John Cusick
Dec 7, 202215 min
Written by John Cusick
Additional edits and commentary by Garrett Zatlin
NOTE: These rankings are based on how an individual fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at the NCAA XC Championships or at a singular meet. You will notice that these rankings may mirror the national meet results, but not precisely. That is intentional. These rankings are intended to be an aggregate, not a recency list.
Was not ranked in our last update.
First number indicates how much the individual has moved in the rankings.
The second number indicates where the individual was ranked in our last update.
One of the biggest surprises of the NCAA XC Championships was the success that we saw out of the Illinois-Springfield men.
Of course, that success usually needs a leader. That’s where Wyatt McIntyre comes into play. The Prairie Stars were led by McIntyre all season long and he delivered at the national meet in a career-defining performance. When it was over, the UIS veteran finished in 26th place.
McIntyre has shown flashes of being a very good runner over the course of his career. Earlier this season, he finished 4th at the Lewis Crossover and was just a few seconds behind Josh Pierantoni (TSR #11). He won the GLVC XC Championships and finished 9th at the Midwest Regional XC Championships.
McIntyre is battle-tested against some of the best in the country and performed in nearly every instance where needed to step up this season.
Andrew Amor began the season looking like one of the better dark horse picks for a top-10 finish at this year's national meet. He was runner-up to Afewerki Zeru (TSR #5) at the UCCS Rust-Buster before finishing 4th at the Missouri Southern Stampede meet.
However, after that meet, Amor picked up an injury that sidelined him for four weeks.
Keeping that in mind, his 22nd place finish at the RMAC XC Championships makes his return to competitive racing much more understandable. Two weeks later, Amor punched his ticket to the national meet with a much-improved 12th place finish at the South Central Regional XC Championships.
Amor’s season ended on an even higher note as he finished 20th at the NCAA XC Championships. That was 10 spots better than his 2021 performance which is what put him on our radar to begin with.
There’s room for an argument that Amor is a top-15 talent if he’s fully healthy for the entirety of this season. Unfortunately, that’s merely a “what if” situation and we can only analyze what’s in front of us.
That analysis is why Amor find himself at TSR #24 to end this cross country season.
The start of this 202 cross country season was not an ideal one for Harry Louradour. Luckily for him, the most important races didn’t happen until November.
Lourdaour had himself one heck of a month in November and capped it off in a big way at the national meet, all of which leads to him being ranked for the first time in his West Texas A&M career.
The French distance standout started with a win at the LSC XC Championships. Then, he finished 11th at the South Central Regional XC Championships where the 10 finishers ahead of him are all currently ranked inside the top-20 of our rankings.
He followed up that performance with an 18th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships. And you could argue that his 18th place finish was the most surprising finish of the top-half All-Americans when you weigh them against individual expectations.
Regardless of that surprise finish, Louradour proven to be one of the best postseason racers in 2022 and we can't let that go by the wayside.
We know that Rory Abberton finished 25th at the NCAA XC Championships, so moving him up three spots might feel weird. But the truth is that Abberton performed as expected while others who were previously ranked ahead of him did not find the same success.
Thus, the three-spot improvement.
Abberton may very well have deserved to be higher in our rankings before the national meet after his strong finish to the season. After a 10th place result at D2 Pre-Nationals, the Wildcat ace won the CCAA XC Championships and finished 3rd at the West Regional XC Championships.
He was the clear low-stick for a Chico State team looking to finish inside the top-five and he delivered in true Wildcat fashion.
We had Joao Pereira ranked earlier in the season and our removal of him from our top-25 was mostly due to other athletes' strong performances from across the country. But after his 21st place finish at the national meet last Friday, we can safely place Pereira back into our rankings at TSR #21.
Pereira ran well at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase, finishing in 2nd place behind Jan Lukas Becker (TSR #8). He was 3rd at the Mountain East XC Championships and then 5th at the Atlantic Regional XC Championships. And admittedly, those postseason results didn’t get us too excited.
But then Pereira proceeded to finish two spots better than he did at last year's national meet while leading Charleston (WV) to its highest finish in school history. He did all of that and was better than those who beat him at his conference and regional meets.
These two Oredigger support scorers (which is crazy to say about two top-20 names) finished less than a second apart from each other at the NCAA XC Championships, so it’s fitting that we group them together in our final rankings update.
Starting with Chris Cathcart, his 23rd place finish at the national meet isn’t what we expected. While an eight-spot drop might be a little much, there were others previously ranked behind him who performed better than he did this past Friday. That said, he still has very strong finishes of 3rd at the RMAC XC Championships and 4th at the South Central Regional XC Championships.
Meanwhile, Paul Knight finished in 24th place at the NCAA XC Championships and just capped off a sensational postseason. After behind held out of D2 Pre-Nationals, he got a chance to show off his true talent at the RMAC XC Championships where he finished 8th.
At the time, all seven athletes in front of him were ranked by TSR. Knight then got another chance to showcase his fitness at the South Central Regional XC Championships where he somehow got even better by finishing in 7th place.
Cathcart’s slide in these rankings might not indicate his true talent level, but others in this list performed up to (or better) than the expectations we had for them, making it hard to place them behind him.
Knight, meanwhile, gets the nod in our rankings for the first time after consistently performing in high-leverage situations.
As the season ends, both athletes have surpassed preseason expectations, all while gaining greater expectations in the process. For now, they’re both top-20 athletes with all of the promise in the world going into the indoor and outdoor track seasons.
We’ll be honest, we probably put too much (negative) emphasis on Clayton Sayen’s 11th place finish at the Midwest Regional XC Championships.
After this 16th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships, we can confidently say that he belongs in our rankings. If you throw out that regional race, he never finished worse than 6th place before the national meet. He was 5th at the GLIAC XC Championships and all of the men who finished in front of him then were inside the top-14 this past Friday.
Sayen avenged his regional meet showing and earned his best-ever finish at the national meet. He’s been one of the, if not the, biggest reasons for the Huskies' success this fall and he’ll be sorely missed after this year.
Matthew Storer toed the line for three races this season, although you could say four meets if you count the CU Time Trial. Compared to a few others in these rankings, that's not much data to work with during such a long season, especially in a Festival Year.
Storer was 9th at the Lewis Crossover meet earlier in the season, but that result didn’t get us too excited. However, he then finished 6th at the South Central Regional XC Championships and that result definitely caught our attention.
But what we saw from this Cougar redshirt rookie at the national meet is what truly validated his overall resume and allowed him to earn this spot in our rankings.
Storer crossed the line in 17th place at the NCAA XC Championships and was Colorado Christian’s second scorer, aiding in their 3rd place team finish. Despite his limited number of races, this is someone who has been recognized as one of the top budding talents in Division Two during his short time wearing a Cougars' singlet.
His success as a redshirt freshman has us excited to see where Storer is headed in the coming years.
It was a tough day for Gidieon Kimutai at the NCAA XC Championships.
Kimutai's streak of top-five finishes at the national meet was snapped last Friday as he finished in 82nd place overall. That’s certainly not an accurate indication of his talent level as it's more of a mere blemish on his otherwise strong resume.
This season, the Missouri Southern star posted strong finishes of 7th place at the Chile Pepper XC Festival, 1st at the MIAA XC Championships and 1st at the Central Regional XC Championships.
Given his history of racing in the postseason, we can soundly say that this latest result was just an anomaly for this D2 veteran.
Charlie Dannatt has swiftly moved his way into the top-20 of our rankings and he’ll be moving up two spots in our final list after his huge 15th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
This Simon Fraser talent bolstered his resume with a 7th place finish at D2 Pre-Nationals behind multiple top-ranked runners. After that, he finished 2nd at the GNAC XC Championships before winning the West regional title.
Things were pointing toward a successful national meet and that’s what we got out of Dannatt. His season finale was the best individual cross country national meet performance in Simon Fraser's history and quite the statement from Dannatt who many originally thought was just a middle distance star.
In September, we had concerns about Caleb Futter.
But now it's December and those concerns are no longer valid.
All that’s left to say is that we are impressed.
Futter, who finished 14th at the NCAA XC Championships last Friday, made a 32-spot jump from his 46th place national meet finish in 2021. That result came on the heels of back-to-back 3rd place finishes at his conference and regional meets.
Futter may have faltered earlier in the season, but he has answered the call every time since then. He became one of the most important second scorers in the country during the postseason and suddenly went from inconsistent to incredibly reliable when it mattered.
When paired with teammate Tanner Chada, he gave the GVSU men the second-best duo at the national meet behind only Colorado Mines.
We knew that the talent level was there for Futter to be one of the best cross country runners in the country. And luckily for him, us and GVSU, he proved that in 2022.
Luke Julian and Simon Kelati have raced each other four times this season. They’re currently tied at two wins a piece in a back-and-forth manner, making it hard for us to rank them properly.
At the D2 Pre-Nationals meet, Julian finished 5th and Kelati finished 6th. At the RMAC XC Championships, Kelati finished 6th while Julian finished 9th. Two weeks later at the South Central regional meet, Julian finished 5th while Kelati finished 10th. Then, at the national meet, Kelati finished 12th and Julian finished 13th.
Julian sliding into TSR #13 feels like the right spot for him to end this 2022 season. It’s convenient that it’s the same spot where he actually finished at the national meet, but it also feels indicative of where he was in the landscape of cross country runners throughout this fall.
As for Kelati, we’d love to move him higher than TSR #12, but moving forward in our rankings this late in the season is a very good thing. He was Western Colorado’s most important runner all season long and he delivered each time out. That ultimately gives him the edge.
I’ll admit, when the season began, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of Ransom Allen.
But since then, Allen has finished inside the top-nine of all of his races. He was runner-up to Afewerki Zeru (TSR #5) at the Lucian Rosa Invitational, was 4th at the GLIAC XC Championships and then 6th at the Midwest Regional XC Championships.
Allen finished his 2022 campaign with a 9th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships, bettering his 2021 performance by 16 spots. He’s now accounted for the best individual finish in school history and has cemented his name inside the conversation of top talents in Division Two.
Allen has toed the line against some of the best men in D2 and has delivered in two-straight seasons on the grass. We think that we will see this breakout continue on the track as he continues to make a name for himself.
We’re not trying to beat a dead horse, but ranking these two men was incredibly difficult.
On one hand, Josh Pierantoni finished 3rd at the South Central regional meet while Loic Scomparin faded to 13th place. On the other hand, Scomparin just defeated Pierantoni at the always more important national meet, finishing in 10th place to the latter’s 11th place result.
To make ranking matters even more challenging, Pierantoni finished 3rd at the Lewis Crossover behind only Dayton Brown (TSR #7) and teammate Trent Cochran.
Scomparin has a 2nd place finish on his resume stemming from the D2 Pre-Nationals meet, finishing behind teammate Dillon Powell (TSR #1).
Head-to-head battles matter in our assessment and as of right now, we lean toward Pierantoni over Scomparin. Whether you agree is for you to determine, but remember, we’re splitting hairs with two very strong resumes after nearly four months of competition.
The old saying goes something like "Death, taxes and Jan Lukas Becker finishing in the top-10 of the national meet," right?
Even since Becker joined the ranks of Division Two in 2021, he’s never finished worse than 10th place on the national stage. His consistency is something to be desired by his opponents and it makes him one of the best runners in the country.
He was the Gulf South champion and is now a back-to-back regional champion after winning the Southeast regional title in 2021 and the South regional title in 2022. He also improved two spots (placing 8th) from last year’s national meet, where he finished 10th for Queens (NC).
Becker belongs in the discussion of D2 elites based on his resume before Mississippi College. If there were any doubts left, he squashed those this past Friday.
Remember when we thought Dayton Brown’s stock couldn’t get any higher? Well, that was probably premature given that Brown finished 7th at the NCAA XC Championships.
That result caps off an excellent return campaign for the Saginaw Valley State veteran. His rocky start at the MSU Spartan Invitational is now an afterthought after notching four top-10 performances in 2022. His win at the Lewis Crossover over Josh Pierantoni in particular was a quick reminder of how good Brown really is.
The SVSU ace finished 2nd at the GLIAC XC Championships and then 5th at the Midwest Regional XC Championships. And now, he adds a 7th place national meet finish to his resume, making him worthy of a three-spot jump in our final rankings.
Brown has shown a tremendous leap in fitness since the last time we saw him on the grass. He was 32nd back in 2019, but we knew he would be better than that in 2022. Heading into this season, he was on the cusp of being mentioned among the elites after his strong winter and spring seasons on the track.
And now, he is no longer on the cusp.
Instead, he’s fully entrenched at the top of the Division Two ranks.
While the weather may have negatively impacted others, Cole Nash enjoyed racing across snow-laden ground this past Friday. Nash finished in 6th place overall at the NCAA XC Championships as he continued his incredibly strong 2022 fall campaign.
Nash is now a two-time All-American in as many chances at the national meet. He’s quickly become one of the best talents in Division Two and he doesn’t appear to be stopping any time soon. He finished 2nd at the WWU Bill Roe Invitational (emerging as the first collegiate) and was then 4th at the D2 Pre-Nationals meet behind three Colorado Mines athletes.
The Alaska Anchorage runner later won the GNAC XC Championships before finishing runner-up to Charlie Dannatt at the West Regional XC Championships. Of course, Nash got the last laugh at the national meet as he rolled to a top-10 finish.
Make no mistake, after this performance, Nash will be among the nation’s best for the rest of his Seawolf career. The only question is, how high will his ceiling be?
Afewerki Zeru moves back two spots in our final rankings update. This is by no means because of a "bad" performance by him (which he didn't have), but simply because there were stronger results from other athletes.
Zeru improved upon his 15th place finish from last year’s national meet, so a 10-spot improvement this year allows us to call this season a success. And after all, the Mountain Lion ace was tasked with trying to knock off Dillon Powell and that’s no easy task.
For the second-straight season, Zeru won the Lucian Rosa Invitational and finished as the runner-up at the RMAC XC Championships and South Central Regional XC Championships. He’s been a consistent racer for two seasons now and is continuing to get better.
We think that Zeru is one of the best tacticians in Division Two and he shows that each time he steps on a starting line.
Zach Kreft’s season has slowly been building to this 4th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
Kreft won the All-Ohio XC Championships with ease and he later followed that up with an impressive 8th place finish at the Lehigh Paul Short Run from the “Gold” section. He then rattled off wins at the Go Fast River Run meet, the G-MAC XC Championships and then the Midwest Regional XC Championships.
The biggest of those three victories was winning the Midwest regional title. He outran Tanner Chada (TSR #2) in the race's final stages, giving him a massive confidence boost heading into the national meet.
That newfound momentum led to him finishing inside the top-five at the national meet. In the process, he added his name to the list of talents at the very top of Division Two. We’re guessing this won’t be the last time we see Kreft’s name on a national stage, either.
And when we see his name again, we’ll wonder what his chances are to win a national title and not just if he can finish inside the top-five.
Duncan Fuehne moves up three spots in our final rankings after his 3rd place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
Earlier this season, Fuehne recorded a 3rd place finish at the D2 Pre-Nationals meet and then a 5th place finish at the RMAC XC Championships. Those were very solid results, but they didn't necessarily suggest that he was going to earn individual bronze on the national stage.
Fuehne skipped the South Central regional meet, but didn’t miss a beat upon his return. After recording a DNF at last year’s national meet, the Oredigger harrier returned with a vengeance. He was only one second behind Tanner Chada (TSR #2) for the silver medal and was a huge reason why Colorado Mines ran away with the national title without much of an issue.
We knew that Fuehne was one of the best runners in the country going into last Friday, but a 3rd place finish puts him in a different tier altogether. As we head into the indoor season, it will be interesting to see how he stacks up to his opponents in the shorter distances.
The Lakers’ star low-stick ends this season at our TSR #2 spot after his second-consecutive runner-up finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
Tanner Chada won the MSU Spartan Invitational, the Louisville Classic and the GLIAC XC Championships. He then finished in 2nd place at the Midwest Regional XC Championships, but he wasn’t affected by that result at the national meet.
It's clear that this GVSU icon knew what his game plan needed to be in order to knock off Dillon Powell and at the very least, he executed as best he could. Chada made a move in the latter-half of the race to try and catch Powell, but he couldn’t replicate last year’s comeback.
Chada was (unsurprisingly) an elite low-stick this season and was the main challenger to usurp Powell at the national meet. While those efforts came up short, Chada’s season should be viewed as a successful one.
Dillon Powell ended his season just as he began it.
Listed at TSR #1.
Powell came into the season as our preseason individual national title favorite and ended the fall campaign on top. And it’s not by just a slim margin.
This Colorado Mines megastar was dominant in every fashion of the word throughout this year. His cumulative margin of victory this fall was a staggering 1:35. That includes two victories over Aferwerki Zeru (TSR #5) by a combined 1:04 and then a 19-second victory at the national meet over Tanner Chada (TSR #2).
The manner in which Powell went about the national race tells us that he learned from last year’s mistake. He bided his tame, made his move and never looked back.
The Orediggers’ superstar solidified himself as the best distance talent in the country this season and there’s plenty more for him to achieve on the track.
Wyatt McIntyre (Illinois-Springfield)
Joao Pereira (Charleston (WV))
Clayton Sayen (Michigan Tech)
Paul Knight (Colorado Mines)
Andrew Amor (New Mexico Highlands)
Harry Louradour (West Texas A&M)
Andrew Hylen (Grand Valley State)
Isaac Prather (Concord)
Awet Beraki (Adams State)
Cameron Allan (Adams State)
Joshua Chepkesir (UNC Pembroke)
Ryan Riddle (Missouri Southern)
Ryan Hartman (Augustana)
Scott Nutter (Wingate)
Cas Kopmels (Wingate)
Pierre Galbourdin (Wingate)
Paul Kraemer (Embry-Riddle)
Matthew Oglesby (Pittsburg State)
Thomas Termote (Charleston (WV))
Trent Cochran (Colorado Christian)
Oliver Way (Wingate)
Drew Kolodge (Michigan Tech)
Emeric Arnaud (Davis & Elkins)
Luke Stuckey (Nebraska-Kearney)
Evan Leist (Cedarville)
Nathan Moore (Walsh)
Ryan Riddle (Missouri Southern)
Steven Goldy (Colorado Mines)
Brock Wooderson (Grand Valley State)
Isaac Prather (Concord)
Bryan Banuelos (Fresno Pacific)
Nixon Korir (Azusa Pacific)
Joseph Leventry (Montevallo)
Donald Kibet (Benedict)
Ricardo Vargas (Cal Poly Pomona)
Michael Zapherson (Alaska Anchorage)
Benjamin White (Biola)
Sam Wilhelm (Alabama-Huntsville)
Jack Emanuel (Chico State)
Diego Contreras (Pittsburg State)
Will Stone (Lee (TN))
Sebastian Brinkman (Simon Fraser)
Noah McIntyre (Illinois-Springfield)
Jacob Hernandez (Western Colorado)
Matt Steiger (Augustana)
Cameron Duquette (Chico State)
JP Rutledge (Missouri Southern)
Alejandro Abellanda (Charleston (WV))
Samuel Lange (Michigan Tech)
Awet Beraki (Adams State)
Cameron Allan (Adams State)