Brett Haffner
Aug 3, 20227 min
Written by Brett Haffner, additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin
In bringing home the team title last year, Pomona-Pitzer was heavily supported by Lucas Florsheim, a true low-stick who ended up being the team’s third scorer despite earning an incredible 14th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
That’s a sentence you might wanna read twice.
Florsheim’s overall cross country season was very solid. He was consistently one of the top guys on his powerhouse team and he earned two 3rd place finishes at some highly competitive meets such as the Cougar Challenge and the Augustana Interregional Invite.
However, once track hit, Florhseim’s individual efforts began to shine. From February to April, the Sagehen star earned personal bests in the mile, the 3000 meters, the 5000 meters and the 10,000 meters.
Since Pomona-Pitzer doesn’t contest the indoor track season in the same vain as most other non-west programs, Florsheim’s race schedule was a bit different than most Division Three runners. He toed the line, for instance, in highly competitive invitationals such as Oxy and the Stanford Invite in March and April, respectively.
Those races were fast -- very fast -- allowing for some incredible marks, such as a 14:13 PR in the 5000 meters and a 29:55 PR in the 10,000 meters.
However, Florsheim’s back-half of the outdoor track season left a lot more to be desired. The Pomona-Pitzer ace finished 15th place at the outdoor national meet in the 5000 meters. Even so, it was hard to ignore the overall success that Florsheim had throughout last year.
It’s clear that Florsheim’s abilities are there to be a top-five Division Three athlete on the track, but managing his first long stretch of indoor and outdoor track may have worn on him by the season’s end.
Of course, considering Pomona-Pitzer’s recent success in the cross country season over the last few years, and his own individual success at the 2021 cross country national meet, there should be no worries for Florsheim’s ability to peak on the grass. His regular season performances even signal that he could potentially be a top-five talent later this fall.
If Florsheim, along with Kirkpatrick and Fearon, can be in the hunt for top-10 finishes at the national meet this fall then...the team battle may not be much of a battle.
Christopher Collet’s 2021-2022 academic year was truly remarkable. It featured tons of fast times, an All-American honor in the mile and a national title in the steeplechase. From an overall resume standpoint, Collet was one of the most valuable distance athletes in the country this past winter and spring.
However, one missing part of that headline is his success on the cross country course.
If you look at Collet’s entire 2021 fall season, he pretty much finished behind Wartburg teammate Joe Freiburger in nearly every single race…minus the national meet.
But make no mistake, these meets were not easy by any means.
Collet won a quietly competitive meet at the 59th Les Duke XC Invite and proceeded to earn runner-up finishes leading up to the national meet. Those 2nd place finishes came at competitive meets like the Dan Huston Invitational and the Augustana Interregional Invitational.
However, Freiburger would go on to take 8th at the NCAA XC Championships. Collet, unfortunately, would ultimately finish 80th, a result that was far from his true potential.
While that race certainly wasn’t Collet’s best, the Wartburg star still went five-for-six when it came to really solid performances during the entire cross country season – and that feat isn’t exactly easy to accomplish.
Collet's accolades on the track showed his prowess in a wide range of distances. And truthfully, the progress he made on the track could translate to even better results on the grass. After all, this is a guy brought his mile PR down to 4:06, his 3k PR down to 8:16, his 5k PR down to 14:12 and his steeplechase PR down to an unbelievable time of 8:50.
With fellow teammate Joe Freiburger having graduated, Collet becomes the go-to low-stick for the Knights. This roster turnover will also give him a handful of opportunities to go out and win races that Freiburger was originally victorious in.
When it's all said and done, Collet should have a striking chance to not only earn his first cross country All-American honor, but maybe, just maybe, be a contender near the front of the national meet.
He could end up being a name who we seriously under ranked by the time the season’s over.
Colin Kirkpatrick quickly became a name to fear during the 2021-2022 academic year, both for his cross country performances and for his exploits in the steeplechase.
It's hard to argue that Kirkpatrick's 8:46 steeple performance this past spring wasn't one of the best performances in Division Three of the past year. Heck, he nearly broke the Division Three record, only being a few seconds away!
However, a fall in the preliminary round of the outdoor national meet may have hurt his performance in the finals where Kirkpatrick ended up finishing a very respectable, but somewhat unexciting, 7th place overall.
That being said, not just anybody can go out there and run 8:46 in the steeplechase.
And despite being routinely focused on barriers and water pits, his 3:47 mark for 1500 meters was also pretty eye-opening, especially for that event not being his main priority.
The big question remains, though: How will these times translate to cross country?
Kirkpatrick's 2021 performances on the grass suggest that he’ll be just fine in 2022. He was consistently right near the front of his races with teammates such as Florsheim and Fearon. He also placed 6th at the SCIAC XC Championships and 7th at West Regional XC Championships.
However, what happened next took us by surprise.
Kirkpatrick clutched up at the NCAA XC Championships, taking 10th place overall and serving as Pomona-Pitzer’s lead scorer on the way to their team title. And if he was able to do that before his breakout campaign on the track, then what can he do this year when he's supposedly gotten even better?
Kirkpatrick is going to be a force to be reckoned with on the cross country course this fall. While his overall 2021 cross country season may not be quite as potent as a few other names, his national meet performance was astounding and his track times suggest that he'll be even better this fall.
Might he have the potential to be a front-runner with some of the other men on this list? If things continue to trend in a positive direction, then we would put Kirkpatrick as a big dark horse to do some major damage.
Death, taxes and Ethan Gregg’s reliable national meet performances.
Those three things are all inherent truths about society, life and Division Three running.
In pretty much any scenario, it seems that Gregg just knows how to run under pressure and perform at a high level when it matters most.
He has racked up two 10,000 meter All-American honors in his career, a 12th place finish at the indoor national meet in the 5000 meters and an excellent 11th place finish at last year’s cross country national meet.
Gregg is becoming the guy who you can expect to, or at least be very close to, earning an All-American honor at every national meet he runs in. His consistency and poise, along with his strength-based long distance aptitude, puts him at a very solid ranking on our list.
With the likes of David Fassbender and Christian Patzka around, Gregg has sat as the second or third fiddle in the ever-so-grueling WIAC -- but make no mistake, he has always been a challenging opponent to defeat.
However, it wasn’t until this past outdoor track season when Gregg’s colors truly showed, winning a speedy 10,000 meters in 29:36 at the Phil Esten Challenge, running a crazy negative split in the second-half of his race.
Then, the icing on top of the cake was taking home not one, but two WIAC titles at the 2021 outdoor conference meet, one in the 5000 meters and the 10,000 meters.
With competition in the WIAC always brewing, Gregg will have guys like Patzka and Schlender to consistently challenge him. Still, when it comes to cross country, Gregg should be the definitive face of the WIAC.
With the departure of Jamie Dailey and the lack of a departure from Alex Phillip, Simon Heys finds himself with one less local rival, but still with the best name in Division Three to chase.
Heys’ 2021-2022 campaign was a wild improvement from his previous years with some strong exploits in national meet competition.
Narrowly missing qualification for the indoor national meet in the 3000 meters and the 5000 meters, Heys came back in the spring with revenge on his mind, qualifying for the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 10,000 meters with one of the faster times in Division Three this year (29:39).
Heys would ultimately go on to place 10th at the outdoor national meet in that distance -- a little underwhelming, but still a solid performance overall.
However, based on his success throughout the fall of 2021, one could argue that Heys’ true strength ultimately lies on the cross country course.
Hey's breakout performance came at the Louisville XC Classic "Silver" race where he secured a monumental win over numerous talented Division Three runners. With a win over what was seemingly the D3 equivalent of Pre-Nationals, Heys was now in the mix as a top contender.
Placing 7th at the OAC XC Championships was likely not the performance that Heys wanted, but he later rebounded to take 2nd at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships, only behind Alex Phillip.
And just when you thought Heys couldn't impress you any further, the Wilmington star placed 5th in his first cross country national meet, finishing behind a few of the best Division Three superstars.
For Heys, 2021 was all about gaining experience and building his reputation as a star.
But in 2022, Heys will aim to capitalize on that experience and elevate himself from "star" to "superstar".
And who knows? Since he’ll face him multiple times during the season, maybe Heys will give Alex Phillip a little bit of a challenge this fall...