TSR Collaboration
Nov 27, 202212 min
Written by John Cusick
Additional edits and commentary by Garrett Zatlin
NOTE: These rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at the NCAA XC Championships.
Was not ranked in our last update.
First number indicates how much the team has moved in the rankings.
The second number indicates where the team was ranked in our last update.
If we didn’t fully hit the panic button during the last time that we updated our team rankings, then we are doing so this time while looking at this Augustana team moving forward.
We rang the alarm bells after the Vikings (with a limited lineup) had been beaten at the Platte River Rumble by fellow regional foes Nebraska-Kearney. But then they bounced back at the NSIC XC Championships with a dominant performance, calming any concerns we had.
Although, then again, the NSIC isn't exactly like the RMAC, and while their victory was nice, it was expected from an experienced team.
However, Augustana didn’t look like the veteran-savvy team that we expected to see at the Central Regional XC Championships. The Vikings finished in 3rd place as a team and were 25 points behind the 2nd place Lopers and 27 points behind the winners, Missouri Southern.
Matt Steiger remains as the bright spot for this team as he finished in 8th place overall with teammate Ryan Hartman right behind him in 9th place. While two top-10 finishes are good, that was not enough to match other teams’ scoring duos who were simply better than that.
It was nice to see Colten Brand finish 12th and emerge as the third scorer for Augustana. His finish put this team in a very good spot to repeat as team champions.
However, what really hindered the Vikings were their fourth and fifth scorers. Jesse Kaas finished 30th and Henry Klitzke finished 42nd. Those results simply won't cut it if this team wants to be competitive on the national stage.
This squad is extremely talented and they should be led by their young superstar, Ryan Hartman. Unfortunately, he has not looked like he did during last year’s fall campaign. Steiger is a strong top option, but he’s not near where Hartman's level was during the 2021 season.
While having a low-stick isn’t required to be successful, it certainly helps alleviate some of the pressure when the backend of the lineup doesn’t perform. And so far this season, that’s been the challenge for Augustana. They haven’t put together a race where everyone in their scoring lineup runs up to their full potential.
The Vikings have one last chance to redeem themselves on Friday, but the leash is growing shorter and another poor showing might oust this team from our rankings, altogether.
Missouri Southern is another team that hasn’t been as good as we initially advertised.
It does feel weird moving this team backward a spot after they took home the team title at the Central Regional XC Championships, but it feels a little bit better after seeing that they only held off Nebraska-Kearney by two points.
Even so, there are some valid concerns about their scoring lineup right now.
Their dynamic preseason trio has essentially turned into a duo as the fall has gone on. Gidieon Kimutai has been excellent (as expected) and Ryan Riddle, while not perfect, has at least delivered on most of our expectations.
Where this team gets hit hard is from their third scorer down to the rest of their varsity lineup.
JP Rutledge is currently working through a sophomore slump and his return to form would be greatly appreciated by the Lions. He most recently finished 9th at the Central regional meet while Kimutai (1st) and Riddle (4th) both finished inside the top-five.
That's not terrible, but he's clearly been one step down from where we expected him to be.
Meanwhile, Riley Simpson has been a really strong fourth option for Missouri Southern this season. His 15th place finish at their regional meet was strong, but was actually worse than where he finished last season when he was the third scorer for this team.
After Simpson, it gets a bit tricky as to what we should expect from their fifth scorer. In competitive meets this season, the Lions' fifth scorer for this team has finished 75th (Chile Pepper), 14th (DBU Old Glory Gallup), 17th (MIAAs) and now 41st (Central Regional).
Despite having some of the best firepower in the country, that largely won’t matter if this team can’t shore up the struggles of their backend scorers. There is still time to make some noise this weekend, but anything outside a top-10 finish on Friday might be considered an unsuccessful season.
Okay, hang tight with us on this one. This is by far the toughest team ranking that we have ever had to make, and that might go for the entirety of TSR, not just Division Two.
On paper, the Adams State men are a top-two team in the country.
They first flashed their talent this season at the Highlander Invitational where we saw them take home the team title by nearly 100 points.
However, that race was difficult to gauge and although that result was impressive, we could have never predicted what transpired over the next six weeks.
The next time that we saw the Grizzlies run their top lineup was at the RMAC XC Championships. The result? A runner-up finish with 46 total team points and 20 points back of Colorado Mines. Naturally, two weeks later, we all thought that we’d see the same kind of result at the South Central Regional XC Championships.
Unfortunately, that was not the case.
The Grizzlies had an all-time surprise performance at the South Central Regional XC Championships, finishing as the 7th place team in their region. Their top runner (Cameron Allan) didn’t cross the line until 25th place and their fifth scorer finished in 60th place overall.
Shocking. Flat-out shocking.
A byproduct of their 7th place result marked the end of a 25-year streak of Adams State qualifying for the NCAA XC Championships. The last time the Grizzlies missed a national meet was all the way back in 1995.
We have elected to keep Adams State in our rankings as of right now because of their small, but still wildly successful, seasonal resume. Yes, the win at the Highlander Invitational isn’t all that impressive, but they defeated Azusa Pacific by 99 points in that race and that same APU team finished 3rd at the West Regional XC Championships.
Then, as we mentioned earlier, the Grizzlies finished as the runner-up team to the Orediggers in the toughest conference in D2 -- and we were actually encouraged by that result, especially given that they didn’t get the best day from some of their top runners.
But their 7th place finish the other weekend was flat-out bad and they’d likely be the first ones to admit it. The Grizzlies will stick around in our TSR #8 spot right now, but without a chance to prove if they’re better than the rest of the country, we’ll have to see how the national meet pans out and adjust our rankings accordingly.
Western Colorado walked away from the South Central Regional XC Championships with a strong, albeit quiet, 3rd place team finish. There was nothing fancy about that result as it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from the Mountaineers after covering them throughout the years.
Simon Kelati worked his way to a 10th place finish and was the top scorer for the Mountaineers. After Kelati, it was five more Mountaineers finishing between 20th and 27th place overall. Jacob Hernandez finished 20th, Albert Hesse finished 23rd, Michael Grabowski finished 24th, William Johnson was 26th and Juan Diaz was 28th. We then saw Sean McCauley emerge as the final Mountaineer in 42nd place.
The time-spread for their five scorers was 53 seconds and if you remove Kelati from the results, then their second through fifth scorers were separated by just 16 seconds.
This is quietly a very impressive performance from this Western Colorado team. There was some uncertainty about them after their two dual meets at the beginning of the season, but then things began to click after the D2 Pre-Nationals meet.
They parlayed that result into a 3rd place finish at the RMAC XC Championships and then another bronze medal performance at the South Central Regional XC Championships.
If Kelati continues his strong running and the backend does their job in terms of pack racing, then it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this team exceed their TSR #7 ranking on Friday.
After a narrow escape at the GSC XC Championships, the Lee (TN) men showcased their strength as a team once again as they reclaimed the South Regional XC Championship title.
The Flames placed five athletes inside the top-13 and seven athletes inside the top-20 en route to scoring 41 total team points. That was 27 points better than Mississippi College despite the Choctaws having the individual winner and their second scorer finishing in 6th place overall.
Will Stone led the Flames in a 3rd place effort while Aaron Himes (8th) and Silas Eckenroad (9th) were the other two athletes inside the top-10 for Lee. Matthew Fowler finished in 12th place overall and Hayden Judge was right behind him in 13th place overall.
In the four competitive races that the Flames have toed the line for this fall, (Louisville Classic, UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase, GSC XC Championships, South Regional XC Championships) they’ve been led by a different athlete each time.
At Louisville, it was Eckenroad. At UAH, it was Hayden Judge. At GSCs, it was Himes. And now, at the South regional meet, it was Stone.
What I am trying to say is that this team is unpredictable when it comes to predicting their top runner. And while that does make it harder for us to predict how high this team’s ceiling is, it still gives us the impression that their floor is very high.
The time-spread between their first five scorers the other weekend was just 34 seconds. If you extend that out to their seventh runner, then it was 47 seconds. In order for this team to finish as high as they’re capable of, they’ll need a couple of All-Americans while maintaining that kind of aforementioned time-spread.
Obviously, that is easier said than done, but the revolving door around their top scorers this season leads us to believe that someone within that top-seven will have a good day. With the ability to buffer backend discrepancies, this team seems set up for success this Friday.
Part of Chico State’s history is their continued consistency.
During their 2022 campaign, that consistency is still imminent as the Wildcats won their sixth-straight West Regional XC Championship title. This is on the back of them winning their 20th-straight CCAA XC Championship, so the vibes in Chico, California are very good right now.
The Wildcats walked away with 48 total team points the other weekend, putting 34 points between them and Western Washington, a team that emerged as the runner-up finishers.
Rory Abberton finished 3rd overall and led the Wildcats for the third-straight time, all while earning his third-straight top-10 finish this season. His emergence this season has helped combat the (minor) up and down results that we've seen from some of the Wildcats' top talents this fall.
Jack Emanuel (8th) and Omar Alvarez-Hernandez (10th) were the other two men inside the top-10 while Brayden McLaughlin (13th) and Daniel Hernandez (17th) were the final two scorers for Chico State.
This is the same top-five that led the Wildcats to their conference title and we should expect to see them all on the starting line on Friday. And if we're honest, the Wildcats’ potential feels a bit capped after seeing the entirety of their results all season long. The lack of an elite low-stick will make their efforts on the national stage largely depth-based.
Abberton has been a good low-stick fill-in the last three times out, but we were fully expecting to see Emanuel or McLaughlin lead this team throughout this season. If the lineup does indeed switch to one of those two men as their lead low-stick, then Chico State is a top-five team.
Heck, even if Abberton leads this team, they’re still capable of being in the top-five!
Wingate has shown flashes of exciting firepower and depth throughout the season and we finally got to see them perform when the stakes were at their highest the other weekend.
To keep it short and sweet: The Wingate men passed every test that we had for them with flying colors. The Bulldogs went 2-3-4-6-11 at the Southeast Regional XC Championships to score 26 total team points and defeat Augusta by 32 points. The results pretty much speak for themselves.
Oliver Way (2nd), Souheil Boufrizi (3rd) and Saul Valdez (4th) all finished with the same time of 31:24. Pierre Galbroudin was only six seconds back (31:30) and Bastian Mrochen (11th) was 11 seconds back of Galbourdin (31:41).
Their time-spread? 15 seconds.
Okay, okay. We won’t get ahead of ourselves. While this was a championship setting, the Southeast region doesn’t exactly boast the best competition in the country.
Well...outside of Wingate, that is.
This was largely the same feeling that we had about Wingate last year and they walked away with a 6th place finish at the 2021 NCAA XC Championships.
It’s worth noting that neither Cas Kopmels nor Scott Nutter raced for this team at the regional meet. Nutter was the team's second scorer at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase when he finished 5th overall. Meanwhile, Kopmels was their fourth scorer at that time.
This team didn’t show all of their cards at the Southeast Regional XC Championships which is why we will leave them here at TSR #4 going into the national meet.
Who says you need race experience to be competitive?
We held Colorado Christian in our rankings throughout the season for this reason. Despite only showing us their full varsity lineup one time before their regional meet, the Cougars have put themselves in a position to be a top team at the NCAA XC Championships -- and that is all that matters at the end of the day.
Josh Pierantoni finished in 3rd place at the South Central Regional XC Championships with teammate Matthew Storer three spots behind him in 6th place. Those are incredibly strong finishes from athletes who had only raced one 8k before the regional meet.
Of course, it wasn’t just them, though. Alexander Vance (15th), Trent Cochran (17th) and Isaac Russo (18th) all finished within eight seconds of each other, making it five Cougars inside the top-20.
Let’s put that team effort into perspective real quick.
CCU had five athletes across the line before the 3rd place team, Western Colorado, had two men finish the race. The Cougars also had five athletes cross the line before the 4th place team, UC-Colorado Springs, had three men finish. And they had all five scorers finish the race before CSU-Pueblo or Adams State could put their top runner across the finish line.
The Cougars walked away with 59 team points, only behind Colorado Mines’ 25-point score. They were 44 points better than Western Colorado and 67 points better than UC-Colorado Springs.
Simply put: They’re really good.
Yes, we can maybe put an asterisk next to this result given how Adams State performed, but we can also ask the question if the team standings would have been different if the Grizzlies had performed up to their full potential.
And the answer to that question will remain unknown forever. I’d argue that the Cougars would have given the Grizzlies a run for their money.
In this update, Grand Valley State has moved up, simply because they took care of business as expected at the Midwest Regional XC Championships...and because one of our top teams faltered at their regional meet.
The Lakers took home the Midwest regional title with a total score of 58 team points. They placed their five scorers inside the top-20 and ran away with the team title by 55 points.
Tanner Chada and Caleb Futter finished 2nd and 3rd overall, respectively, and were the two Lakers who finished inside the top-10. The other three scorers, Samuel Martens (14th), Brock Wooderson (19th) and Daniel Lambert (20th) were all inside the top-20, making it five Grand Valley State athletes across the finish line before any other team had four men finish.
The most notable thing here is that Andrew Hylen and Koby Fraaza were missing from this race. We expected both men to run at the NCAA XC Championships this weekend and they brought the Lakers to a whole new level when it comes to scoring potency.
Instead of their final two scorers finishing 19th and 20th, we could expect Hylen and Fraaza to be in the top-10 of this region, dramatically changing the Lakers' team scoring.
We’re still not sure if they have the ability to keep pace with Colorado Mines on the frontend, but the Lakers have shown us that they’re consistent and that they will likely be the second-best team in Division Two after Friday’s race.
What Colorado Mines accomplished at the South Central XC Championships is absolutely phenomenal.
The Orediggers placed six athletes inside the top-10 en route to a dismantling of the rest of the region with 25 total team points. That was 34 points better than the runner-up team, Colorado Christian, who deployed their top lineup in an effort to dethrone the Orediggers.
Dillon Powell won the individual title for the second-straight year. He also put 45 seconds between him and Afewerki Zeru, who finished runner-up to Powell for the second-straight time.
Chris Cathcart finished 4th, Luke Julian finished 5th, Paul Knight was 7th and Steven Goldy was 8th to give Colorado Mines just 25 points. And for good measure, John O’Malley was 9th and Loic Scomparin was 13th.
And that was all done without Duncan Fuehne being in this lineup!
The South Central region is arguably one of, if not, the deepest regions in the country. For the Orediggers to make easy work of the rest of the field speaks to their level of talent.
Their firepower is the best in the country and if one of those athletes is having an “off” day, then it’s been proven that their depth is more than capable of filling those scoring roles.
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Western Washington Vikings
Mississippi College Choctaws
Walsh Cavaliers
Nebraska-Kearney Lopers
UC-Colorado Springs Mountain Lions
Saginaw Valley State Cardinals
Charleston (WV) Golden Eagles
Pittsburg State Gorillas
Michigan Tech Huskies
Azusa Pacific Cougars