TSR's 2022 Preseason D2 XC Top 10 Rankings (Men): Just Missed & Honorable Mentions

NOTE: Earlier this summer, The Stride Report reached out to nearly every team that was considered for a possible ranking this summer. While we did receive numerous responses and great clarity, we did not get a 100% response rate. On rare occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.

The Cal Poly Pomona men are a team that is going to be much improved in 2022.

After taking a look at their roster, they’ll be returning all seven of their athletes who competed at the NCAA XC Championships last year -- a development that is enough for us to place them in our "Just Missed" section.

Last fall, the Broncos finished 3rd at the West Regional XC Championships and that came on the heels of a 2nd place showing at the CCAA XC Championships. Both of those results were much-improved efforts compared to what this team produced at the Cougar Challenge where they placed 6th as a team.

With Diego Duran and Vincent Sarino returning as their effective front-runners, the Broncos also added Ricardo Vargas to the mix. Vargas, who most recently finished 5th at the U20 World Championships in the 5k (14:22), should prove to have an immediate impact this fall.

When you factor-in the rest of their returners, we are looking at a team that could have eight or nine athletes capable of being part of their varsity seven by the end of the season.

The only thing holding this team back in our rankings is the lack of a true national-caliber low-stick. This is a program that will likely live and die by how well they pack together. If they hit all of the right buttons on the same day, then there is no doubt in our minds that they are dramatically better than 30th in the country (which is where they finished at last year's national meet).

We’ll need to see the improvement before we truly believe that this team can take another step forward. Still, with the amount of talented youth that is on this roster, things can only go upwards in 2022 for the Cal Poly Pomona men.

The amount of times that we went back and forth with this Azusa Pacific team is more than we’d like to admit.

But when it came down to it, we left them out of our top-10 because, much like Cal Poly Pomona, there are questions about who will take on the task of being the team's newest low-stick after the graduation of Joshua Velasco.

All signs point to Nixon Korir being that guy after his successful 2021-2022 campaign. He was 20th at last year’s West Regional XC Championships while helping his team to a 4th place finish. Another step forward in his fitness should mean that he'll be his team's top option in 2022.

The Cougars have also added Felix Perrier (8:54 in the steeplechase) and former highly-touted athlete Salvador Capetillo (14:16 for 5000 meters) to their roster in 2022. Both men have the potential to make an immediate impact within this scoring roster.

In our eyes, Capetillo is the man who could really put this team over the top. If he is anything close to what we saw from him during his time at Mt. SAC, then the Cougars might have a pretty potent 1-2 scoring punch on their hands.

This is a team that returns six of their seven scorers from last year’s lineup. And like we said earlier, they were 4th at the West Regional XC Championships, but just a single point behind Cal Poly Pomona and 30 points behind Fresno Pacific in that race.

The loss of Velasco will certainly hurt, but there’s a good argument that this team is now the second-best team in their region. Improvement from their returners and some high-potential additions tells us that this group can be significantly better than they were during the 2021 cross country season.

Now, we just have to see them deliver on that potential.

The Walsh men will return one of the country's youngest teams, which could spell a problem for the rest of the country over the next few years of competition.

However, we’re talking about the 2022 season and we’d be remiss to not talk about the Cavaliers, especially since their newest low-stick star isn't necessarily a youngster, but rather an experienced veteran who we'll get to in a moment.

Yes, this team does lose last year’s 44th place national meet finisher in Hunter Moore. That is a tough blow to such a young team, but that departure is still something that they can overcome.

Nathan Moore, Drew Monahan, Xavier Foehl, Zach Beneteau, Drew Roberts and Mitchell Dunham are all going to return to this program in 2022. Of those six men, five of them were freshmen last year, making what they did throughout last fall so much more impressive.

Last fall, the Cavaliers were 5th at the always-competitive Lewis XC Crossover meet before running away with the GMAC XC Championship title, scoring just 30 points in the process. And while that was impressive, their best race of the season came at the Midwest Regional XC Championships where they finished 3rd.

Walsh would go on to finish 18th at the NCAA XC Championships last year in what could be considered a slightly underwhelming result. Outside of Moore, no one had a particularly good day, although that was almost expected.

After all, with youth comes learning experiences. This was one of them.

However, maybe the biggest reason why we believe that this Walsh team has top-10 potential is because of their newest addition, Zach Kreft.

The incoming veteran has transferred to Walsh from Notre Dame as he pursues a graduate degree. He’ll be an immediate impact name given his experience at the D1 level. And when you factor in that he's 14:04 (5k) runner as well as an 8:53 steeplechaser, then you’ve got the perfect replacement for Hunter Moore as the team's next low-stick.

If Kreft is able to replicate what Moore did throughout last fall, then this Walsh team could easily make the jump into our top-10.

Ranking the Lewis men in our ‘“Just Missed” section feels much worse than it might actually look.

This is a Lewis team that was impressive throughout the 2021 season and it’s hard to look past that. A 2nd place finish at the Lewis XC Crossover, a 2nd place finish at the Midwest Regional XC Championships and then a 9th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships is a VERY strong season.

However, the problem at hand is that the Flyers lost their top scorer from the national meet Garrett White as well as their fourth and fifth scorers in Dustin Macuiba and Zach Fresenko. Those are going to be brutal losses to overcome in the 2022 season.

That being said, not all is lost for the Flyers this fall. Returning are Daniel Arimi and Anthony Farmer, both of whom have shown considerable improvement over the last few seasons and are both capable of leading this team on any given race day.

The biggest question for Coach James Kearney and his team is how the rest of his returners will perform this fall.

Jacob Hinchley will return for his junior season and he brings some national experience with him. No longer an underclassman by eligibility, he could be due for significant improvements.

Loras transfer Evan Jamrozy also brings some national meet experience with him from the D3 level. He’s run 14:45 for 5000 meters and 8:33 for 3000 meters. Despite having limited success on the grass, he has the necessary experience to be a productive member of this team.

The margin of error for Lewis in 2022 is going to be incredibly small. The Flyers will need to be sharp all season long. But if they are able to consistently deliver their best performances, then we could very well see them inside the top-10 of the national meet once again.

There is a ton to like about this Wayne State team going into the 2022 season.

The Warriors are going to return all seven of their athletes from the national meet last year. There, they finished 16th as a team and showed some flashes of being nationally competitive.

Ransom Allen and Zac Truman will both be back this fall and both men have the potential to be one of the better 1-2 punches in Division Two this season. Behind them, returner Elijah Decerbo finished 61st at the 2021 national meet as just a freshman.

With some improvements, that trio could be a very respectable top-three for the Warriors and one of the best collections of front-runners in the NCAA.

The Warriors will also be adding Antonio Chapa from Purdue Northwest and Jack Wilson from Butler as reinforcements for the fall of 2022. Both men will provide some much-needed depth which theoretically offers some scoring cushion if necessary.

However, we do have a reservation about how this team performs on a race-to-race basis.

Their results, on paper, have been promising. A win at the Roy Griak Invitational looked and a strong 4th place finish at the Lewis Crossover also looked good.
 

But then it gets a little weird.

Wayne State finished 3rd place at the GLIAC XC Championships last fall, but that finish was behind a Michigan Tech team that they had previously beaten twice that year. The Warrior went on to finish 7th at the Midwest Regional XC Championships, grabbing the last national qualifying bid in the process.

Those conference and regional showings were admittedly a pair of head-scratching results given how their regular season went. And like we mentioned earlier, Wayne State went on to finish their season at the NCAA XC Championships with a 16th place finish.

This is/was not a young team by any means, but their lack of championship experience may have hurt them last year. This is all to say that we like Wayne State much more in 2022 given their returners, new additions and national meet experience.

But before we can place them inside our top-10, we need to see them perform far more consistently in the postseason.