Full Results

SPARTANBURG, S.C. - Elle Marsyla (7th), Riley Capuano (21st) and Sadie Drucker (35th) earned All-America honors as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's cross country team rallied from sixth place at the midway point to take third at the NCAA Division III Championships on Saturday morning and Milliken Research Center. 

The podium finish (top four) was the third for the Athenas in the last five years, after they came in second in 2021 and fourth in 2023. All seven runners for CMS caught multiple opponents over the last 1000 meters to help CMS come back from sixth place to earn a trophy. 

NYU finished in first with 79 points, Williams was second with 106, and the Athenas were third with 133, edging out Johns Hopkins in fourth with 140. MIT (232) and Carnegie Mellon (249) finished fifth and sixth after being ahead of CMS at the midway point. 

Marsyla (21:18.8) stood in 25th place at 3000 meters but gradually moved up to the top 10 and into seventh to secure All-America honors for the second time in her career. She earned All-America distinction as a sophomore, then missed last season with an injury, before returning to lead the Athenas at nationals this year. She moved up to 25th at the midway point, passed six runners to get into 19th at the 4K split, passed seven more to move into 12th at the 5K mark, and then five more over the final stretch to move into seventh. 

Capuano (21:34.6) earned All-America for the third year in a row with a steady ascension from 43rd after the first 1000 meters to 21st at the finish, she moved up four spots at the 2K mark to 39th, then six more at the midway point, jumped to 28th at the 4K mark, 24th at 5K, and then passed three more runners at the close to secure her spot on the All-America podium. 

Drucker (21:54.5) passed 17 runners over the last 1000 meters to earn her way onto the All-America stage. She stood in 57th at the 4K mark (top 40 earn All-American, and then went up five spots at the 5K mark with a 3:57.1 split, and then ran a blistering 3:34.3 over the final 1000 to just from 52nd to 35th. 

Sara Wexler (22:05.4) also had a furious finish, passing 15 runners over the last 1000 meters to jump to 44th place and help CMS secure its third place finish. Wexler stood in 70th place at the midway point, and then moved up to 62nd at the 4K mark, and 59th at 6K, before nearly cracking the top 40 with a strong final stretch.

Hope Dragseth (22:17.2) came in 57th as the fifth and final scorer for CMS to secure the spot on the podium. She kicked it into gear after a slow start, moving up from 177th after the first 1000 meters. She passed almost 100 runners (99) over the second and third splits, jumping up from 123rd after 2000 meters to 78 at the midway point, and then passed nine more over the fourth split, five at the 5K split to move into 64th, and seven more at the close to finish in 57th.

In addition to the five scorers, Olivia Backholm (23:01.6) rose to 128th by passing 23 runners over the last 1000, and Brannan Rosenfeld (23:12.6) was 154th after passing 11 runners over the final split. 

CMS will graduate Marsyla, Capuano and Wexler off this year's team, but will look to continue its run of strong NCAA finishes next year behind Drucker, Dragseth, Backholm and Rosenfeld.