneseo last won a national title in 2005 and has three other podium finishes to its credit, while Wartburg never topped the NCAA podium, but has made one of those three other steps six times.
UChicago, which topped the National Coaches’ Poll from Week 2 to Week 6, is ranked fifth in advance of the NCAA Championships. The Maroons know what it takes to be successful on this stage, though, as they took runner-up honors in 2022.
Here are the rest of the top-10 teams in Week 8: No. 6 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, No. 7 MIT, No. 8 Williams, No. 9 Johns Hopkins (defending national champion) and No. 10 Lynchburg.
You don’t want to miss the 2023 NCAA DIII Cross Country Championships THIS SATURDAY when they emanate from Big Springs High School in Newville, Pennsylvania.
