TSR Collaboration
Jun 16, 20229 min
Written by Brett Haffner and Kevin Fischer, additional contributions by Garrett Zatlin
Click here to see our Just Missed and Honorable Mention names.
Listed eligibility takes redshirts and Covid-related extensions into consideration.
TFRRS is used as a general guide when determining eligibility.
Was not ranked in our last update.
First number indicates how much the individual has moved in the rankings.
The second number indicates where they were ranked in our last update.
After a tough day at the outdoor national meet where he finished last in the 1500 meters, Booth-Genthe drops in our final rankings. However, the Sagehen star stays in our top-15 due to his massively impressive body of work throughout the regular season.
Few men in Division Three were more versatile than Booth-Genthe. He emerged as one of the more elite 800 meter and 1500 meter talents in the NCAA and flexed even greater range in the 400 meters and the 5k.
If a handful of other star names didn't falter in the 1500 meter prelims, then ranking Booth-Genthe would potentially be a different story. But generally speaking, the value of his resume was too good to ignore when it came to these rankings.
Similar to Booth-Genthe, Ruggles came into the national meet as one of the favorites in the 1500 meters, but he surprisingly missed out on the final. However, regardless of his national meet result, his 3:44 mark from the ROC City Final Qualifier remained as the fastest time in all of Division Three this season.
While an All-American result may be more ideal, ignoring a national leader in one of the fastest events in the NCAA this year didn't seem fair. A massive winning streak entering the NCAA Championships also boosts his stock enough to keep in these rankings.
After leading the first few laps of the steeplechase final at the NCAA Championships, Kirkpatrick just didn’t have the legs to respond when he was passed. The Sagehen star ultimately ended up falling back to a fairly disappointing 7th place result.
Kirkpatrick entered the national meet as the top steeple seed and sixth-fastest steeplechaser in D3 history (with an 8:46 mark), so there is no doubt that he still belongs in our rankings. His raw talent is still some of the best in the country and his promising 1500 meter speed (3:47) gives his resume plenty of great value.
Tuohy-Gaydos had a very good showing at the NCAA Championships, finishing 5th in the 10,000 meters and then coming back two days later to earn a 2nd place finish in the 5000 meters.
After just one year at Williams, Tuohy-Gaydos is already a four-time All-American who holds a PR of 14:00 in the 5000 meters (indoor). His true freshman campaign has been one of the best we have ever seen in D3 and he was certainly the best freshman this year by a good margin.
For him to have such incredible success in endurance events that often favor veterans should speak volumes to the overall talent of this rookie.
Cargile raced with confidence all year long which led to him taking a big step forward in both the 800 meters and the 1500 meters. At the national meet, he notched a 3rd place finish in a very tight 800 meter final where 3rd through 6th place was separated by less than a tenth of a second.
The Redlands star was coming in as one of the top contenders for the national title with the second-best seed time of 1:48.89, so he obviously would have liked to win. However, a bronze medal is still a very solid showing and it’s more than we expected from him going into this entire academic year as a whole.
Cargile may not have won gold (or silver for that matter), but his 1:48 mark paired with his 3:46 mark gave him some of the best middle distance firepower of anyone in the country this year.
There are two people who benefited from the tactics of the 800 meters at the outdoor national meet: Ryan Wilson and Ben Kuxmann.
As he has proven all year long, Kuxmann’s tactics have been very sound, taking down Mike Jasa during the regular season while also placing 3rd at the NCAA Indoor Championships and then earning runner-up honors in the 800 meters at the outdoor national meet.
Not to mention, his shiny new PR of 1:49.19 turned some heads as well.
Kuxmann has elevated his game in 2022 just as Division Three has evolved with him. He has become one of the best 800 meter runners in Division Three over the last two years and he is arguably one of the most complete middle distance runners in the country.
Coming off of his incredible indoor national meet, Ridderhoff wasn’t necessarily outstanding through the majority of this outdoor track season. However, he finally put things together at a last chance meet, running 3:46 in the 1500 meters to assert himself as a major competitor once more.
At the NCAA Championships, Ridderhoff once again proved his national meet abilities, earning another runner-up finish in the 1500 meters behind Verkerke despite leading nearly the entire race, sans the final 150 meters.
After a few years of watching Ridderhoff, it has become evident that he knows how to execute when it matters most, having won a national title on the DMR, earning two runner-up finishes in the 1500 meters and securing a 4th place finish in the 3000 meters during the most recent indoor track season.
The final moments of his NCAA career at Missouri should be fun to watch.
With 400 meters to go in the steeplechase final, Christian Patzka’s blistering move into the lead was vindictive and bold, nearly giving him the national title if not for Christopher Collet’s magnificent effort in the final 100 meters.
Running 8:50 and placing national runner-up in the steeplechase was a huge success for Patzka who is still young and who still has a long career ahead of him. His double back in the 5000 meters was subpar, but many men who were attempting to double back struggled in that race. It's hardly fair to hold that against Patzka.
To take down a heavy favorite in Kirkpatrick and be the one in the lead for most of those final moments is probably the part that truly bolsters Patzka's ranking. The field he beat is much better than some people realize and his ability to peak in the postseason, not just the national meet, was impressive.
After an All-American performances in cross country, the indoor 5000 meters and the steeplechase, the future is very bright for Patzka.
If you would have told me before the 2022 track season that Mike Jasa would not win a single national title at either the indoor national meet or the outdoor national meet, I wouldn’t have believed you in the slightest.
While there were some ups and downs for the Loras star this year, he still ran an unreal time of 1:48.70 in the 800 meters this spring and even saw some 1500 meter action this year, running a very strong 3:47 mark.
By looking at just these personal bests alone, it’s clear that Jasa is still continuing to improve and grow in the middle distances, which is scary to think about considering how good he already is. It's also hard to ignore the fact that he was the national leader in the half-mile distance this year.
Even so, it was a little disappointing to see the reigning outdoor 800 meter champion finish 4th at the NCAA Indoor Championships and then 5th at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, both times in the 800 meters.
Jasa's championship approach will need to be improved/refined moving forward, but his raw talent still props him up in these rankings.
If you would have told me that Aidan Ryan would not compete in a championship final at the outdoor national meet, my jaw would have instantly dropped to the floor.
After a record-breaking indoor track season, Ryan was producing solid performances on the outdoor oval, such as a 1:51.96 mark in the 800 meters, a 3:45 result in the 1500 meters and a time of 14:01 in the 5000 meters.
However, those marks weren't leaps and bounds above the rest of Division Three like we saw during the winter months.
While Ryan’s swan song didn’t end the way we would have imagined it, he’ll still go down as one of the best runners in Division Three history with his storied resume and a wildly impressive career.
It’s been said time and time again, but Verkerke’s rise to Division Three stardom is simply unreal no matter what way you look at it.
From placing 9th in the WIAC indoor mile with a 4:25 mark to winning the outdoor national title in the 1500 meters in a time 3:45...well, that’s just something that you can’t predict or foresee -- unless your name is Sam Verkerke.
With plenty of eligibility left, plus 1:50 speed for 800 meters, it’s going to be very exciting to see where Verkerke rises to during the rest of his career at UW-Eau Claire. If this recent momentum is something he continues to build on, then he might be the next great star in D3.
It was easy to write Ryan Wilson out of the running for the 800 meter national title considering that he debuted so late into this outdoor track season. In fact, he only ran three individual races before the NCAA Championships.
However, that strategy paid off him in a major way as he won his second national title in the 800 meters this year, claiming both the indoor and outdoor gold medals with his stellar finishing ability.
We also completely forgot that Wilson’s 800 meter PR is actually 1:48.49 which was run in 2021 unattached when MIT was restricted from normal competition due to COVID restrictions.
If anything, that’s on us, for sleeping on Ryan Wilson.
It felt like the title conversation in the 800 meters was surrounded around a handful of guys this season, but in reality, it was all Ryan Wilson at the end of the day. His clutch execution at national meets is arguably the best in the NCAA and until we see otherwise, he'll likely continue his postseason dominance over the next couple of years.
Collet has been flexing his finishing speed all year long, but the Wartburg star finally capitalized on that turnover in the biggest moment of his career. He secured his first national title in the steeplechase a few weeks back with an incredible last 400 meters, closing the final circuit in 61 seconds to hawk down Christian Patzka in the home stretch.
Collet has had an incredible year, both on the indoor and outdoor ovals, running 3:46 in the 1500 meters, 14:12 in the 5000 meters and a remarkable 8:50 result in the steeplechase coming from the national meet final.
With him, Patzka and Kirkpatrick all coming back next year, Collet will be the guy to beat when it comes to the barriers and water jumps in 2023 as, on paper, he is arguably one of the most complete runners in Division Three.
We weren't sure if it would happen, but Jamie Dailey’s monumental performances at the outdoor national meet secured him and Alex Phillip as not just the best 1-2 punch in Division Three, but the outright best two distance runners in Division Three. Period.
Bringing home a runner-up finish in the 10,000 meters on day one was a huge result for Dailey, but as the roaring John Carroll crowd let him know on day three, bringing home a national title in the 5000 meters was an even more impressive performance.
Not only that, but Dailey was the best distance doubler at the national meet as many men faltered in their second events of the weekend.
This spring was a huge breakout season for Dailey, bringing himself from being a fringe All-American to now a national champion. HIs personal bests reflected that jump in fitness as well, running 3:53 in the 1500 meters, 14:08 in the 5000 meters and 29:28 in the 10,000 meters.
His eventual graduate student career at Cincinnati will be fun to watch.
Phillip did not move once from the top spot of the Division Three national leaderboard this spring, and rightfully so. He continued to be the undisputed top dog of the distance events, running 13:58 in the 5000 meters and 28:48 in the 10,000 meters.
Those are flat-out incredible times.
His national title in the 10,000 meters was almost derailed by...well, the rail...but he hung on for the win in pretty comfortable fashion. Coming back for 8th place in the 5000 meters wasn’t spectacular, but that very well may have been impacted by the fall in the 10k.
Ultimately, Phillip’s legacy in the 2021-2022 year was cemented with four national titles coming from cross country, the indoor 3k, the indoor 5k and the outdoor 10k.
He put himself up there as one of the greats in Division Three history in just this year alone.
Jacob Ridderhoff (Washington U.)
Ryan Wilson (MIT)
Tor Hotung-Davidsen (Lynchburg)
Steven Potter (UW-Oshkosh)
Steven Potter (UW-Oshkosh)
Tor Hotung-Davidsen (Lynchburg)
Garrett Lenners (Nebraska Wesleyan)
Cormac Peppard-Kramer (John Carroll)
Ethan Domitrovich (John Carroll)
Matyas Csiki-Fejer (Suffolk)
Scott Sikorski (Rochester)
Henry Pick (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps)
Tyler Morris (Colby)
Justin Krause (UW-Whitewater)