Kevin Fischer
Sep 5, 20235 min
Written by Kevin Fischer, additional commentary & edits by Gavin Struve & 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 rare occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
Carnegie Mellon has established themselves as a perennially competitive program in Division Three, a reputation that they maintained throughout last fall.
The Tartans began last year as an “Honorable Mention” team in our TSR preseason top-10 team rankings, but they quickly showed their hand as a group that was clearly more capable than that.
That's why, entering this fall, we’ve adjusted our expectations accordingly. We're betting on the pedigree of Coach Tim Connelly and his team as they combat a few losses and integrate some high-impact new faces.
The Tartans’ 2022 fall campaign began with a comfortable win in the Paul Short "Brown" race. That victory came over a field that included Emory, Haverford, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Lynchburg, teams that have proven to be nationally competitive over the years.
In that race, sophomore Colin McLaughlin (8th) produced surprisingly great firepower while Jacob Hsu (17th) snagged a high-impact scoring finish of his own. With Elijah Sech (24th), Matthew Coyle (27th), Charlie Murphy (38th) and Alex Ivanov (43rd) all posting solid results, the Tartans had to be encouraged about their early-season start.
The CMU men later followed up that performance with another win against interregional competition two weeks later. And while the Oberlin College Inter-Regional Rumble may not have been as loaded of a meet that weekend as what Augustana or Connecticut College provided, it was still impressive to see the Tartans beat a solid Case Western team with six men in the top-12.
Carnegie Mellon’s results to that point suggested that they would be the favorites to win the UAA XC Championships. However, some sporadic gaps in their lineup led to Emory simply being the better team through each scoring spot, comparatively. Even so, a 2nd finish in one of the better leagues in the country wasn’t too much of a cause for concern.
Their best performance of the fall, though, came at the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships. There, the Tartans continued to rely on their depth, and in doing so, they left absolutely no doubt as to who would win the meet. They placed five men in the top-eight and routed Johns Hopkins by nearly a 40-point margin.
Going into the NCAA XC Championships, a top-10 result looked achievable. That didn't happen, but the 11th place finish that the Tartans earned seemed fairly representative of how they performed throughout the season.
Carnegie Mellon predictably didn’t field any individual studs on the national stage, but Matthew Coyle placed 51st while Elijah Sech was 66th. Colin McLaughlin's 107th place finish left us wanting more while the final two scorers of this team got through the line with passable placements of 126th (Murphy) and 140th (Hsu).
An impressive aspect of Carnegie Mellon’s 2022 cross country season was that they were able to have such successful results without a single All-American. What they lacked in star power, they made up for in depth -- they had the ninth-best fifth scorer and the seventh-best sixth runner in the NCAA XC Championships field.
This year, Carnegie Mellon looks to have a great chance to be even better than they were in 2022 -- and largely with a similar lineup structure.
Yes, it's true, the Tartans lose 9:03 steeplechaser Elijah Sech who was the 2nd place finisher at the Mid-Atlantic regional meet. But the rest of their top-seven from last fall, many of whom have had breakout seasons on the oval, are back.
The composition of this team will be pretty similar to what they had last fall with a well-rounded and complete top-seven. But a welcomed change will come to their lineup in 2023, one that could potentially remedy the lack of a true low-stick issue that Carnegie Mellon faced throughout last fall.
That shortcoming is being addressed this year with the addition of Matthew Porter. He is joining the Tartans as a transfer from Army West Point.
Porter is coming off of a fairly strong year on the oval in which he ran 14:23 for 5000 meters and 29:58 for 10,000 meters despite competing sparingly during both the indoor and outdoor track seasons.
On the grass, Porter has finished 5th at the Patriot League XC Championships and 49th in the D1 Northeast Region XC Championships. He should have an immediate and significant impact on this team.
Porter will now be surrounded by a very talented group that may be capable of big things in the months ahead. Matthew Coyle, who was Carnegie Mellon’s top finisher at last fall’s national meet, recorded some nice personal bests the past winter and spring.
The veteran talent ran times of 14:28 (5k) and 30:17 (10k) over the last year. And now, with Porter on the roster, he won’t have to shoulder the lead scoring responsibilities all on his own, although he still holds strong prospects of an All-American finish this year.
The Tartans also bring back some serious middle distance talent that they will be hoping translates to the cross country course.
Colin McLaughlin and Aleksei Seletskiy have both run 3:47 for 1500 meters. That duo, as well as 1:50 (800) man Alex Ivanov, have all had some level of success in cross country. McLaughlin and Ivanov both competed at the national meet in 2022.
It will be interesting to see whether those guys can make improvements during this cross country season. Oftentimes, middle distance track results aren't much of an indicator for future success. Still, at their best, these guys can all be major contributors.
That’s especially true of McLaughlin who was a top-10 finisher at the Paul Short "Brown" race! There are very clearly hints of low-stick potential within him.
Charlie Murphy, Jacob Hsu and Ryan Podnar are the other returners from the Tartans' 2022 national meet lineup where the former two were scorers. They all experienced success on the track this spring with Hsu running 14:42, Podnar running 14:51 and Murphy running 14:52, all over 5000 meters.
Each of those guys will be looking to have a scoring impact this fall, but the downside of being a part of a deep team is that their spots in the top-seven are not guaranteed. Even so, Hsu has shown us (specifically at Paul Short and the Mid-Atlantic regional meet) that he can be more than just a backend scorer. He just needs to be more consistent this fall.
Elsewhere, David Durdaller is a 9:07 steeplechaser and 14:38 (5k) guy who will be looking to translate that success to the grass. Eamon Brady could also be helpful if he can rediscover the success that he had in 2021 when he finished 11th in the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships.
When you factor in a large class of incoming freshmen, this looks like a team where a slew of guys could step up into those backend varsity spots beyond Porter and Coyle and emerge as a hero in their role when the postseason comes around.
The Tartans have a wealth of interchangeable lineup options which should hold up well against the attrition and uncertainty of a cross country season.
Admittedly, there are some guys who are question marks on the cross country course and not having any returning national meet qualifiers in anything longer than 1500 meters on the track isn't ideal.
But we really like this team's potential, and if everything comes together for them this fall, they can absolutely outperform their preseason ranking just like they did in 2022.