TSR's 2022 D2 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): Update #1

John Cusick
Oct 10, 2022
9 min read

Additional edits and commentary by Garrett Zatlin

NOTE: Theses rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at the NCAA XC Championships.

KEY

(Unranked):

Was not ranked in our last update.

(#/#):

First number indicates how much the team has moved in the rankings.

The second number indicates where the team was ranked in our last update.

10. UC-Colorado Springs Mountain Lions (-1 / 9)

The UC-Colorado Springs men have been relatively quiet early-on in 2022.

Their most significant result came this past weekend when they competed at the Lucian Rosa Invitational, taking home the team title in dominant fashion.

The Mountain Lions defeated Wis-Parkside by 32 points and Wayne State (Mich.) by 37 points.

Afewerki Zeru (TSR #4) looked like his normal self in that race, taking home the victory by nine seconds. He ran away from Wayne State and our current TSR #17 runner, Ransom Allen, en route to that win.

Behind him were Evan Graff (5th) and Marcus Graham (7th), two promising middle-lineup scorers who appear to be providing stability and solid value as expected. Meanwhile, Gavin Harden and Logan Cole finished 14th and 17th, respectively, to give the UCCS men five athletes inside the top-20.

Admittedly, there are still some questions about the depth of this team. Jagger Zlotoff was 21st overall while Will Young finished 31st this past weekend. The time-spread for this team between their first and fifth scorers was 1:08. And while that is a decent mark for this team considering how far ahead Zeru is, things have to nearly be perfect each time they compete.

Despite moving a spot back in this update, the Mountain Lions have shown that they are who we thought they were during the preseason. They have an elite low-stick capable of making up for some backend-scoring hiccups, but even then, it's not like that is a major issue, either.

UCCS is a top-10 team right now, but we think they will need to make some general improvements before considering them anything better than a backend top-10 team.

9. Missouri Southern Lions (-2 / 7)

Since our last update, the Missouri Southern men have won their home meet, the Missouri Southern Stampede, and finished 3rd at the Chile Pepper XC Festival.

So what gives? Why are they moving two spots backwards?

Well, it’s a combination of things.

The first reason is simply because other teams have had some impressive results as of late. That's largely not in Missouri Southern's control.

However, the second reason is because we have some concerns about their structure.

Gidieon Kimutai (TSR #5) and Ryan Riddle (TSR #8) have looked the part in being the Lions’ top-two runners. It’s JP Rutledge (TSR #9) who we have some questions about.

Rutledge finished 8th at the Missouri Southern Stampede, but we’d argue that he should have at least placed 3rd in that field. He followed up that performance with an unexciting 31st place finish at the Chile Pepper XC Festival.

Again, that wasn't a bad result, but we were expecting much more than that.

Riley Simpson has looked respectable early this season, as has South Dakota transfer, Clayton Whitehead. Those two men have have turned into a nice backend scorers for this team, but we don’t think it’s enough to put this lineup over the top.

The Lions’ success this season relies almost entirely upon their elite scoring trio racing up to their potential. And right now, it's on Rutledge to deliver.

If even one of them is having an "off" day, then the entire scoring dynamic of this varsity lineup changes. Consistency and a lack of scoring gaps will need to be emphasized going into the latter-half of this season.

8. Lee (Tenn.) Flames (Unranked)

Bravo, Lee.

Bravo.

I’ll be the first one to eat my words about this team. Coming into the season, we were concerned about the lack of low-stick scoring that the Flames would be working around this team.

That, however, was clearly not a concern of theirs.

At the Louisville Classic, we saw this team finish 2nd overall behind only Grand Valley State. They were just 29 points back of the Lakers. Silas Eckenroad finished 20th, Adan Rodriguez was right behind him in 21st and Will Stone was two spots back in 23rd place.

Meanwhile, Hayden Judge was 31st and Matthew Fowler finished 38th.

The time-spread between those five men crossing the finish line? 11 seconds.

Eckenroad, Rodriguez and Stone have been part of past Lee teams that have seen success in recent year, making their experience on the grass this fall more valuable than ever. Judge has also impressed us in his first cross country season as a Flame while the addition of Fowler from Catawba has helped strengthen this team's entire top-five.

If they can continue to race like this throughout the season, then they will be a problem during the postseason.

That being said, we think that their potential might be capped by a lack of firepower up front. We don’t know if the Flames can match the scoring potency that some other teams have displayed despite their strong team-racing tactics.

But for now, it's hard to dislike a team that doesn't have too many scoring deficiencies through five runners.

7. Colorado Christian Cougars (+1 / 8)

We finally got to see the Colorado Christian men race against some stronger competition at the Lewis Crossover -- and they did not disappoint.

Thanks to having three men inside the top-10 of the results, the Cougars took home the team title with just 47 points. That was 33 points better than Illinois-Springfield and 35 points better than Western Washington. Trent Cochran and Josh Pierantoni (TSR #16) led this team, finishing 2nd and 3rd, respectively, with Matthew Storer having one of the best races of his still-young college career in 9th place.

To be clear, this is what we should have seen from this team against the competition that they faced this past weekend. In fact, there’s a solid argument that they could be better in the future as Alexander Vance wasn’t even part of this scoring lineup like we thought he would be.

If he races to his actual talent level, then we’re talking about a runaway victory for the Cougars instead of just a comfortable one.

The Cougars have the firepower to be competitive with some of the top teams in the nation and their depth will likely be better in the future if Vance is back at 100%.

Despite moving up one spot, we could also see a scenario where they landed at our TSR #5 spot in this week's update.

6. Augustana (SD) Vikings (-2 / 4)

Honestly, it's been a bit of a boring start to the 2022 season for the Augustana men.

That's not necessarily because of their performances, but the competition level that they have faced this season, which has been truthfully lackluster, leaves us a little bit in the dark.

A time trial effort at their home meet earlier in the season saw four Vikings cross the line at the same time. This team later went on to finish 1-2-3-4-5-6-8-9 at the WSC Wildcat XC Classic.

It is good to see that this team's core of Kray Person, Colten Brand, Henry Klitzke and Jesse Kaas are all healthy and are all part of this team so far in 2022. Rayn Hartman debuted at the Defender Holiday Inn Classic this past weekend and took home a bronze medal finish as an individual.

It appears that the Vikings are a fully healthy team, but we just have not seen them against anybody notable this season and that’s why they fall two spots in our latest rankings update.

5. Wingate Bulldogs (+1 / 6)

The Wingate men have raced incredibly well this season, so they get a nice bump up to our TSR #5 spot (for now).

The Bulldogs opened up their season at the Catawba Fleet Feet XC Invite where they took home the team title over the host team by five points.

Sure, that’s a moderate margin to win a cross country meet by, but it’s a win nonetheless.

However, what they’ve done since that race is produce arguably one of the most impressive results that we have seen so far this season.

The Bulldogs were one of the few D2 teams slated to compete in the “Gold” section at the Paul Short Run a few weekends ago. Not only did they compete, but they finished 12th in that field behind a medley of Division One teams. That was 10 spots better than the next-best D2 team, Charleston (WV), and 12 spots better than the Walsh Cavaliers.

Scott Nutter finished 44th overall and led the Bulldogs at Paul Short, but he also had three teammates finish inside the top-100 to aid in his effort. Bastian Mrochen placed 77th, Cas Kopmels finished 84th and Yonas Sauers was 88th.

Pierre Galbourdin was the final scoring Bulldog in 122nd place.

The time-spread between those five men was just 49 seconds and their top-four time-spread was just 29 seconds! That was in a field of 533 athletes which is super impressive. For perspective, the 2021 D2 NCAA XC Championships only had 245 athletes finish the race.

If the Bulldogs run like this again in a field that is half the size, then at their talent level, there is no telling how far up the team standings they’ll finish.

4. Chico State Wildcats (+1 / 5)

We have seen Chico State race once this season, but that was still enough for us to move them up one spot in this week's rankings update.

At the Cougar Challenge, the Wildcats absolutely dominated, scoring just 32 points. They won by 38 points over the next-best team in Azusa Pacific. They had all five scorers finish in the top-10 and in that process, they all finished before any other team had three scorers in.

Jack Emanuel, Omar Alvarez-Hernandez, Rory Abberton, Brayden McLaughlin and Daniel Hernandez went 2-5-7-8-10 to assemble a lineup that was simply untouchable in that field.

And sure, that was already super impressive, but when you add that to the fact that they finished just 19 seconds apart, then it becomes apparent that this Chico State team will be extremely good throughout the rest of 2022.

The only downside of the Wildcats' season thus far is that they’ve only raced once. Outside of some strong west coast teams, we don’t have a solid gauge on how this team looks against some stronger competition.

Chico State will be nationally competitive, but until we see some results against some stronger competition we can only move them up one spot in what appears to be their (current) ceiling.

3. Grand Valley State Lakers (0 / 3)

The Grand Valley State men stand pat at TSR #3 this time, but that's no fault of their own.

Tanner Chada (TSR #3) has been as good as advertised with victories at the MSU Spartan Invitational and the Louisville Classic. While taking home those individual victories, he’s also led the Lakers to two team titles. They defeated Cincinnati by 44 points at the Spartan Invitational and then Lee by 29 points at Louisville.

Andrew Hylen and Koby Fraaza have flip-flopped the second and third scoring roles for the Lakers this season. And while we expected Hylen to be the next man up in 2022, the emergence of Fraaza is a game-changer for this Lakers team.

Seeing Fraaza run as well as he has effectively gives the Lakers three men capable of finishing inside the top-20 of any given race. They arguably give the GVSU one of the more lethal trios in the country.

Those two team victories also came without Caleb Futter (TSR #25) making any scoring impact. At the Spartan Invitational, Futter finished 27th and outside of the team's varsity seven. In fact, he didn’t even toe the start line at the Louisville. And while that is truthfully a bit concerning, we’re encouraged by the amount of depth that Grand Valley State has shown in his absence.

And if Futter does return later this season running at 100%, then maybe the gap between GVSU and the top-two teams in our rankings won't be as large as we think it is.

There has been a revolving door open this season for the final four varsity spots of this GVSU lineup, and that’s the only concerning part of Grand Valley State’s team. Without a true varsity order, it’s hard for us to say that we’ve seen the Lakers' best team in 2022.

2. Colorado Mines Orediggers (0 / 2)

We have yet to see a full varsity squad from the Colorado Mines men in 2022.

We’ve seen the Orediggers field two “B” squads so far this season, once at the Roadrunners Invitational and the other at the Ted Castaneda Classic. In our eyes, those meets appear to evaluation meets for who might be the final part of Mines' varsity lineup later this season.

1. Adams State Grizzlies (0 / 1)

The Adams State men are in a similar position as the Colorado Mines men, even if we have seen a few of their varsity talents already toe the line this fall.

While we haven’t seen the Orediggers' varsity team this season, we have seen the Grizzlies' varsity team. Their appearance came at the Joe I. Vigil Invitational in early September where the Adams State men took eight out of the top-10 spots.

But honestly, there’s hardly anything that we can take away from that race. I don't think anyone learned anything new from those results.

Again, much like Colorado Mines, we learned a bit more about the depth of the Grizzlies as they sent a “B” squad to the Ted Castaneda Classic, but we will reserve judgment about the actual effectiveness of this squad until we see their full team in action.