The 2023-24 season will be an exciting one for Colorado State cross country. Earlier this month, they were voted to win the Mountain West Conference in the preseason poll.
This would be a big feat for first-year head coach Kelly Hart, who comes in as the youngest coach in the Mountain West. She was listed on the Notre Dame roster just two years ago in 2021.
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Hart’s youth gives her a unique perspective into what it’s like to be a student-athlete.
“I remember what it was like to be a student-athlete,” Hart said. “Sometimes it can be too much. You have to separate a little bit, and it’s easy to get so emotional with their highs and lows, and I remember what that feels like.”
This will help her in her quest to get the Rams back to the NCAA championships in November. Hart was an assistant coach last year when the Rams sent both of their men’s and women’s squads to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
This will help her coach a team that retained a lot of its athletes from the year before. While largely staying the same, the Rams added five names via the transfer portal.
Women
Yasmin Austridge is a graduate student transfer from Lamar University, where she won the 1,500-meter in the Western Athletic Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships. She joins the Rams with plenty of hardware and should be able to compete right away for CSU.
Claire Hengesbaugh came over from Loyola University Chicago as a graduate transfer. She was selected to the first team All-Missouri Valley Conference team in 2018, 2020 and 2021. She will also come in and compete right away for the Rams.
Kensey May came over from Syracuse after her first-year season. She placed first in the 5,000-meter at the John Reif Invitational in her first-year season. She is one of seven athletes listed as freshman on the women’s roster.
Audrey Thronson came over from Tennessee and is the Rams’ other first-year transfer. She made the Southeastern Conference first-year academic honor roll and will bring youth to CSU.
Men
Sam Griffith is the lone transfer for the men’s team. He came to CSU from Washington State as a graduate transfer. He’s run in multiple Pac-12 championships for the Cougars and will help bolster the men’s roster.
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The Rams will run the same schedule they did last year. Their first meet will be Saturday, Sept. 2, as they travel across the border to attend the Wyoming Invite.
Reach Damon Cook at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @dwcook2001.
