John Cusick
Mar 9, 20209 min
Updated: Mar 23, 2020
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TSR contributors may value certain aspects and ranking criteria differently between men and women when constructing our Indoor Top 25...
Was not ranked the week before.
First number indicates how much the individual has moved in the rankings.
The second number indicates where they were ranked the week before.
Workman stays put for now following conference weekend. The junior was part of Colorado Mines’ DMR team that finished 3rd (he ran the 1200 leg) before Workman finished 7th in the mile the next day.
In all, it wasn't a great weekend for Workman, but we still like everything that he has done this season which is the main reason why he stays within our Top 25. It’ll be interesting to see if Workman lives up to his converted 4:05 mile from early December this upcoming weekend.
Crosswhite’s season ended in odd fashion as the favorite for the GNAC mile came up short and finished 4th. For what it’s worth, Crosswhite was only ousted by one runner in his section and the winner came out of the slowest section. Crosswhite also helped Western Oregon to a runner-up finish at the Seattle Pacific Qualifier where they were looking for an improvement upon their previous time.
Moran sees a small dip after his 4th place finish at the RMAC Championships last week. He’s still a strong runner that we’ll see in the 5000 meters and 3000 meters this upcoming weekend. Strong performances from others also are part of Moran’s dip during this update.
Hagen was a DNF in the 3000 meters at RMAC's. Not much else to talk about here.
Allen enters our rankings after his strong performances at the NSIC Championships. Allen was the conference champ in both the mile (4:16) and the 1000 meters (2:27) and also took home a 4th place finish in the DMR and a 6th place finish in the 4x400.
He’s quietly become one of the better milers in the country and will look to make a bigger name for himself this weekend as he competes in the mile. A quadruple this past weekend indicates that he's preparing for the multiple rounds that he'll have to go through in the mile.
Schwartz enters our rankings for the first time this season after taking home the GLIAC Championship title in the 3000 meters. The junior ran a very impressive time of 8:06 which was a five second personal best. While we don’t know if he can contend for a national title like some of these other top talents, he’s certainly in the mix to become an All-American, adding another strong Grand Valley State runner to the NCAA field.
Chada improved his stock at GLIAC's as he posted a personal best in the 3000 meters with a time of 8:08. It was only good for 3rd (behind both of his teammates), but it helped him qualify for the 3000 meters this weekend at Nationals. It’s good to see Chada picking up momentum heading into this weekend. It seems like his stock is moving in the right direction.
There was no conference meet for Young over the last three weeks, but he moves up a spot after anchoring the AAU DMR team to a mark of 9:50 at Boston’s Last Chance Qualifier which is good enough for NCAA #7 on the national performance list. That's a clutch performance for such a high-pressure situation.
It’s also worth mentioning this was essentially a solo effort as Georgetown and Middle Tennessee State were in the same heat, but finished 17+ seconds ahead of the Urban Knights.
Wammetsberger was another athlete who had a busy conference weekend. He took home the mile title with ease just ahead of teammate Seb Anthony. In addition to the mile, he also finished 2nd in the 800 meters and 3rd in the 3000 meters (both finishes were behind his teammates). Those performances likely signal that Wammetsberger was preparing for the multiple rounds that he'll be running at the National Championships this weekend.
The Queens veteran will enter the national meet rather quietly and I think that’s the way he wants it. He was an underrated and overlooked talent heading into the national meet last year and we all remember how he finished that weekend.
Kimutai had himself a very strong MIAA conference meet. He raced three events, resulting in one conference title and two personal bests. The win came in the 3000 meters where he also ran a personal best of 8:15. His other personal best came in the mile where he finished 3rd in a time of 4:10.
In his best event, the 5000, he finished runner-up behind Karim Achengli. Despite walking away with just one title, Kimutai impressed us with a heavy workload and reminded us that he’s still one of the best runners in the country
It should come as no surprise that Woldemichael continues to trend in a positive direction. He ran a personal best of 8:07 in the 3000 meters at the GLIAC Championships and that was good enough for a 2nd place finish. The only guy who beat him was his own teammate. Woldemichael was a national title contender before he stepped away from the sport for an extended period of time. However, despite that absence, he seems to be at (or near) the elite fitness that we saw from him back in 2018.
Conference weekend wasn’t all that nice to Sweeney who finished 6th in his only event, the 5000 meters. It's slightly concerning result given that the 5k is supposed to be his race. This leaves us wondering if Sweeney just had a bad race or if this is something that we need to. My guess is it was just a bad race.
One of the bigger falls this week is Bix. He helped the Adams State DMR team take home the title with a strong finish to hold off CSU-Pueblo at the RMAC Championships. However, he didn’t bounce back in the 3000 meters like we thought he would. Like Sweeney in the 5k, Bix faded in the 3000 meters, all the way to 5th place and was 16 seconds back of the winner.
That was not the performance we were expecting to see from someone who is experienced at altitude and is expected to compete for a national title this weekend.
Winders didn’t compete at his conference meet. That’s part of the reason he falls a spot this week. I thought it was odd he didn’t race, but he’s still one of the more talented runners in the nation who has displayed underrated consistency and respectable range.
The Peach Belt doesn’t host a conference championship, so Warren's last race prior to Nationals was in the distance medley really at the JDL DMR Invitational where he helped Embry-Riddle sneak into the national meet as the final qualifying team. With three events on top for Warren at the National Championships, maybe it's a good thing that he didn't have a conference meet to run at.
Ko finished runner-up in the 5k at the RMAC Championships in a new PR of 14:46. After the conversion, that's the NCAA #5 time in the country which solidifies him as one of the best runners in D2 (if he wasn’t already).
Arlabosse had one of the busiest conference weekends out of anyone. He anchored Franklin PIerce’s DMR team to a 2nd place finish (four seconds back of AIU), anchored their 4x800 relay to a 4th place finish and anchored his 4x400 relay (9th place) as well. He also added an individual title in the 800 meters after he held off Leakey Kipokosgei for a two second win.
Arlabosse had a very heavy workload, but handled it incredibly well. He capped off his regular season with another 1:49 mark at the Last Chance Qualifier in Boston, making him one of the most consistent D2 half-milers in recent memory.
Luckily for Arlabosse, he'll only have to focus on one race (the 800) at the National Championships this upcoming weekend.
The freshman is one of two men in the country who holds automatic qualifying marks in both the 5000 meters and 3000 meters this season. After an unexciting middle portion of his season, Mutai proved that he was just as good as his times say they are after his string of performances at the Northeast-10 Championships.
Mutai took home the 5000 meter conference title and narrowly missed a double gold when he finished 2nd in the 3000 meters behind teammate Benoit Campion.
He looks to be peaking at the right time as we head into championship season. And as we learned last fall, this is someone more than capable of winning a national title.
It feels weird that we are only moving Stack up one spot after his win in the 5000 meters at the RMAC Championships. The main reason behind this is because he finished 4th in the 3000 meters the next day. That's not a terrible result, but it's not exactly the finish you would expect from a TSR Top 10 runner, which essentially cancels out any improvements in our rankings (but we gave him the bump anyway).
After the conversion, Stack’s 5k time ranks at NCAA #3 (which is fantastic), but how he handles the same double at NCAA's will be interesting to see.
Kipkosgei is still one of the most talented runners in Division Two. He holds top marks in the 800 meters, mile and the 3000 meters. His range is unquestionably some of the best in the nation...so why does he slip a spot? That’s partly because he didn’t race as well at his conference meet as we thought he would.
The America International veteran finished runner-up in the 800 meters (behind Arlabosse) and then finished 3rd behind both his teammates in the 3000 meters. However, the fact that he ran 4:04 for the mile at Boston’s Last Chance Qualifier suggests that he’s trending in the right direction as we head into NCAA's. I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if we were talking about Kipkosgei sitting atop a podium at the end of the weekend, although his tactical prowess from his conference meet leaves something to be desired.
The final member of the Yellow Jackets trio is Campion. The AIU veteran took home two titles at the NE-10 Championships with wins in the mile and 3000 meters. Campion has come onto the scene this winter and has solidified himself as one of the best runners in the country when it comes to display range and versatility. He’ll enter the national meet as one of the favorites in the mile and will throw his name in that hat for the 3000. His outstanding middle speed and excellent race tactics makes him a major name to watch.
Mbuta left the GLIAC Championships with three titles. He first anchored GVSU’s DMR team to the overall win by half a second over Ashland. He then doubled back the next day with a win in the mile and then another win in the 800 meters. Mbuta has proven to be one of the best overall runners in the country this year, pairing statement wins with wicked-fast times. Could the GVSU junior take home his first-ever NCAA title this weekend? We’ll know by Saturday.
Holdsworth took care of business at the GNAC Championships. He took home the win in the 800 meters with relative ease and then helped his 4x400 relay to a 2nd place finish. A week later, Holdsworth anchored Western Oregon to a win in the DMR (they were looking to improve their time, but didn’t) and then helped the 4x400 team to another runner-up finish. Both were likely good tune-ups for Holdsworth as he gears up for his first NCAA meet this weekend.
We’ve talked about Noble’s performance at the Gulf South Conference Championships earlier last week, but we’ll recap it again. In the span of 48 hours, Noble won the 3000 meters, anchored Lee’s DMR team to a win, took home the win in the mile and then finished 1st in the 5000 meters.
Yeah, Noble is in fantastic shape.
He’s going to factor in the title race for the 5000 and 3000 meters, regardless of how the races play out.
For the second time this year, Laguera tops our rankings. He raced twice at the RMAC Championships and ended up on both sides of a tight finish. He anchored the Thunderwolves team in the DMR to a close 2nd place finish after Carson Bix narrowly edged him at the finish line. The next day it was Laguera who edged out Jake Mitchem by two one hundredths of a second in the 3000 meters.
He stays at the top spot in our rankings because he’s the title favorite in the 5000 meters. Although we worried about how he would perform in the 3000 meters due to his potential lack of speed, he has clearly handled those quick-ending races relatively well over the past few weeks.
Grant Colligan (Colorado Mines)
Ivar Moinat (Eastern New Mexico)
Benjamin Allen (Concordia-St. Paul)
Connor Schwartz (Grand Valley State)
Grant Colligan (Colorado Mines)
Ivar Moinat (Eastern New Mexico)
Adam Wright (Queens (N.C.))
Ryan Riddle (Missouri Southern)
Seb Anthony (Queens (N.C.))
Karim Anchengli (NW Missouri)
Anthony Raftis (Queens (N.C.))
John Partee (Lewis)
Jaylen Tryon (Lubbock Christian)
Nathan Hood (CSU-Pueblo)
Dylan Day (CSU-Pueblo)