Brett Haffner
Aug 5, 20228 min
Written by Brett Haffner, additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin
First it was Thomas D’Anieri in 2019.
Then it was Henry Pick in 2021.
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps has largely been considered one of the best distance programs in Division Three for a while now, consistently producing some of the strongest individual talents in the nation. However, despite the Stags' history of success, those two individuals mentioned above broke out in a huge way at their respective cross country national meets, slightly catching us off guard.
Pick had an up and down 2021 fall season prior to his monstrous national meet finish, so it was very surprising to see him coming down the stretch ahead of Aidan Ryan.
For most of the meets that CMS ventured to, throughout the regular season, Pick was finishing as the team's fifth or sixth runner, sometimes over 30 seconds behind guys like Kyril van Schendel, Stevie Steinberg and Miles Christensen, all of whom are very talented names in their own regard.
But then the postseason came around and things began to change. Pick’s most impressive jump came from the Pomona-Pitzer Invite to the SCIAC XC Championships. After finishing as the ninth man on his team at the Pomona-Pitzer Invite, Pick went out and brought home the SCIAC individual title, taking down his own powerhouse team and the eventual national champion Sagehens.
Who could have seen that one coming?
There hadn’t been a whole lot of indication prior to that race that Pick’s aerobic abilities were that elite. But from that point on, he solidified himself as a true national-caliber contender.
A 2nd place finish at the West Regional XC Championships, followed by his heroic 3rd place run at the NCAA XC Championships, capped off Pick’s very successful jump to the near-top of Division Three.
On the track, Pick once again had an up and down season, but ultimately earned qualification to both the indoor and outdoor national meets. He placed 16th in the 3000 meters at the indoor national meet, which left a little more to be desired, but then rallied at the outdoor national meet in the 5000 meters, taking home a tremendous 4th place finish.
His notable personal bests of 8:11 in the 3000 meters and 14:15 in the 5000 meters aren’t too shabby, either. In fact, they put him amongst the best of the best when talking about D3 distance running elites.
With a few of the key Stags lost to graduation, the key to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps’ success this fall will rely on Henry Pick replicating his postseason peak from last year. While one may look at his overall resume and find regular season inconsistency, we simply see a guy who figured it all out and flipped the switch at the perfect time.
And sometimes, that's all you need to do to be considered amongst the nation's best.
Tyler Morris was someone who we probably should have paid a lot more attention to last year.
During an impressive cross country season, where he won every race through his regional meet, Morris ended up placing 7th in one of the deepest national meets in Division Three history.
That, however, was just a precursor of what was to come.
Morris then took over on the indoor oval, running 14:11 for 5000 meters and later placing 10th at the indoor national meet in that event. His outdoor track season was even more impressive as Morris ran 29:36 for 10,000 meters and eventually secured bronze at the outdoor national meet in that same event.
What’s unique about Morris, especially when looking at this past track seasons, is that he really didn’t race a whole lot and still saw great success.
His 10k race at the NCAA Outdoor Championships was only his third race of the entire spring season – he essentially raced just once per month. And that's why if we don’t end up seeing Morris compete much during the cross country season, then there shouldn't be too many doubts about his fitness.
Admittedly, Morris could certainly benefit from seeing better competition during the regular season. However, last year’s approach still paid off. Plus, it's hard to critique someone for...well, just being better than whoever he's racing.
No matter his racing situation, Morris knows how to bring his "A" game and should be a major contender with a lot to bring to the table. After all, his performances on the track suggest that we may not have seen the best of this Colby superstar...at least not on the grass.
It’s really hard to fathom that Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos recently ended his freshman year at Williams. Because for the most part, this underclassman ran like a true veteran throughout the entirety of last year.
It's not often that we see a Division Three true freshman walk away from his first year of college with four All-American honors as well as personal bests of 14:00 in the 5000 meters and 29:47 in the 10,000 meters.
Not to mention, Tuohy-Gaydos was the THIRD best guy on his team last fall.
That is simply unheard of, at least from a Division Three standpoint.
Now that teammate Aidan Ryan has moved onto Washington as a graduate transfer, Tuohy-Gaydos will now take on the brunt of the Ephs’ front-running responsibilities alongside Elias Lindgren.
As he showed at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, with Ryan felled to injury, Tuohy-Gaydos performed extremely well, finishing 2nd in the 5000 meters after placing 5th in the 10,000 meters. He displayed great teamwork with Lindgren all while flexing his clutch abilities when it mattered the most.
Akin to Lindgren, Tuohy-Gaydos's performances at the outdoor national meet were a nice improvement from the modest, but solid, indoor national meet showing he had where he took 14th place in the 5000 meters and 7th place in the 3000 meters.
Yes, these are cross country rankings, but those track results bolster Tuohy-Gaydos' resume enough to the point where we feel comfortable enough to put him at TSR #3.
But don't be confused, his 2021 cross country season was still very good.
Last fall, the rising sophomore placed 8th at the Williams Purple Valley XC Invite and later secured a solid 9th place finish at the competitive Connecticut College Invite. After earning two highly promising top-five finishes at his conference and regional meets, Tuohy-Gaydos secured a 19th place finish at last year’s cross country national meet, ending his season on a high note.
This still-young superstar has been a very consistent performer throughout his first year as an Eph and he has shown no signs of slowing down anytime soon. That's fairly rare for someone who is so new and so inexperienced at this level, but it also highlights the exciting upside that Tuohy-Gaydos could still bring to the table this fall.
With teammate Elias Lindgren by his side, this duo looks like they may be the best 1-2 punch in the country this year...right?
This past year, Elias Lindgren was the king of national meet heroics.
Last fall, at the 2021 NCAA XC Championships, Lindgren nearly had the title won in the final stages of the race, running away from Alex Phillip and former teammate Aidan Ryan in the process.
Fast forward to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 5000 meters and Lindgren gapped the field with two laps to go, making a vindictive move in this conquest for a national title.
Ultimately, in both meets, he fell just a bit short.
But that is what makes Lindgren the ultimate challenger: This guy knows how to bring his absolute best when it matters the most, having the confidence to make bold moves and go after titles in ways that quickly filter out fringe contenders.
His exploits on the national stage have spoken large volumes to his clutch abilities, especially when he’s dealt with injuries and inconsistent regular season performances. After all, as long as you perform well in the postseason, it doesn't entirely matter what you do in the regular season (to some extent).
Lindgren's runner-up finish at the cross country national meet was huge, but it was at the outdoor national meet, having placed 4th in the 10,000 meters and 6th in the 5000 meters, that truly cemented his status as one of the top runners in Division Three.
His performance at the indoor national meet was a bit sub-par, only placing 15th in the 5000 meters, but he hadn’t raced for two months prior to that performance. His comeback during the spring months made it clear that his showing at the NCAA Indoor Championships was a one-off poor performance.
With knowledge of Lindgren’s national meet prowess in the back of our heads, it's going to be extremely challenging to rank him too low during the regular season, especially since we know what he'll bring to the biggest stages that D3 has to offer.
Division Three gets one more year of Alex Phillip.
That statement will likely elicit a very different reaction from a handful of people depending on who you are.
For us TSR writers and fellow fans, that's great news to hear after rumors of a graduate transfer mulled around certain NCAA circles. Instead, that graduate transfer will likely take effect after the 2022-2023 academic year.
For everyone else who is competing at the Division Three level, that may not exactly be welcomed news.
Phillip has been at the top of the division for quite some time now and his 2021-2022 exploits on both the grass and the oval were matched to none.
His first national title at last year’s cross country national meet was one to remember. His dastardly kick against Elias Lindgren allowed him to bring home the national title and cement himself amongst the country's most elite D3 distance talents.
While time isn’t necessarily the end-all, be-all in cross country, it does help us value his title only more as he set the Division Three national meet record, running 23:27 for the 8k distance in Louisville, Kentucky.
Not too bad for a Division Three runner, huh?
His dominance only continued on the track, winning a wildly impressive 5k/3k double at the indoor national meet, defeating national favorite Aidan Ryan in the final stretches of the 3000 meters.
Winning the 10,000 meter title at the outdoor national championships was also a plus, adding another NCAA gold medal to his collection, marking four total in the 2021-2022 year.
The John Carroll superstar also threw down incredible marks of 13:58 over 5000 meters and 28:48 over 10,000 meters, placing himself in the conversation of the best distance talents in Division Three history.
Now, with that jaw-dropping resume in tow, only one question remains...where will Alex Phillip go from here?
It’s clear that Phillip is dominant on the grass as well as the track. There should be no doubt that he's best distance talent that D3 has right now and there's not a whole lot to argue against that.
However, this John Carroll star has also proven that he isn’t invincible, either.
At the NCAA Outdoor Championships, his 8th place finish in the 5000 meters was the one (minor) blemish on his near-perfect seasonal record. But in fairness to Phillip, there were multiple circumstances that could have affected that result.
We also have to consider the fact that someone like Tuohy-Gaydos isn't too far off from Phillip in terms of postseason success and that the Williams star has far more upside simply because of his youth.
Even so, Phillip will come into the 2022 cross country seasons as the overwhelming favorite
We know that, the country knows that and he probably knows that, too.
He’ll have multiple challengers, many of whom have appeared on this list, but Phillip’s dominance in Division Three speaks volumes to his future success this year.