TSR's 2022 D2 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): Update #2

John Cusick
Oct 24, 2022
9 min read

Additional edits and commentary by Garrett Zatlin

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

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. Western Colorado Mountaineers (Unranked)

A big reason why this Western Colorado team was bumped out of our rankings two weeks ago was largely because of a lack of space.

The Mountaineers are a talented team, but they hadn’t done anything to warrant sticking around in the top-10. That, however, changed after their performance at D2 Pre-Nationals this past weekend. Their 3rd place finish was just seven points back of Chico State and they finished with three athletes inside the top-15.

The trio of Simon Kelati, Michael Grabowski and Jacob Hernandez finished 6th, 13th and 15th, respectively. Albert Hesse and Juan Diaz were the final two scorers for the Mountaineers in 30th and 31st.

Kelati has solidified himself as this team’s true low-stick moving forward and that will be a bug boost the rest of the way. He has essentially replaced Cade Michael at the top of this lineup while Grabowski has proven to be a consistent second scorer.

Hernandez wasn’t the projected third scorer for this team, but this performance certainly can change the dynamic of the WCU men. While he likely won’t finish 15th at the national meet come December, if he’s a consistent third or fourth scorer for this lineup, then Western Colorado’s potential rises even more.

And yet, we feel like they could have been even better on Saturday.

Hesse has been up-and-down so far this season which can likely be attributed to the lack of racing since 2019. There’s still some concern over who this team’s fifth scorer truly is, but that didn’t seem to have any ill effects on the team's overall finish this weekend.

We think this team will get better with more race experience, but for now, slotting them at our TSR #10 spot feels appropriate.

9. Missouri Southern Lions (0 / 9)

The Missouri Southern men took home a big victory at the DBU Old Glory Gallup. The East Central Tigers tested them, but Missouri Southern ultimately walked away with a four-point victory, 36 points to 40 points.

Gideon Kimutai took home another victory once again, proving to us that he’s one of Division Two's best pure distance talents. His teammates, Ryan Riddle and JP Rutledge, finished 6th and 7th, respectively, unsurprising making it three Lions inside the top-10.

The performances from Kimutai and Riddle were expected, but the biggest takeaway here is how Rutledge raced. He is arguably the biggest and most piece to this lineup after a few slightly underwhelming results earlier this season. If he can consistently race like this over the next month-ish, then we have no issues calling Missouri Southern a top-10 team.

Of course, there are still some concerns over this team's fourth and fifth scorers. Yes, Riley Simpson was 10th overall in this race, but he was 27 seconds back from Rutledge. Meanwhile, Jaden Deaton was 15th overall and was 19 seconds back from Simpson.

Overall, that time-spread is 1:53.

That likely won’t cut it even with three of the best runners in the country.

The Lions will need more consistency in the backend of their scoring before we can start talking about the Lions being a top-five team in the country.

For now, they stand pat at TSR #9, but their most recent effort was a little bit better than what they've shown recently.

8. Colorado Christian Cougars (-1 / 7)

We haven’t seen a top team from Colorado Christian toe the line since their victory at the Lewis Crossover earlier this season.

They’re moving down solely because other teams have raced recently.

7. Lee (Tenn.) Flames (+1 / 8)

The men from Lee (Tenn.) continue to impress.

Their most recent finish was a 2nd place team finish at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase, 34 points back of the Wingate men.

In typical pack-running fashion, the Flames had an absurd time-spread of just 22 seconds. Their scoring five went 9-13-16-20-30. They had all five scorers cross the line before anyone else not named Wingate had four runners cross the line.

The unique thing about this team is that they never have the same order when it comes to their scoring lineup. When we first placed Lee inside our top-10, Silas Eckenroad led the way to their 2nd place team finish at the Louisville Classic.

This time, however, it was Hayden Judge who finished 9th overall while Will Stone finished 13th and Aaron Himes placed 16th. As for Eckenroad, he didn’t cross the line until 20th place.

Ezekiel Harkless was this team's final scorer in 20th place, but now that we have mentioned those five men, we can now highlight the fact that this team finished 2nd place overall with one of their best runners, Adan Rodriguez, finishing 115th!

To perform this well with Rodriguez faltering only makes us more confident in the Flames moving forward.

They’ve proven multiple times this season that they know how to race as a team. We know that we will see them at the national meet, but who they send to the starting line at the Gulf South XC Championships and South Regional XC Championships will be insightful.

6. Augustana (SD) Vikings (0 / 6)

Augustana sent athletes to the Platte River Rumble where they suffered a defeat at the hands of Nebraska-Kearney.

While that is immediately concerning, it must be noted that the Vikings were without Henry Klitzke and Colten Brand. Those two men are expected to be part of this scoring lineup in the postseason, so for now, we’ll hold off on full judgment of this team until the postseason.

That said, Matt Steiger was impressive in his first season race, finishing 4th overall. His development over the last year has been truly impressive and he gives this team even more depth than we had originally thought they had.

Jesse Kaas (8th) and Ryan Hartman (9th) had top-10 finishes while Daniel Street (11th) and Erik Gunderson (17th) were the team's final two scorers.

Kaas has helped increase the steadiness of this team since coming over from U-Mary. He’s proven that he belongs inside this varsity lineup and his presence has been welcomed in a lineup that needed the depth the other weekend.

The Platte River Rumble was also just Hartman’s second race of the season, so he may some minor rust to shake off. As the expected low-stick of this team, it will be interesting to see how he performs moving forward.

Street has looked good in his first season on the grass and we should expect him to continue that improvement each time. The same can be said for Gunderson, but with just one race under his belt, there’s not too much to take away from his performance.

Despite the loss to UNK, we have reason to believe that this is still an incredibly strong team. Adding Klitzke and Brand to this lineup would have made it an easy victory over the Lopers. Their performance wasn’t head-turning without two of their best runners, but running a sub-varsity lineup and losing shouldn’t cost the Vikings any spots...we think.

5. Chico State Wildcats (-1 / 4)

This Chico State team is one of the rare varsity lineups that raced back-to-back weekends since our last rankings update.

After they won the Santa Clara Bronco Invitational in dominating fashion, the Wildcats turned around and finished runner-up at D2 Pre-Nationals this past weekend. Both efforts were relatively strong performances, although the former was arguably better than the latter.

The Chico State men placed five athletes inside the top-20 at Santa Clara, scoring 54 points and putting 66 points between them and Weber State. At D2 Pre-Nationals, they scored 84 points and had five athletes inside the top-26.

These are really good showings from the Wildcats, but we have to ask...can they be better?

Jack Emanuel and Daniel Hernandez have been the only two consistent runners in this lineup so far this season for the Wildcats.

Rory Abberton (10th) stepped up at Pre-Nationals, but was his team's fourth scorer (18th) at Santa Clara. Meanwhile, Omar Alvarez-Hernandez was the Wildcats' top runner at Santa Clara, but then finished as their third scorer at Pre-Nationals.

Meanwhile, Brayden McLaughlin has been Chico State's fourth scorer this year, but is far from what we expected him to be this season given his past performances.

On paper, the Wildcats’ recent results look good, but we don’t think that they’ve put together their best performance of the season yet. If they deliver on their full potential, then you’re looking at a top-tier team within Division Two.

However, until we see that, we’ll have to remain skeptical.

4. Wingate Bulldogs (+1 / 5)

Wingate put together their strongest performance of the season at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase. They took home the victory as a team with 53 points and were 34 points better than the aforementioned Lee Flames.

We mentioned how incredible the Flames’ time-spread was with 22 seconds separating their top-five scorers...but somehow, the Bulldogs bettered that.

Wingate's top-five was separated by just 20 seconds and they all finished inside the top-20.

Pierre Galbourdin finished 3rd overall with Scott Nutter emerging as the other Bulldog inside the top-10 with a 5th place finish. Bastian Mrochen (12th), Cas Kopmels (15th), Oliver Way (18th) and Yonas Sauers (19th) were the final four runners in this Wingate who finished in the top-20.

The only true weakness this team has is the lack of a low-stick. Everything else that we have seen from this team screams that their a top-five program, nationally. And until we see anything else that makes us think differently, we will continue to keep Wingate in our top-five.

3. Grand Valley State Lakers (0 / 3)

The Grand Valley State Lakers didn’t field an “A” team at the Bradley Pink Classic, but that didn’t stop them from running well in that field. In fact, the Lakers finished 3rd as a team without Tanner Chada leading the way.

The Lakers don’t move anywhere in this update largely due to not fielding Chada, but there are some strong takeaways from their team performance.

It was nice to see Caleb Futter (5th) run well as we expected him to be a key component to this year’s success. He unlocks the true potential of Grand Valley State and this looks to be a step in the right direction.

Brock Wooderson is the other one who had a strong performance. He finished as the second scorer for this team and was 20th overall in his best performance as a Laker in his young career. We also saw Andrew Hylen and Koby Fraaza finish 24th and 27th making it four Lakers in the top-30. Samuel Martens placed 38th to complete the scoring for the Lakers.

Grand Valley had all five scorers in before the eventual team winner, Loyola (Ill.), meaning that had Chada run, it would have been another victory for the Allendale-based men.

There is a ton of depth in this program that makes the Lakers so dangerous. If Futter can finish as high up as he did at the Bradley Pink Classic, then in theory, there could be enough firepower for the Lakers to pull off an upset again this year...but admittedly, they still have a long way to go before that happens.

2. Adams State Grizzlies (-1 / 1)

The Adams State men finally made their true “debut” at the Highlander Invitational in Riverside, California. It didn’t take long to remind everyone just how good they are.

The Grizzlies went 1-4-5-7-9 and scored 24 points.

Awet Beraki (1st) is a dominant low-stick as he showcased with his win. Cameron Allan (4th) has been a good addition to an already-great team. Clement Duigou (5th) is impacting this team (favorably) as expected. James Dunne (7th) has evolved from being a strong middle distance athlete to a legitimate threat in cross country. And finally, Miguel Coca (9th) appears to have secured a varsity spot after missing out last year.

And that’s not considering that Yonas Haile (13th) and Mitchell Dervin (18th) were also inside the top-20.

While this is a good result for the Grizzlies, it was also somewhat expected. They faced the “B” squads of UCLA and Colorado. Azusa Pacific doesn’t crack our top-10 in these Division Two rankings and they were the 2nd place team at the Highlander Invitational.

There is good reason to believe that Adams State is the best team in the country, but we move them back this update due to their competition. As dominant as their recent win was, it’s nothing that we didn’t already know about them.

1. Colorado Mines Orediggers (+1 / 2)

Where do we start with Colorado Mines?

In one of the more dominant performances of the year, the Orediggers went to Seattle for D2 Pre-Nationals and left with just 19 points scored.

Dillon Powell secured a 17-second victory over the 2nd place finisher. That runner-up finisher was teammate Loic Scomparin who followed by fellow Oredigger Duncan Fuehne in 3rd.

Luke Julian finished 5th and Steven Goldy was the final scorer in 8th place. It should be noted that Chris Cathcart was just behind Goldy in 9th place, making that six Orediggers inside the top-10.

Nothing short of flat-out impressive.

But what’s more impressive than that?

How about six athletes crossing the line before the 2nd place team even had one?

All six Colorado Mines runners finished before Rory Abberton of Chico State crossed the line. We think the Wildcats are a top-five team in the country and the Orediggers dominated the west coast powerhouse in every fashion this past weekend.

The Orediggers placed all 10 runners in the top-40 of this race. If you split those 10 runners into two teams, the “A” team would have finished with 19 points and won. The “B” team would have finished with 110 points (combined raw finishes) and have been the 4th place team in this field.

The firepower that the Mines men have right now is arguably the best in the country and you could argue that they also have the best depth in the country too.

A display of this magnitude only cements the Orediggers as the team to beat this season.