2021 D2 Indoor Top 25 Rankings (Men + Women): Just Missed & Honorable Mentions

The basis of our rankings centers around the listed eligibility found on TFRRS. Additional research & clarification has been done in instances where athletes have graduated early.

The Sioux Falls senior finds herself in the Just Missed portion of our rankings in large part due to her lack of NCAA Championship appearances. She has only made it to the national stage twice, but her marks of 4:52 in the mile and 2:10 in the half-mile make her a legitimate threat against whoever is next to her on the starting line.

Ceglowski is a versatile and proven talent in the middle distances, but her championship results need to be better, mainly at the conference level, for us to give her a Top 25 spot. Her highest conference meet finish was a 2nd place result in the mile during the 2018 indoor season where she ran her 4:52 PR (distance standout Lexi Zeis was the winner).

Ceglowski has all the makings of a strong contender at the national stage. In fact, we think she has enough potential to be an All-American. We just need to see her have her best races on championship stages.

It’s been awhile since Rahn has secured any personal bests, but that’s not stopping us from placing her in our Just Missed category. The senior has run 2:10 for 800 meters, a mark that many would consider to be a top D2 time. She’s also run 1:37 for 600 meters, showing us that she has the necessary foot speed in her main event. She’s only run 5:10 for the mile, but her 4:29 1500 meter time makes us believe that she’s faster than that.

Rahn has attended two NCAA meets. At first, she only participated in the DMR, but later ran in both the 800 and 1500 at the ensuing outdoor national meet. She has the times necessary to be a key name on the national stage, but much like Ceglowski, we just need to see her put it altogether when it comes to crunch time.

Togom didn’t have the same success in 2020 as she did the year prior, but that doesn’t mean that she hasn’t taken steps in the right direction. Her personal bests all come from her freshman season and she was continuing to trend upwards during the fall of 2019 after running 17:28 (5k) at the Chile Pepper Festival in Arkansas. Unfortunately, she DNF’ed a month later at the Central Regional Championships.

Admittedly, the Central Missouri runner had an uneventful 2020 indoor track season and ultimately failed to qualify for the NCAA meet. However, she was back this past fall in strong form, finishing 2nd at her only race of the season (the Newman Team Invite) in a personal best 6k time of 21:33.

With an encouraging performance recently under her belt, Togom will look to get back to the level that she was at in 2018 when she ran 5:08 (mile), 9:53 (3k) and 16:43 (5k). If she can build upon her performance from the Newman Team Invite and establish some momentum, then she could be a tricky name to stop this winter.

Andrus was one of the top up-and-coming athletes in 2020. She had just set personal bests in both the 400 meters and 800 meters heading into the NCAA Championships. Her new PR of 56 seconds in the 400 meters came at a meet where she tripled, running 2:12 in the 800 meters and later coming back for the 4x400. The following weekend, she took home the inaugural GSC indoor title for 800 meters and looked primed for a big performance at the NCAA meet.

The UAH standout competed in the the 800 meters four different times throughout last winter and was never slower than 2:13.84 for the distance. She was one of the more underrated women in the NCAA when it came to consistency and we think that would have benefitted her in a big way on the national stage as she attempted to navigate through the prelims and finals.

If she puts together a couple of strong races this indoor season, then there’s no reason to believe that Andrus can't find herself a spot within our Top 25 rankings.

Szarzynska has been dominant within the Great American Conference where Harding competes. She was the conference winner in the 800 meters and the mile during the 2020 indoor season and was going to be, at the very least, an NCAA qualifier in the half-mile before things were canceled.

However, Szarzynska's conference success hasn't always translated to the national stage. In 2018, she competed in both the indoor and outdoor national meets at the 800 meter discipline and both races ended with nearly the same result: 18th at the indoor national meet and 17th during the outdoor national meet. That was the biggest reason why she had to settle for a spot outside of our Top 25.

Even so, the Harding ace has run 2:09 before, a time which indicates that she is capable of earning All-American honors. Szarzynska now has the necessary experience to be competitive on the national stage and she will likely know what to expect moving forward.

The Adams State runner held her own during her rookie year, progressively posting faster mile times as the 2020 indoor track season went on. She capped off her winter campaign with a 3rd place finish at the RMAC Championships in the mile and earned a converted time of 4:53.54.

Leaving Lawrence out of our rankings was probably the toughest decision we had to make. She had a ton of momentum last winter and had a promising cross country season this past fall, but seems to be one big performance away from really jumping into the next-tier of women's distance talents in the NCAA.

She may not be in our rankings at this very moment, but don't be surprised if Lawrence eventually makes her way into our Top 25 a month or two from now...

It feels odd leaving someone who has run 8:15 (3k) and 14:18 (5k outdoors) outside of our Top 25, but that is where Rodarte finds himself. Now, to be clear, this is not a talent issue for the Adams State veteran. We think he's great and it's important to note that he ran a (heavily converted) 8:09 (3k) last winter.

Even so, Rodarte just barely snuck into the national meet last year in the 3000 meters. That would have been his second national meet appearance after his 2019 indoor debut. With a limited championship resume and times that are still on the backend of the national qualifying list, we felt like we needed to see a bit more from Rodarte before giving him the Top 25 nod.

The NAIA transfer looks set to make an immediate impact with this Lakers' program whenever things are set to resume. The only reason DeYoung finds himself outside of our Top 25 is simply because we are unsure of how he will fare in competitions against top-tier D2 talent on the indoor oval.

His 5k time of 14:13 would have put the newest GVSU runner in the top-18 of Division Two last winter, but not by much. He’s only run 8:27 for 3000 meters, but holds a 3k steeplechase personal best of 9:06, leading us to believe that DeYoung can run faster than 8:27.

The transfer from Cornerstone has also run 4:13 for the mile which is more than respectable for someone who seems to be more of a 5k/10k guy when it comes to the outdoor oval.

Overall, we like DeYoung a lot, but much like Isaiah Rodarte, we just think he's one step away from cracking a spot in our Top 25 rankings.

Talbott owns respectable personal bests of 8:12 (3k) and 14:19 (5k). He also owns a mark of 29:35 in the 10k. Unfortunately for him, he always seems to find himself on the outside looking in when the NCAA Championships begin.

The Saginaw Valley State runner has never competed at the Indoor National Championships, but is no stranger to facing elite D2 talent despite his lack of appearances on that stage. Talbott has finished inside the top-seven of every GLIAC Championship that he has toed the line for and even owns a GLIAC indoor title via the 5000 meters when he was a freshman in 2019 (Panning opted for the mile that weekend).

Talbott can compete with some of D2’s best distance talents on paper. We just need to see him in a position where he can actually qualify for the National Championships.

Harding is entering his first season with the Lakers after transferring from Michigan to pursue his graduate degree. While at Michigan, Harding finished as high as 44th at the D1 NCAA Cross Country Championships. He also qualified for the NCAA East Regional meet on the track in 2019.

He brings with him bests of 4:12 (mile), 8:10 (3k), and 14:07 (5k) and looks to be set up for success as he enters Division 2. He ran his personal best in the 3k during the 2020 indoor season and ran an indoor-best of 14:14 at the BIG 10 Championships that same year.

Harding will come in and immediately fight for spots at the D2 national meet. We understand that 44th is a rock-solid finish during cross country, but outside of that, we don’t have a very good idea where he stands in being able to compete for an NCAA title. He has the upside of being another title contending athlete for GVSU, but we will need to see him toe the line before committing to a Top 25 ranking.

Riddle has only spent one year at the D2 level, but he has fit in quite nicely with the men of Missouri Southern. He ran 4:08 (mile) and 8:19 (3k) last indoor season and found himself as one of the NCAA's better milers. His improvement in the 3k will determine where he ends up in our rankings, but an expected improvement there makes an argument for his top-end success.

There’s no doubt that if the 2020 NCAA Indoor Championships had been run, Riddle would have improved his stock heading into this season. He’s yet another athlete that we just haven’t seen enough of the national stage for us to give him a Top 25 ranking...at least not yet.

Austin Miller had only just stepped into the national scene last year, being one of the last qualifiers for the NCAA Championships in the 800 meters. He did that by heating up at just the right time, notching a career best of 1:51.78 at the NSIC Championships which ultimately earned him a flat-track conversion of 1:50.21.

Despite peaking at the perfect time, we unfortunately didn’t get to see Miller at the cancelled indoor national meet and as a result, his hot streak ended prematurely. To no fault of his own, we need to this Augustana runner replicate his success from last year, or at least pick up where he left off.

While his marks don’t put him quite at the top (yet), Miller has proven that he can be a competitive name in the 800 meters.

Hood was a name that we debated quite extensively. He was just a few milliseconds better than Miller last year in the 800 meters with a converted time of 1:50.15. Hood was also the RMAC half-mile champion last year, although much like Miller and the NSIC, his conference wasn't exactly a "murders row" of opponents.

Even so, Hood is quietly one of the more consistent middle distance runners in the country, especially in the 800 meters. However, without championship experience, we made the very difficult decision to leave him out.

If we had to give someone a TSR #26 ranking, Hood would have likely been listed at that spot.