Kevin Fischer
Sep 7, 20226 min
Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin
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 some occasions, we are referencing TFFRS or team rosters in order to properly and accurately talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
Middlebury has a very interesting team coming into this fall season.
After having grand success in 2021, there's a very good chance that the Panthers are a notably better group in 2022. Last year’s team had a healthy mix of veteran leadership as well as young talent -- and this year will be a similar story.
With nearly everyone returning, the entirety of this team should see natural progression over the fall months, something that could potentially elevate this program into the "truly elite" tier of Division Three distance running.
Admittedly, Middlebury's 2021 cross country season started out a bit on the slower side, finishing 3rd overall at the Williams Purple Valley XC Invite. Both Williams and MIT trounced the Panthers by over 50 points with lineups that were simply better in each scoring spot.
Zander Kessler was the team's leading scorer in 6th place, but freshman Drew Donahue was the real hero, finishing 11th overall to act as a boarderline front-runner despite his inexperience.
With Alec Gironda, Quin McGaugh and Max Cluss closing out the team's top-five with finishes of 21-31-34, it was clear that the Panthers had to collectively improve the backend of their lineup.
Still, that early-season effort was hardly bad. In fact, that meet would lead to outstanding results at both the SUNY Geneseo Mike Woods Invite and the Connecticut College Invite, finishing 2nd and 3rd, respectively, in those two fields.
Top distance programs like Otterbein fell to Middlebury in that first meet while RPI settled for 4th place behind the Panthers in the latter meet. Donahue began to emerge as a true low-stick at the Mike Woods Invite and the team as a whole would collectively reduce their time-spread by a significant margin at the Connecticut College Invite.
At the NESCAC XC Championships, Middlebury would lose to Williams by only eight points. Their fifth runner, who placed 29th while the rest of the top-five finished in the top-11, admittedly limited how much further the Panthers could rise at their conference meet.
Still, momentum was on their side after earning runner-up honors yet again at the Mideast Regional XC Championships, this time losing to Williams by 14 points.
Middlebury would eventually advance to the national meet where they earned a flat 400 points, settling for a 13th place finish. That was a solid result for the Panthers, but it was one that likely could have been better considering how competitive they had been with the Williams men earlier in the season.
Donahue's 42nd place finish validated most of the low-stick suspicions that we had for him while Cluss rallied nicely on the national stage, placing 72nd.
Kessler (117th), McGaugh (132nd) and Luke Lorenz (166th) would close out the scoring, but it felt somewhat obvious that we did not see this team at their best on the national stage.
And yet, for them to still finish 13th overall leads us to believe that they will be a top-10 group during the 2022 cross country season.
The only departure who the Panthers will have to endure is Quin McGaugh, a guy who was the team's fourth scorer at the national meet (placing 132nd). However, this is also someone who was 9th at Mike Woods, 17th at the Connecticut College Invite and 10th at the NESCAC XC Championships.
The scoring value that McGaugh showed during the regular season suggests that he was closer to a top-90 finisher at the national meet rather than outside of the top-130. While his loss in this lineup may not seem like a big deal when looking at the national meet results, that isn't at all the case when you evaluate Middlebury's 2021 cross country season as a whole.
The good news, however, is that everyone else from last year's lineup is back, and there are several names who are ready to make big jumps.
It is likely that this team will be headlined by Drew Donahue and Zander Kessler, the two main low-sticks who led the Panthers throughout most of last year.
After just missing out on All-American honors as a true freshman, Donahue had an outstanding indoor track season which culminated in a 12th place finish in the 3000 meters at the NCAA Indoor Championships with an unconverted personal best of 8:18 for the event.
While his outdoor track season didn’t go quite as well, he still managed to run a solid mark of 14:36 for 5000 meters.
If Donahue can reach a new level in his sophomore year, and we certainly think that he can, then Middlebury will get a huge boost. He won't be able to replace the entire scoring value of McGough, but if he reaches new heights this year, then his return will simply result in a relative improvement from last year.
We then have to talk about his low-stick partner, Zander Kessler, who finished runner-up at the NESCAC XC Championships and then 7th at the Mideast Regional XC Championships last fall before having somewhat of an underwhelming day at the national meet, finishing 117th to close out his season.
This past spring, Kessler recorded times of 14:24 for 5000 meters and 30:09 for 10,000 meters, both major improvements from any previous season.
There is absolutely the potential for this veteran returner to make a marked improvement on his performances from last fall, perhaps into the All-American spots. There is no question that he'll be a front-running low-stick for this team in 2022, but whether or not his consistency improves will be the biggest uncertainty.
If it does, and if Kessler is at his best on the national stage, then this squad will likely put themselves into the top-10 of the team standings.
Returning scorer Max Cluss is better known for his prowess as a miler, having run 4:07 in the mile and 3:50 in the 1500 meters. However, it is important not to forget that he can also be dangerous on the cross country course.
Cluss was 72nd at last year's cross country national meet which was arguably his best race of the season. Similar to Kessler, there is no doubt that he will be a key piece for this team yet again in 2022, but he'll need to avoid the "off" days that he had at the Purple Valley XC Invite, Connecticut College Invite and the NESCAC XC Championships.
Luckily, we already know that Cluss can be a high-value middle lineup scorer. And if his success in the middle distances translates to the grass, then Cluss be a major x-factor for Middlebury this fall.
Outside of those three names, Middlebury will also return three sub-15:00 (5k) guys in Luke Lorenz (14:51), Alec Gironda (14:53) and Ziggy Goddard (14:58). All three of those men raced at the national meet last fall, placing 166th, 211th, and 190th, respectively.
Gironda, in particular, was likely expecting more from his performance that day given that he was 12th at the Mideast Regional XC Championships. And in addition to his 14:53 mark mentioned above, Gironda would also go on to run 30:45 (10k) during the outdoor track season, a mark which suggests that he can have a big season this fall.
Goddard also looks to have the potential for a breakthrough cross country season given that he was a true freshman in 2021 and that he ran 8:26 for 3000 during the indoor season.
On paper, those are a lot of sneaky-good scoring options, all of which have the potential to be better scorers or to be more consistent.
In fact, Middlebury not only returns a very solid core, but they also bring in some new additions who can be immediate contributors in their first season.
Owen Johnson from Ann Arbor Pioneer High School is the biggest star of their recruiting class, having run 9:05 for 3200 meters and 4:11 for 1600 meters. It is sometimes hard to gauge what kind of factor a rookie talent like Johnson will have based solely on high school times.
Even so, Johnson’s ceiling is incredibly high and someone as talented as him certainly has a good chance at contributing to this team in 2022.
There are also several other high-level recruits in that class who can develop into elite D3 talents, most notably Shef West (9:15 for 3200 meters).
In a best case scenario, we could potentially see Middlebury have two comfortable All-Americans in Donahue and Kessler, two borderline All-Americans in Cluss and Johnson and a fifth scorer in (or around) the top-100.
Based on those (admittedly generous) projections, the Panthers may have a ceiling that puts them amongst the top-five teams in the nation.
Of course, everything would have to go nearly perfectly in order for that to be achieved. The scoring value of McGaugh will need to be replaced, everyone on this team has to deliver on the upside that we think they have and certain men need to be a bit more consistent.
But either way, the Middlebury men will likely be significantly better than the 13th-place team that we saw at last year's cross country national meet.
The only question is, how much better?