TSR Collaboration
Mar 16, 202314 min
Written by Kevin Fischer & Brett Haffner
Additional edits and commentary by John Cusick & Garrett Zatlin
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Click here to see our Just Missed and Honorable Mention names.
Listed eligibility takes redshirts and Covid-related extensions into consideration.
TFRRS is used as a general guide when determining eligibility.
Was not ranked in our last update.
First number indicates how much the athlete has moved in our rankings.
The second number indicates where the athlete was ranked in our last update.
Ryan Kredell returned to racing at the indoor national meet this past weekend. And despite not having his best showing (placing 13th in the 5k), the Haverford veteran remains in our top-20 rankings on the merit of his early-season performances, most notably his incredible breakthrough 14:02 (5k) effort back in January.
We know that Kredell has the potential to move back up on the outdoor edition of these rankings if he can consistently bring back that kind of performance that we saw from him in Boston.
And of course, it's not like Kredell was a one-race wonder. Running 8:11 (3k) and 4:11 (mile) are solid marks that round out his resume enough for him to be listed at TSR #20.
Closing a 4:06 mile time in 59 seconds over the final 400 meters to finish 5th in the nation is by no means a bad performance. However, Travis Martin did end up behind a couple of guys who he was initially ranked ahead of going into last weekend.
While you certainly can’t complain about this result (or be surprised), you haven to be at your absolute best on the national stage simply to keep up with the breakthrough performances across the distance events in Division Three.
Despite maybe leaving a spot or two on the board, everyone knows how volatile a national meet final in the mile can be. With Martin’s ability to close hard, he’s proven that he can race in a championship setting successfully.
Martin ends his indoor campaign as an All-American for the third time in his career. That achievement will set him up for another shot at All-American honors during the 2023 outdoor track season.
The 800 meters is often a highly unpredictable event. But one thing that we do know is that Garrett Lenners will always show up at the championship level.
After running an even-split 1:50 (800) mark to finish 4th place overall at the indoor national meet, the Nebraska Wesleyan star has yet again delivered on the biggest stage in Division Three. In his three national meet appearances over 800 meters, he has made every final and has finished 5th, 4th and 4th.
Add the 4x400 meter relay to that tally, and he is now a four-time All-American.
With the type of consistency and big-race prowess that Lenners has achieved, he is a dangerous name in any D3 field in -- and the 1:50 barrier that he has flirted with time and time again is bound to fall soon.
Christopher Collet had a tough weekend at the indoor national meet, but a lot of that was simply bad luck.
After navigating the mile preliminaries to earn an automatic qualifier into the finals, he ran a 4:05 (1600) anchor leg split on the DMR that would have helped the Knights earn an All-American finish if not for a disqualification.
Then he took a fall in the mile final and ultimately finished 10th.
By the time the 3000 meters rolled around, he had already had a busy and frustrating weekend, so his legs didn’t have enough to earn the top-eight finish that we thought he was capable of doing.
Regardless of what happened this week, we know that Collet is one of the better distance runners in the country. That narrative will only grow strong in the spring with the introduction of the steeplechase, an event that he is the defending national champion in.
An uncharacteristic "off" weekend from Sam Acquaviva saw him finish 14th in the 5000 meters and 12th in the 3000 meters after boasting so much promise coming into the national meet.
He has been operating at an incredibly high level since the 2022 cross country season and everybody has performances that simply don't go their way -- but his timing was just very inopportune.
Admittedly, that was a head-scratcher, but this season can be considered an incredible success for him based on the marks that he achieved prior to his championship effort(s). That, in turn, keeps him comfortably inside our top-20.
As prominent of a name as Simon Heys has been at the D3 level, it was surprising that he had never been an All-American on the track.
This weekend, he changed that emphatically.
Heys ran 14:11 over 5000 meters to finish 5th place overall in a field that featured three of the best athletes in Division Three history. And sure, the final result for the Wilmington veteran was impressive, but how he finished 5th overall is just as impressive.
Heys bided his time and hung out in the middle of the pack before getting comfortable just after 3200 meters. He worked hard over the final mile and was rewarded for his patience as he crossed the line in 5th place, just three seconds behind the 4th place finisher.
Even though the 3000 meters didn’t quite go according to plan, his stock is still rising after this weekend and he is carrying a ton of momentum into the outdoor season.
Entering the indoor national meet, Max Svienty had enjoyed consistent success throughout the indoor season, but still looked like a long-shot to be an All-American.
However, in the 5000 meters, he not only secured a top-eight finish, but he also did it with ease, finishing 4th overall behind the three fastest 5000 meter runners in Division Three history while notching a 16-second personal best in the process.
That kind of improvement automatically makes this race a massive success and now puts Svienty squarely in the All-American conversation during the spring months.
In the 3000 meters, he had some tired legs and faded a little, but the North Central ace held on for a respectable 13th place finish. It wasn’t a perfect 3k, but he’ll be forgiven for that given that he had the race of his life just one day prior.
It’s hard to understate how big of a weekend this was for Svienty. After an underwhelming finish to his cross country season, he really showed that he is more than capable of showing up in a big way on this stage.
If we were to give an award for “best over-performance” relative to their seed at the indoor national meet, Haiden Diemer-McKinney would win by a landslide. Coming into the national meet as the 17th-fastest runner in the 800 meters, Diemer-McKinney squeaked into the final with the last qualifying spot, running 1:51.73, just a touch off of his personal best.
Then, in the final, he did the improbable.
Diemer-MicKinney ran 1:50.16 (800) to set a new personal best by more than a second. Oh, and he just so happened to finish in 3rd place overall! And to make his result even more impressive…he’s a true freshman!
With many of his fellow competitors in the 800 meters being upperclassmen, Diemer-McKinney will be a big name to watch in this event over the next few years. This was a pivotal weekend for his long-term success.
As a whole, we really underestimated how well the men of SUNY Geneseo would perform at the indoor national meet. That's largely because Ezra Ruggles was a key factor in upending our expectations for the Knights’ success.
He smoothly navigated his mile prelim, running 4:06 to win his heat and hold the fastest time in the opening rounds. Then, he ran a stellar opening leg on the DMR, running 2:58 (1200 meters) to hand off the baton in the lead which set up SUNY Geneseo to win gold.
His performance in the mile final was spectacular, placing 3rd overall and running a PR of 4:04, giving the Knights six valuable points for their team endeavors.
While his regular season performances weren’t too flashy, Ruggles earned his way to the national meet and flourished on the biggest stage. There’s not much more we could have asked from Ruggles to end his winter season. He qualified, he helped his teammates win a national title and he earned a top-three finish with a new personal best in the mile final.
There aren't too many who peaked better than he did this past weekend.
The future for Ruggles is bright and we can’t wait to see what he can accomplish on the outdoor circuit after such a huge breakthrough this past winter.
With greatly improved success in 2023 during the regular season, it was a big question mark on how Matthew Kearney would handle doubling up in the 5k and the 3k at the indoor national meet.
To make a long story short, he handled it quite well.
After latching onto a really hot pace through the first 4000 meters of the 5k, Kearney fell off that pace over the course of the final mile. However, he still held on to run 14:14, good enough for a 6th place finish in one of the most loaded events in Division Three history.
He then just barely missed All-American honors in the 3k, running a stellar 8:09 mark to place 9th overall. That was a great performance when you consider the historic level of depth that race had with nine guys breaking the previous Division Three championship record.
We haven’t seen much from Kearney on the outdoor oval in his MIT career, but it’s clear that the 5k will be a strong event choice for him. In fact, he ran so well in the 5k that we are wondering if a bump up to the 10k could be in his future.
We’ll find out shortly. But for now, Kearney ends the indoor track season at TSR #11.
Elias Lindgren had an "okay" national meet, finishing 7th place in the 5k and 10th place in the 3k. However, both results were a little underwhelming considering his level of talent.
Both races exposed his weakness of being unable to close well in the final stages. In the 5k, the Williams veteran ran his final 400 meters in 76 seconds. In the 3k, though, he maintained his rhythm, running even splits for nearly the entire race.
With the pace being pretty quick in both of these races, we didn’t see any extraordinary or bold moves from Lindgren in this year’s national meet. And yet, it’s hard to tell if that would have changed his results. In the past, his guts have paid off with better results, so it’s very well possible we could see a resurgence of those strategies at the outdoor national meet.
Opting to pursue the DMR/3k double this past weekend worked out in Matthew Lecky’s favor. The RPI ace walked away from the national meet with two more All-American honors after a 5th place finish in the DMR and a 7th place finish in the 3k.
What was most impressive about Lecky from this past weekend was his anchor leg on the DMR in which he split a miraculous 4:02 (1600) to make up some serious ground on the leaders. He ran the fastest anchor leg in the field by three seconds.
His performances at the national meet were solid and it aligns with how we feel about Lecky this winter. His three-spot boost is a testament to his improvements this season as he chopped nine seconds off of his 3k personal best and two seconds off of his mile PR.
If he can continue improve at this rate during the spring months, then his racing ability and experience at the national level make him a true threat for the 1500 meter national title if he opts for that distance.
Regardless, we think Lecky has set himself up for success for the next few months.
Again, as we mentioned with Ezra Ruggles, we underestimated SUNY Geneseo.
However, we underestimated Nick Andrews big time.
The Knights'm veteran continues to prove time and time again that he’s a seasoned, clutch performer at national meets. And that “clutch” factor resulted in SUNY Geneseo winning the DMR national title.
His anchor leg was simply brilliant.
Andrews received the baton in 2nd place and made the right moves to hold off a strong-charging Matthew Kleiman of Johns Hopkins on the final straightaway, ultimately securing the win. To make things even better, Andrews split 4:05 (1600) on that anchor leg. His personal best in the mile is 4:08, meaning that Andrews needed the race of his life to fend-off Johns Hopkins for the national title.
If that isn’t “clutch,” then we’re not quite sure what is.
Coming back in the 3k the next day, Andrews hung back in the main chase pack, sitting in 9th place with 200 meters to go. From there, he kicked hard to finish 5th place overall in another standout performance.
When the outdoor national meet rolls around, we won’t have to think twice about Andrews’ potential for greatness considering his breadth of terrific performances at national meets time and time again.
As the unsung underdog of the 800 meters this year, Tor Hotung-Davidsen’s runner-up finish at the indoor national meet is a valuable improvement in his tactical prowess.
The Lynchburg star gave Mile Jasa a great challenge, even willing to take the lead over the opening 200 meters, but later remained a spot behind the Duhawk for the duration of the race. Hotung-Davidsen couldn’t close the gap in the end, but he still kept his final 400 meter split at 55 seconds, maintaining his 2nd place position in the final stages of the race.
Hotung-Davidsen also contributed to Lynchburg’s DMR as their 800 meter leg, splitting 1:51 and making up a small gap to hand the baton off to Sam Llaneza in a good spot.
After two 6th place finishes in his last two national meets (2022 indoors, 2022 outdoors), it is clear that Hotung-Davidsen has leveled up this winter. He’s improved his fitness and racing tact making him a dangerous athlete to match up against.
Expect another battle in the 800 meters at the outdoor national meet as the Lynchburg half-miler will look for his first national title, something that is very much within his reach.
After a disastrous preliminary round at last year’s outdoor national meet, Bennett Booth-Genthe had a terrific weekend at the NCAA Indoor Championships, validating his upper-tier fitness from last year and earlier this winter.
Winning his mile prelim heat easily, Booth-Genthe gave Ryan Wilson a run for his money in the mile finals, finishing a mere second behind him while running 4:03 and finishing as the national meet runner-up.
This was the type of performance that we knew Booth-Genthe was capable of. What’s even more encouraging is how he did it so smoothly and with confidence. It would not be surprising to see replicated results from the Sagehen star come the outdoor national meet.
Mike Jasa’s first indoor national title has been a long-time coming and he ran his 800 meter final in a very true-to-self strategy: Get to the front early, dictate the pace and never look back.
After Hotung-Davidsen took the first 200 meters, Jasa struck while the iron was hot and accordingly kept the pace. Jasa’s 400 meter splits were 54.4 seconds and 54.8 seconds, running an incredibly even race to earn a 1:49.3 (800) mark, setting a new championship record in the process.
Considering his last few attempts at championship finals in the 800 meters haven’t been great (or at least up to expectations), it was good to see him back on top after two years. It’s also worth noting that Jasa was a big contributor to Loras’ 3rd place finish in the 4x400 meter relay, splitting 47.8 seconds as the squad's third leg.
With one more outdoor campaign on top, Jasa will look to end his career as a Duhawk on top in the 800 meters. If he can win the outdoor national title in the 800 meters, it would bring his gold medal total to three and we can start to having the conversation of where he stands in the landscape of all-time Division Three middle distance runners.
The performance of the weekend, without a doubt, has to go to Ethan Gregg’s heroic run in the men's 3000 meters.
After being the de facto pacesetter in the 5k, leading for the first 4k, he faded to 3rd place and still ran 13:53. That is just an unbelievable time to finish with and only place 3rd at the national meet. Then, as the 3k began, Gregg started off dead last which is quite unlike his renowned front-running strategy.
Of course, it took only 600 meters for that to change as he moved all the way to the lead, putting his foot on the gas and making a bold run for the national title. Immediately gapping the field may not have been in Gregg’s race plan, but nobody challenged him, leaving the Eagles’ ace to run completely solo while hammering from the front.
That move, bold as it was, paid off in the biggest way possible. Nobody could catch Gregg by the race’s conclusion, giving him an individual national title as well as the necessary 10 points to propel UW-La Crosse to the team national title.
The margin of victory for the national team title? Half a point.
And based on Gregg’s reaction after he finished, it was evident that he knew a 1st place finish was the only acceptable result.
This was the ultimate culmination of Ethan Gregg’s skillset as a distance runner, embracing his “grinder” mentality, running a torrid pace and not leaving things to a kick. The fact that his first national title came from his “weaker” event of the two bodes extremely well for when the longer distances come on the outdoor oval.
This was Alex Phillip’s first national meet in two years without him winning gold.
What a wild sentence.
On paper, running 13:52 for 5000 meters and 8:02 for 3000 meters and NOT winning a national title is extremely hard to fathom. But that’s just reality for the level of competition that Phillip has had to face in Division Three as of late.
When moves were made in both races, Phillip couldn’t respond as well as he has in the past, but the pace was much quicker than ever before in his championship racing career.
A bright spot was his closing speed in the 3k, coming within striking distance of Ethan Gregg on the final lap. However, he ultimately ran out of room to reel Gregg in.
It feels disappointing to see Phillip not win after so much success on the national level already. Sure, the two runner-up finishes aren’t exactly what the John Carroll superstar was looking for, but he’s already cemented his legacy within Division Three distance running.
He’ll have a chance to add to that legacy in his final outdoor track season as a D3 athlete. Another national title or two could put him over the top and place him in the conversation as D3’s greatest distance athlete ever.
After multiple runner-up finishes at national meets, Christian Patzka seized glory in the 5000 meters, running a championship-record of 13:47 to bring home his first national title.
Letting Ethan Gregg do the work through the early stages of the races, a very familiar scenario for the Warhawk star, Patzka made a big move with 1000 meters to go and it was a definitive one at that. He covered the final five laps in 2:35 to destroy his competition over the last kilometer of racing.
Patzka’s closing speed is solid, but not to par with guys like Alex Phillip. His big move from somewhat far out ended up working in Patzka’s favor and it played to his strengths. And in retrospect, that's probably something that he knew.
His performance in the 3k was solid, finishing in 4th place with a time of 8:05 and a four-second personal best. And even though he let Gregg and Phillip get away from him, it was the first-time Patzka attempted the 5k/3k double at the indoor national meet.
To earn a PR in both events on consecutive days is impressive, nonetheless.
Considering his fitness has leveled up this much in the past year, how much will his 8:50 steeplechase time improve during the spring? The potential for setting a Division Three record in that event, or even the 5k, is certainly quite high.
It was a tad surprising not to see Ryan Wilson run on MIT’s DMR at the indoor national meet. Of course, his event selection of the mile and the 3k certainly paid off.
Winning the national title in the mile was the least surprising result from last weekend (on the men’s side). Wilson took control early and whittled the pace down, closing his final 400 meters in 56 seconds, leaving his competitors in the dust.
The next day, Wilson placed himself in a great spot in the 3k, running with Patzka and Phillip for most of the race. However, he didn’t necessarily have the legs to go with Phillip when he made a move late in the race. Even so, the MIT megastar still walked away with a bronze medal and a six-second PR, running 8:05.
After his unbelievable, historic indoor track season, the sky’s the limit for Ryan Wilson as he heads into the spring months. And after dominating the indoor oval, we can't help but wonder what his ceiling will be on a 400 meter track...
Nick Andrews (SUNY Geneseo)
Ezra Ruggles (SUNY Geneseo)
Haiden Diemer-McKinney (Wabash)
Max Svienty (North Central)
Simon Heys (Wilmington)
Garrett Lenners (Nebraska Wesleyan)
Scott Sikorski (Rochester)
Spencer Moon (Simpson)
Alex Ivanov (Carnegie Mellon)
Jamie Moreland (Haverford)
Carter Oberfoell (Loras)
Andrew Mah (MIT)
Scott Sikorski (Rochester)
Spencer Moon (Simpson)
Ryan Harvey (Loras)
Wyatt Kelly (Loras)
Cory Kennedy (RPI)
Jamie Moreland (Haverford)
Carter Oberfoell (Loras)
Andrew Mah (MIT)
Connor Riss (North Central)
Alex Ivanov (Carnegie Mellon)