Women's Cross Country Season Preview

The Generals are ranked nationally and South Region top-10 in USTFCCCA pre-season poll.

8/31/2022 9:00:00 AM

LEXINGTON, Va. – The Washington and Lee Women's Cross Country team, No. 32 in the national poll and third in the region, opens its 2022 season on Thursday afternoon.

Head Coach Michael Dager, entering into his ninth season with the Blue and White, welcomes 29 women to campus including nine first-year student-athletes ready to compete for the Generals on the course.

Washington and Lee returns five all-conference selections from the 2021 ODAC Championship race including a national qualifier in rising seniors Carolyn Todd (Cumberland Foreside, Maine/Greely), who finishing 15th in the NCAA South Regional hosted in Spartanburg, S.C., last November.

USTFCCCA NATIONAL POLL

The Blue and White make an appearance in the 2022 USTFCCCA Preseason poll at No. 32, improving by one place since the 2022 post-season poll.

SUNY Geneseo, Wartburg and Johns Hopkins, the reigning National Champions, round out the poll's top-3.

W&L is one of two ODAC schools to make an appearance in the preseason poll. Lynchburg, the 2022 ODAC title winners, were voted No. 26 with 93 points after ending last season in the No. 32 spot.

Lynchburg will start the 2022 season in the top-spot on the South Region Top-10 list in Head Coach Jake Reed's 6th year at the Hornets' helm.

Emory, No. 2 in the South, was predicted No. 30 nationally.

The national poll is voted on by the 10 member coaches, one from each region, that also do the Regional Rankings.

Regionally, Christopher Newport, host of this year's regional championship race, is in the four-spot while ODAC member schools Bridgewater and Shenandoah are slated in the eight and nine spot, respectively. Shenandoah will host the ODAC Championships this year.

Neighboring Southern Virginia rounds out the top-10 after finishing sixth in the South last year.

National Poll | Regional Poll

In lieu of a conference pre-season poll, the ODAC Associate Commissioner, JJ Nekoloff, spoke with three coaches from around the league to examine the conference landscape for the upcoming season.

2022 ODAC Cross Country Roundtable

SCHEDULE PREVIEW

The Generals open up on Thursday, September 1, in Carlisle, Pa., as the No. 25 Red Devils will host the "Light Up the Night Invitational. The season-opener will be a strong test for the Generals, and the 5K will serve as a benchmark against a perennial national championship qualifying team in Dickinson.

The Generals will take two weeks to train after the initial invitational before heading east to the beach. The South Region Preview is hosted by Christopher Newport on Friday, September 16, and the preview will allow the harriers to get their bearings on the flat championship course before they return two months later on November 12 for the NCAA South Regional.

Eight days later, the Blue and White will travel north to Winchester for the Hornet Harrier, a 9:30 a.m. start, on a familiar and challenging course. Shenandoah will host the Old Dominion Athletic Conference Championship, enabling the nine newcomers to get acquainted more than a month prior to Championship Saturday.

Local fans will be able to see the Generals on Friday, October 14, in Salem, Va. The Roanoke College Invite 6 p.m. start is sandwiched by two trips north, an October 8 visit to DeSales University and the Gettysburg Invitational on Saturday, October 15.

Gettysburg concludes the regular season.

The ODAC Championship is October 29, at the Kernstown Battlefield, the South Regional in Newport News, Va. will take place on November 12 and the NCAA Championship, on November 19, will take place in Lansing, Mich.

KEY RETURNERS

The Blue and White return four of five all-region honorees from last season. The squad will be led by national-qualifier Carolyn Todd (Cumberland Foreside, Maine/Greely), one of 292 runners at the NCAA Division III Women's Cross Country Championship last November. At the championship race, Todd ran a time of 22:44.90 on the 6k course in Louisville, Ky., placing 148th. That mark is the best finish for the Generals since Samantha Yates '19 ran a time of 22:10.70 on the same course in 2016.

At the South Regional, Todd finished 15th out of 163 competitors with a time of 23:36.70 on the 6k course. Then sophomore Elise Molinaro (East Stroudsburg, Pa./East Stroudsburg South) claimed 24th (23:54.90), and first-year Kristen Clodgo (Raleigh, N.C./Sanderson) was right on her heels in 25th with a time of 23:57.80. Clodgo's classmate, Mimi Kemp (Richmond, Va./Maggie Walker Governor's School), completed the scoring for W&L, finishing 34th in 24:14.00.

Todd, Molinaro, Clodgo and Kemp all garnered their first All-Region honors. The group all earned All-ODAC accolades as well. Todd and Molinaro secured first team nods after finishing fifth and seventh, respectively. Hamlet was one spot behind Molinaro in eighth, Parker Hawk claimed 11th and Kemp placed 13th to collect Second Team All-ODAC accolades.

MEET THE CAPTAINS

The 2022 Women's Cross Country Captains

Chloe Elebash
Nina Gallagher
Brianna Hatch
Parker Hawk

Chloe Elebash (Mount Pleasant, S.C./Porter-Gaud) is a senior distance runner. On the cross country course, her best finish for the Blue and White came at the 2019 ODAC Championship. Just missing out on All-ODAC honors, Elebash came in 17th place with a time of 23:06.90. During the 2020-21 school year, she served as a distance group leader for the cross country program.

On the track, she placed seventh for the Generals in the 1500 meter, running a 5:23.80 during the 2021 Outdoor Championships.

In the classroom, she is a three-time Academic All-ODAC honoree and W&L Scholar Athlete Award winner all six semesters in Lexington. She has also been honored by the USTFCCCA for her academic efforts as well.

Passionate about music and travel in her free time, Elebash also volunteers with the Campus Kitchen while school is in session and spent her summer with a textile designer in Charleston, S.C., assisting with marketing as an intern.

Nina Gallagher (Downingtown, Pa./ Downingtown STEM) enters her second season as a captain for the Generals and will serve as a captain for both the indoor and outdoor track and field teams as well.

As a first-year, Gallagher was named Second Team All-ODAC. On the track, in 2020 at the ODAC Indoor Track & Field Championships, Gallagher scored points for W&L in the 800 meter and Distance Medley Relay, placing seventh and third, respectively.

On campus, Gallagher is incredibly involved; she works in Residential Life, is a Tier Three LEAD Program Candidate and a member of “24”.

She volunteers as an elementary school English tutor and spent the summer with a corporate banking internship in Atlanta, Ga.

Brianna Hatch (Westfield, N.J. / Westfield) will serve as a co-captain during her senior year.

Having competed in five ODAC Championship in at least one event since the 2019 Cross Country Championships, Hatch's highest finish on the track was seventh place in the 10,000 meter run during the 2021 Outdoor Championships and 30th in the 2021 Cross Country Championships.

In the classroom, Hatch excels at Washington and Lee. The journalism and politics double major has spent every semester on the President's List.

Brianna is the Editor in Chief of the Ring Tum Phi, the Head Burish Intern, and Social Media Editor for WLUnite, an advocacy club for disability awareness. She is a member of the Gender Action Group and Phi Beta Kappa and tutors in local Lexington schools.

Journalism and educational happenings in colleges and universities are two of Brianna's passions and interests that she looks to combine for her career after Washington and Lee. Her interest in the two led her to spend the summer in Washington, D.C., as a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Parker Hawk (Dallas, Texas/Hockaday) has had a strong career for the Blue and White. The senior was a Second Team Cross Country All-ODAC honoree last year, and she has six top-8 finishes in track and field championships over her career.

Her strength has come in the 1500 meter run and mile, placing second on three separate occasions at the championship meets, and she placed third in the 800 meter run in the 2022 spring championship meet. Hawk was a USTFCCCA All-Region honoree for the 1500 in 2022. She earned VaSID All-State considerations in middle distance events and will serve as a track and field captain this year.

In the classroom, she studies Cognitive and Behavioral Science and has been named to the President's List and Academic All-ODAC each year. Hawk is a Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society member. On campus, she has participated in General's Leadership Academy, a member of the outing club and is a research assistant for a Sleep, Stress and Health Lab.

Prepping for a medical career after Washington and Lee, Hawk spent the summer shadowing various doctors and took the MCAT.

The team is looking forward to competing for an ODAC title in what is becoming a very competitive conference and a spot on the NCAA championship starting line this fall.

There is a lot of excitement for the start of the season and we will get a good sense of where we are after our first meet when we line up against Dickinson College, a program who has a current streak of more than 15 years qualifying for the national championship.

Head Coach Michael Dager

Washington and Lee University

Schedule

Events