Brett Haffner
Sep 15, 20227 min
Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin
Having five All-Americans at the NCAA XC Championships is more often than not a great indicator of a team that would vie for a national title.
However, in a year where the most talented individuals in Division Three were also on the most talented teams, the MIT Engineers found themselves as the runner-up finishers at the 2021 cross country national meet — a new program best.
In 2022, the men from Cambridge, Massachusetts will regroup, boasting a similar level of overwhelming firepower that they had last fall while making one more run at a national title against another team that is looking to establish their status as a modern-day dynasty.
Kicking-off their 2021 cross country racing season in late September, the MIT men finished a nail-biting three points behind the Williams men at the Purple Valley XC Invite, a relatively small field considering the level or competition.
In that race, superstar low-sticks Matthew Kearney and Andrew Mah finished in 2nd and 3rd, respectively, sandwiched between Williams runners Elias Lindgren and Aidan Ryan.
Sam Acquaviva was a mere half-second behind Ryan, placing 6th overall and giving the Engineers the clear scoring edge through three runners. But even with Ryan Wilson (10th) and Vedang Lad (12th) holding their own, the Ephs were the team that held better depth, something which resulted in a three-point difference.
While their times times were nothing crazy fast, it was clear that the MIT were going to give the Williams men a run for their money throughout the 2021 cross country season in terms of being the premiere cross country team out east.
With their team’s top-five time-spread sitting at only 30 seconds, the Engineers' greatest strength would arguably be racing as a pack. In a smaller meet like the Purple Valley Invite, that pack might not have been as potent against a similarly-talented team like Williams.
At the Louisville XC Classic, against 41 other Division Three teams, a handful of which were nationally ranked, the Engineers scored a whopping 46 points in the "Silver" race.
The MIT men absolutely obliterated national-caliber programs such as Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Emory and UW-La Crosse by hefty margins, sporting an unreal combination of firepower and depth through their entire top-seven.
Their main pack, led by Andrew Mah, went 5-8-9-11-13 with a slim 20-second time-spread separating their top-five. That was an extremely impressive scoring development, one that forced many of us to question how realistic it would be for the Engineers to win a national title come November.
That dominant scoring-five didn’t even include sixth and seventh runners, Lowell Hensgen and Ryan Wilson, who were just eight and 10 seconds, respectively, behind that pack, bringing seven men under 25:00 on the blazing-fast Louisville course.
That race had made one thing clear: MIT had truly arrived as a national threat.
Once again, at the Connecticut College Invitational, the Engineers toed the line for a team battle against Williams. And the results? Well, more of the same.
It was once again Williams’ low-stick scoring potency that carried them to a team title with MIT’s high-octane top-five putting them just short of the win.
Sam Acquaviva was becoming very good at leading the charge for the Engineers, taking 4th overall behind Elias Lindgren. Meanwhile, Kearney (6th), Wilson (7th), Mah (12th) and Lad (14th) all came into the finish, one-by-one, giving the team an immaculate 19-second time-spread for their scoring lineup.
Despite the loss, it seemed as though the Engineers' scoring contingent was only getting stronger and more close-knit, something that would greatly benefit this roster throughout the ensuing postseason.
The NEWMAC XC Championships were won in one fell swoop by the Engineers as their runners took the entire top-eight spots as well as the 10th, 12th and 13th place finishes. That’s not to mention everybody else who came afterwards, too.
The East Regional XC Championships was more or less a similar story with MIT scoring 23 points, going 2-3-5-6-7-9-17 for their seven-man lineup.
Their top-five time-spread?
An unreal 3.8 seconds.
Entering the national meet, it was clear that the MIT men had the best pack-running team in the nation. And in a field that was so large and so conducive to unsightly scoring gaps, the Engineers' lineup structure was almost guaranteed to thrive in their season finale.
And sure enough, that was the case.
Acquaviva was the lone wolf of his crew, placing 13th overall with a huge top-half All-American finish. However, he was just barely ahead of the next four MIT runners.
The rest? 27th, 28th, 29th, and 33rd.
That is how you run as a team.
The Engineers had an unbelievable total of five All-Americans. The combination of Acquaviva (13th), Finn Jacobson-Schulte (27th), Kearney (28th), Wilson (29th) and Mah (33rd) put together an overwhelming amount of scoring.
And yet, unbelievably, the Sagehens from out west still took home the national title, somehow putting 32 points between them and the Engineers. Even so, every MIT runner had their absolute best race of the season, especially Jacobson-Schulte who didn't start to truly find his best fitness until the championship season.
And the good news for MIT? They return all but Jacobson-Schulte from that top-five group, plus Verdang Lad who was not far behind that All-American contingent in 48th place.
But the bad news? Pomona-Pitzer still exists.
The task of taking down the newest Division Three dynasty is a tough one, but the Engineers certainly have the talent on their roster to do so.
On the track, Ryan Wilson’s newfound exploits as a master tactician in national meet races showed in a huge way, resulting in him winning indoor and outdoor national titles in the 800 meters.
While his indoor gold medal was a shocking result, seeing him do the same thing at the outdoor national meet was a marker of valuable consistency in the clutch. And while it is often challenging to translate middle distance fitness to the grass, there's a good chance that Wilson could be a top-20 or even a top-15 national meet finisher come November.
As for the rest of these potent distance returners, there really weren’t as many amazing performances on the track as their cross country performances may have suggested.
But make no mistake, it's not like any of their performances on the oval were bad by any means.
Matthew Kearney, for instance, ran 8:12 for 3000 meters, qualifying him for the indoor national meet while also 14:26 for 5000 meters, just sitting on the cusp of outdoor national meet qualification.
Andrew Mah, meanwhile, ran 14:25 for 5000 meters on the indoor oval, but seemingly struggled from there on out, not racing to the level that we saw from him on the grass.
And how about Sam Acquaviva? He ran a 14:42 personal best for 5000 meters in December of last year, but didn't race again until a recent rust-buster at Dartmouth this past weekend.
Nicky Medearis, a name who we have not yet mentioned, had a very solid breakout track season, running 14:30 for 5000 meters during the outdoor season. Seeing him run as well as he did on the track could be huge for a team that is looking to replace the All-American scoring prowess of Finn Jacobson-Schulte.
Of course, we don't know for sure how Medearis will translate that track success to the grass. He has had modest cross country performances in the past, so how much better should a 14:30 (5k) PR make him over rolling hills for 8000 meters?
While it's fair to say that the Engineers could have been better on the track, that may not really matter in the grand scheme of things. It’s hard to deny that what they do during the cross country season works extremely well for them.
Four of their returners are All-Americans and nearly all of them hold room for improvement. Most men were extremely reliable and consistent last fall and the ones who weren't ended up peaking in the postseason.
Usually, we attempt to highlight certain individuals and talk about what their role is in a certain lineup. But for the MIT men, those scoring responsibilities are blurred. In the end, everyone just needs to run their best on the same day.
Luckily for the Engineers, they did that throughout 2021 and we have no reason to think that they can't do it again in 2022.
Not only that, but we haven't even mentioned names like Henry Hardart (who ran 4:07 in the mile last winter), Jacob Hansen (who ran 14:53 for 5000 meters last spring), Raymond Brookman (who ran 8:30 for 3000 meters last winter) or Reid Kovacs (who ran 14:38 for 5000 meters this past winter).
All four of those men showed tremendous promise on the oval and all of them held underclassman eligibility. In theory, at least one of these guys could be due for a massive breakout season on the grass.
Who will that be? Well, your guess is as good as ours.
However, maybe the name most due for a breakout season is an older scorer who didn't make it into MIT's lineup for the NCAA XC Championships last fall.
Lowell Hensgen made multiple varsity appearances last fall, but didn't toe the line at the national meet. But that will likely change over the next few months after running 14:37 (5k) and 30:35 (10k) this past spring.
If there were any concerns about who would fill the empty scoring spot left behind by Jacobson-Schulte, then they are likely being addressed with this team's overall depth.
There are simply too many options for the Engineers not to replicate last year's scoring prowess. If you have that many accomplished backend pieces, sooner or later, one of them is going to hit.
Implementing a tight-knit pack-running strategy worked extremely well in nearly every single meet that the Engineers toed the line for last year. And when they were put on the most competitive stages in the country, they thrived.
With a boatload of All-American returners and endless depth, the MIT men are still as lethal as ever. While they still have to do some work to catch our TSR #1 team, they are likely the only realistic candidate that could take them down and secure NCAA gold come November.