TSR's "If Everything Was Normal" D3 XC Top 10 Teams (Men): #10-6

Written by Hannah Thorn, Brett Haffner and Kevin Fischer

Analysis involving eligibility is based off of data from TFRRS.

The Knights from Wartburg had a strong regular season last year, but faltered a bit at Nationals. They won the Dan Hutson Invitational over Washington University and were 3rd at the Kollege Town Invitational behind eventual national champions Pomona Pitzer and runner-up North Central. However, the Knights did pull away from talented teams such as Wash. U. and University of Chicago.

Wartburg would keep the ball rolling in the postseason, winning the American Rivers Conference Championship as well as the Central Regional Championships.

Unfortunately for Wartburg, they didn't have their best race at the NCAA Championships, finishing 13th overall and placing behind teams they had beaten during the regular season like Chicago, Carleton and Wash. U.

In a regular year with a national meet, the Knights likely would have hoped to improve on that 13th place finish as they return their entire top seven with the exception of their fourth runner from last year, Caleb Appleton.

The Knights are led by low-stick standout Joe Freiburger (TSR #8). After just missing out on All-American honors in 2018 (finishing 41st), Freiburger placed 22nd at the national meet last fall to receive his first All-American honors. He is followed by Morgan Shirley-Fairbairn, Sam Pinkowski, Dalton Martin and Christopher Collet to make a strong and underrated scoring five for the Knights. They also have seniors Liam Conroy and Matt Heinzman as well as junior Collin Day who can all turn in strong performances and fill the hole that Appleton left.

If Wartburg has a weakness, it is their consistency. Four-time All-American Sam Pinkowski had an up and down 2019 season. He was coming off a 27th place finish at the 2018 national meet and had high expectations for last fall. He started off his 2019 season with a win at the Dan Hutson Invitational over teammate Freiburger and Wash. U. stud Nick Matteucci. He was also third at their conference meet, but then faltered late in the season as he finished 52nd at the regional meet and 131st at the national meet.

Wartburg is going to need Pinkowski to return to his former All-American self and have the rest of their top five perform at their best if they hope to break into the top 10 whenever the national meet returns.

U. of Chicago was led last year by Ryan Cutter and that is not going to change in 2020. The senior is returning after a 9th place finish at Nationals in 2019 and winning the Midwest Regional Championships. He will be the fifth fastest returner from Nationals and will be helping the Maroons improve upon their 12th place finish from last year.

Cutter is joined by senior Chase Gardner and junior Sam Craig which is a very solid top three for Chicago. Gardner and Craig often swapped places throughout the 2019 season and were never too far apart. Craig was just outside of All-American status at Nationals (finishing 44th) while Gardner was eight seconds back in 64th place. These two can work together and move up in the field this year while also offering strong middle lineup scoring.

U. of Chicago does lose their fifth runner Gavin Fujimori and their seventh runner Andrew Kates. Luckily, there are plenty of men who can move up and fill their spot this year.

Some of those men who can make an impact are sophomore Xander Hastings, sophomore Charlie Nevins, junior Max Hill, junior Valentine Figueira, and sophomore Cy Chittenden. Chittenden, specifically, will be looking for redemption after a sub-par day at Nationals last year where he finished 183rd. He had finished 25th at his regional meet the week before and was likely looking to crack the top-100 in Louisville.

This team was sure to face plenty of tough competition as they consistently race against top teams such as Wash. U., UWL, Carnegie Mellon, Wartburg, Calvin and North Central. In 2019. they finished 4th at the Kollege Town Invitational, 3rd at the UAA Championships and 4th at the Midwest Regional Championships.

This team has a ton of talent, and for that reason, we have placed them at TSR #9.

The second team from the Central region on our list, the Carleton Knights have had a slew of extremely talented individuals to help their team qualify for Nationals. The last two years, the Knights have taken 14th and 11th at the national meet, putting themselves right in the mix as a solid mid-pack program.

Now, as the stars align with stud low-sticks Matthew Wilkinson and Lucas Mueller in their senior years, 2020 would've been the time where Carleton shines brightly. However, with no national meet this fall, destiny will have to be put on pause.

Matthew Wilkinson had a breakout year in his junior campaign, finding himself right with the top talents in D3 while earning a runner-up finish at the National Championships behind Patrick Watson. He even made that race more special by being the one to push the pace early on, which was a bold move on such a large stage. That move, however, certainly paid off with his finish, but he rose to the occasion once indoor track arrived, solidifying himself as a title contender in whatever race he chose.

Lucas Mueller, on the other hand, has experienced some ups and downs. He’s earned two All-American honors in cross country so far, taking 18th and 29th during his sophomore and junior years, but 2020 was where we had some uncertainty. Last fall, dealing with injuries toward the start of the season, Mueller had a slow start, but still ended up as All-American as he took 29th at Nationals.

Yet, after his undeniably impressive 2019 track campaign, when will we see the true return of Lucas Mueller? Taking 2nd at the Outdoor National Championships in the 10,000 meters by 0.21 seconds was quite an achievement, let alone behind Dhruvil Patel (one of the best distance runners in D3 history).

When will we see that spark return? If anything, this fall seemed like the time for that to happen.

Those two, when they are on the top of their game, are easily the best 1-2 punch in Division III. With a duo like that potentially scoring less than 10 points at Nationals, the supporting cast certainly has got to be ready to take on the challenge. Luckily, Carleton only loses their third scorer from last year and they return their 4-5-6-7 runners who are all only sophomores or juniors.

They’ll have to do some work to transform their team from good to elite, but the Knights have some seriously encouraging potential on their roster.

It seems like most years, Wash. U is always in the conversation for a pretty high-up finish by the end of the cross country season. That still holds true as Jeff Stiles’ squad returns a solid number of guys from last year.

Losing Nick Matteucci, Marco Quaroni, and Jack Sebok to graduation hurts, but returning their 3-4-5-6 runners is still a very solid group, especially considering that those four men all finished between 56th and 73rd last year at Nationals.

With their tight-knit pack running and a conservative, shrewd racing style, there isn’t a question that those four runner will be right in the mix for All-American spots whenever we next have a national meet.

One guy who has been looking really good since last fall is Jacob Ridderhoff. The junior has proven to be a strong middle distance talent, running 4:13 in the mile and qualifying for the 2020 Indoor National Championships (which unfortunately did not happen due to COVID-19). Placing 65th at last year's national meet on the grass isn’t so bad either, especially when you’re right around all of your teammates in a pack. He’ll definitely be a contender for a low-end All-American finish when it’s all said and done.

Another guy who has looked good this past winter was Joe Stover. The senior got his 5k PR down to 14:40 on the indoor oval and with his 5k/10k experience from outdoors, he could certainly have done some damage in the UAA. He was 73rd in Louisville last year, finishing right at the backend of the Bears’ impressive pack.

Patrick Norrick and Tucker Cera were just ahead of those two men at NCAA's, placing 56th and 62nd, respectively, further adding to their low time spread and tight-knit scoring group. These two, along with Ridderhoff and Stover, all have the potential to create one of the smaller top five time spreads in D3 and generate lots of success from it.

If their four-man pack can dip even closer to that top 30 to 40 range, as well as bring up some new runners to bolster their lineup, the Bears will be looking to earn a podium spot once again.

A previous edition of this section noted that Nick Gannon and Peter Kirgis were returning for Williams. However, upon further inspection, both men have graduated despite what results from TFRRS suggest. Our apologies on the error.
 

The Ephs cruised through the regular season in 2019, dominating every time they toed the line. They started off their 2019 campaign by sweeping Amherst and Wesleyan at the Little Three Invite, then went on to win the Purple Valley and Connecticut College Invitationals by margins of 25 and 49 points, respectively. What makes those wins even more impressive is that they were facing national caliber teams at these meets.

They continued their dominance into the postseason with comfortable wins at the NESCAC Championships and the New England Regional Championships. Even though they fell short at the NCAA Championships with a 3rd place finish, the season they had last fall should certainly be admired.

It is doubtful that they would have been able to replicate their dominance in 2020. Despite returning their star low-stick Aidan Ryan, they graduate a very talented senior class and there are some questions with depth.

They do, however, return potential All-American Elias Lindgren who should give this team a quietly strong 1-2 whenever completion returns.

The rest of the Williams athletes who competed at last year's national meet have used up their eligibility though, and some new names would need to step up. Whether it's Ryan Watson, Will Spollen, Matthew Peacock or Chris Avila, the rest of this lineup just has be good enough in order for this team to stay competitive.

And given the Ephs' extensive history of development and national meet success, we don't think that's an outrageous -- especially with Ryan and Lindgren at the front of this lineup.

There are a lot of question marks with this Williams team which prevented us from ranking them higher. Still, there is no doubt in our minds that this is still one of the better distance programs in the country.