TSR's 2022 D2 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): Update #5

John Cusick
Dec 6, 2022
11 min read

Written by John Cusick

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. You will notice that these rankings may mirror the national meet results, but not precisely. That is intentional. These rankings are intended to be an aggregate. They are not recency lists.

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. Lee (Tenn.) Flames (-4 / 6)

The men of Lee (Tenn.) take a four-spot tumble in our final rankings because of their 16th place team finish at the NCAA XC Championships. And truthfully, we would understand the argument for them to be ousted from our top-10, entirely.

But let's not forget that this group ran very well at the Louisville Classic, snagged a runner-up result at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase (which turned out to be a better performance than we realized in the moment) and they later defeated Mississippi College at both their conference and regional meets, a team that ultimately finished 12th overall last Friday.

The regular season that the Flames assembled this fall keeps them in the final spot of our rankings. And leading up to the national meet, we were confident that they would use their interchangeable depth to their advantage.

That, however, was not the case.

The Flames had averaged a time-spread of 30 seconds between the Louisville Classic, UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase, GSC XC Championships and the South Regional XC Championships going into last Friday.

But at the NCAA XC Championships, that time-spread was 1:37.

The top runner for the Flames was Aaron Himes in 74th place with Will Stone 10 places back in 84th. The final five runners of this varsity lineup didn’t finish before 114th place, making this an overwhelmingly tough race for Lee.

And yet, despite the poor result, the Flames actually placed a spot better than they did at last year’s national meet (17th).

Does a 16th place finish make their season a successful one? On paper, yes.

But, when you start to analyze their results and scoring lineup, we’d argue that this team is a top-10 team on their best day.

Finishing outside of the top-10 and losing to teams that they had proven that they were better than earlier in the season makes this a frustrating end to an otherwise very successful fall campaign for the Flames.

9. Missouri Southern Lions (0 / 9)

Seeing Missouri Southern finish 9th as a team at the national meet isn't super surprising.

However, what is surprising was seeing how they got to that point.

When you look deeper, you’ll see that the Lions' usual low-stick, Gideon Kimutai, finished 82nd overall and was the third scorer on his team. You’ll also see that Ryan Riddle finished 63rd overall.

That meant, that their usual third scorer, JP Rutledge, was the lead man for the Lions at the national meet. Rutledge wound up finishing 47th place overall, well off from his preseason expectations.

So, now knowing all of that information, a 9th place team finish for this team is actually quite good. Yes, their top scorers faltered, but all that meant was that they’d likely finish closer together than they would have with stronger races from Kimutai and Riddle.

Riley Simpson was Missouri Southern's fourth option in 87th place while Jaden Deaton was the final scorer for his team in 115th place. This team's top-five time-spread was 46 seconds which was the best margin that they posted all season long.

Of course, that time-spread doesn’t really matter all that much when you’ve got athletes who are supposed to be at the front of the race falling outside of All-American contention.

The Lions finished with 326 total points. That was six points worse than Charleston (WV). That was also 16 points worse than Augustana and it was 22 points worse than Illinois-Springfield.

A normal race from their top-two runners would have made the Lions, at the very least, the sixth-best team in the country. And we say that with confidence. Of course, that’s a “what if” situation and not what actually unfolded.

8. Charleston (WV) Golden Eagles (Unranked)

Charleston (WV) had spent multiple weeks within our “Just Missed” or “Honorable Mentions” sections of our team rankings. That time has ended as the Golden Eagles proved just how good they were on the national stage, placing 8th overall on Friday which moves them to TSR #8 in our final team rankings update.

Joao Pereira led this group in 21st place overall on Friday. And while that’s impressive, it’s not entirely shocking given that Pereira was ranked in our individual top-25 list earlier this season.

Surprisingly, the Golden Eagles' second scorer, Thomas Termote, finished in 33rd place, giving his squad a very important second All-American low-stick. When you add in Alejandro Abellanda’s strong performance of 48th place overall, we suddenly saw the Golden Eagles flex a very solid top-three in their scoring lineup.

Two All-Americans with a third on the cusp of that same honor make things a heck of a lot easier on the backend. The eventual scoring fall off to 101st place and 169th place from their fourth and fifth scorers wasn't ideal, but those gaps were combatted by the performances of Pereira, Termote and Abellanda.

Throughout the season, the Golden Eagles had achieved a time-spread that fell under a minute between their first and fifth scorers. At the national meet, that difference ballooned to 1:53. In our minds, that tells us that Charleston (WV) could have run better than they did at the national meet.

The Golden Eagles peaked at the perfect time of the season and their best team finish in their program’s history came with that. And while this may seem like a simple "match their ranking with their national meet finish" method, it's more based on how their overall seasonal resume looks with a top-10 finish at the NCAA XC Championships.

For the most part, they never really had a poor performance.

7. Illinois-Springfield Prairie Stars (Unranked)

In our recent reactions article for last Friday's national meet, we talked about how surprised we were by the Illinois-Springfield team.

That surprise, however, isn't to suggest that we thought that the Prairie Stars lacked talent. Instead, it's more from the fact that they had been good, but not great, during their races leading up to the national meet.

UIS's performances this season comprised of a 2nd place team finish at the Lewis Crossover, a 4th place team finish at the UAH D2 Festival Year Showcase, an overall victory at the GLVC XC Championships and lastly, a 5th place team finish at the Midwest Regional XC Championships.

So yes, for them to finish in 6th place as a team at the national meet was surprising.

Wyatt McIntyre was an All-American, finishing in 26th place overall, while his brother Noah McIntyre was behind him in 43rd place overall. Those are good results, but the biggest proponent of their success was that their top-four scorers all finished inside the top-100.

There were only 56 seconds between those four scorers and when extending that time-spread to their fifth scorer, the margin remains at only 1:11, making it one of the better top-five gaps in the country.

The Prairie Stars have proven that it’s not always what you do before the national meet, but rather how you race on the day of the said national meet that matters. Despite some inconsistencies during the season -- which is why they're ranked at TSR #7 and not TSR #6 -- UIS ran up to their potential on the biggest day of the season and they deserve to be recognized for that.

6. Augustana Vikings (+4 / 10)

It’s been an up-and-down season for the Augustana men, but a 7th place team finish at the NCAA XC Championships feels representative of how this team performed this season.

Ryan Hartman returned to the form that we saw last year as he finished in 19th place overall. Matt Steiger was 45th and Colten Brand was 58th. Those are respectable finishes as Steiger was 24 spots better than last year’s national meet performance while Brand traversed his first-ever national meet quite well.

While we think Steiger could have been better than 45th, he still did his job as this team’s second scorer. The same can be said for Brand who stepped up for this squad throughout the season. These three men carried the Vikings to their 7th place team finish and are the main reason why we see Augustana jump four spots into our TSR #6 spot.

Jesse Kaas (104th) and Henry Klitzke (142nd) were expected to bolster this team during the postseason. Instead, their inconsistency hampered their team’s potential when it mattered. If both men had run up to their potential, then we might be talking about a team that finished inside the top-five.

Would they have made up 45 points? We’re not sure, but it would have made up the six points between them and Illinois-Springfield. And that would have made us feel better about how this team performed throughout the season.

But as we end the year with Augustana at TSR #6, we’re left wondering if this team had more to offer.

5. Chico State Wildcats (0 / 5)

The Chico State performed as we expected them to. They walked away from the NCAA XC Championships with a 5th place team finish and were 56 points back of Grand Valley State, a squad that finished 4th.

How the Wildcats made their way to a 5th place finish was not exactly how we thought they would. All five athletes finished inside the top-100, which meant they were set up for success in the team race regardless of how they were ordered.

Rory Abberton led this team in 25th place overall, making him the lone All-American for the Wildcats in 2022. Their second scorer, Cameron Duquette, had arguably the best race of his Chico State career, finishing in 46th place overall.

While those two men raced well, we had hoped to see a bit more from Brayden McLaughlin and Jack Emanuel.

Emanuel had been the second scorer for this team throughout most of the season and was seemingly on the same fitness level as Abberton. Meanwhile, McLaughlin, who had taken a step back from his 2021 season form, was still a very strong fourth scorer for this team. To see McLaughlin finish 72nd and Emanuel finish 76th was fine, but we were left wanting more.

Going into the national meet, we felt that the Wildcats' floor was a 5th place finish. Their ceiling had them finishing as high as 2nd place if they raced up to their talent level.

We think that Chico State left some points on the course, but that ultimately doesn't change their final ranking.

4. Grand Valley State Lakers (-2 / 2)

Grand Valley State takes a two-spot fall after their 4th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.

Tanner Chada (2nd) and Caleb Futter (14th) did their jobs with top-15 finishes as they were the second-best duo of all 34 teams. However, a big reason why the Lakers fell to 4th in the team standings was because they didn't have the same middle-lineup support that we thought they would.

Andrew Hylen had been trending in the wrong direction in the postseason and he skipped the Midwest Regional XC Championships to get right for the national meet. However, his season ultimately ended with him finishing 124th as the Lakers’ fifth scorer last Friday.

Brock Wooderson finished 39th place last weekend, making it three All-Americans for the Lakers. And we should note that Wooderson was typically the fourth scorer for this team throughout this 2022 season.

Having a freshman like Wooderson deliver that kind of performance was what we had ultimately expected from the other upstart freshman, Koby Fraaza, who finished in 70th place.

The Lakers were only 18 points back of Colorado Christian and 32 points behind Wingate. Throughout the season, the Lakers had performed well in nearly every aspect of their scoring lineup. However, we also knew that their depth, while still incredibly strong, could be a weak point compared to some other programs, largely due to some inexperience.

This is still one of the best teams in the country when they’re all firing at 100% on the same day. But we didn’t see that happen at the national meet and the Lakers will finish a spot behind where we had them ranked in our preseason rankings.

3. Colorado Christian Cougars (0 / 3)

Colorado Christian was arguably the hardest team to rank all season long.

We saw them race their best lineup three times this fall. They won the Lewis Crossover in strong fashion before finishing 2nd at the South Central Regional XC Championships six weeks later. And now, finally, the Cougars end their season at our TSR #3 spot after their 3rd place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.

Josh Pierantoni confirmed that he was one of the nation’s best with his 11th place finish. Matthew Storer finished 17th place in his first-ever national meet and Trent Cochran finished in 31st place overall.

That meant that the Cougars had three All-Americans for the first-time ever in their history. It also meant that they were better through three runners than every other program except for Colorado Mines.

In our national meet reactions article, we already harped on how important Isaac Russo’s 57th place finish was to this team’s success...but I'll reiterate that point. Because if Russo had not beaten GVSU’s Koby Fraaza, then a 3rd place team finish would not have been the outcome.

Alexander Vance finished 112th overall and that placing was also critical to the Cougars’ success as he was better than the Laker’s fifth and sixth runners, securing bronze for Colorado Christian.

There were real question marks surrounding this team going into their regional meet. We were unsure how they’d perform after such a long layover between meets. But it’s safe to say that the Cougars have mastered the idea of racing less to maximize results at the end of the season.

This is just the beginning for this team. Their best finish in team history should only propel this team to more success as the years go on.

2. Wingate Bulldogs (+2 / 4)

All season long, we talked about the depth of Wingate and how it would allow them to find success at the national meet.

But what we didn't expect was for that depth to produce four All-Americans (all in the top-35). It also resulted in those four athletes all finishing within 10 seconds of each other. And in most instances, four athletes inside the top-35 within 10 seconds between each other would be good enough to win a national title.

While that wasn’t the case for Wingate, they still walked away with their best team finish in school history. The Bulldogs finished with 177 points and were 14 points better than Colorado Christian.

Souheil Boufrizi and Yonas Sauers finished 92nd and 94th, respectively, while Bastian Mrochen recorded a DNF. After seeing those three results, we could say that this team could have been scored better than the 177 points that they tallied.

Those three men finishing better than they did last Friday wouldn’t have been enough to catch Colorado Mines in the grand scheme of things. However, we can confidently say that Wingate could have been even better than what they showed at the national meet -- and that's absolutely incredible to think about.

The Bulldogs' success had been predicated on their grouping as a team and they ended the national meet with a time-spread of 56 seconds, their worst top-five margin of the season when they ran all of their best talents.

This is the second time that the Bulldogs have qualified for the NCAA XC Championships in their history. They were 6th at last year's national meet and now they've taken home runner-up honors.

A long-term storm is brewing at Wingate -- and this might only be the beginning.

1. Colorado Mines Orediggers (0 / 1)

Colorado Mines finished their 2022 cross country season with seven All-Americans and had all seven of those athletes finish inside the top-30.

What an absurd sentence.

The Orediggers dominated from start to end last Friday and delivered upon the massive expectations that had been placed upon them -- and then some.

Dillon Powell won the individual title by 19 seconds. He was followed by Duncan Fuehne who finished in 3rd place overall while Loic Scomparin placed 10th, Luke Julian finished 13th and Chris Cathcart crossed the line in 24th place.

Paul Knight (25th) and Steven Goldy (30th) were the final two athletes for the Orediggers and their performances would have been top performances for almost any other team in the field.

We didn’t learn anything new about the Orediggers after their national meet performance. They’ve been the best team in the country and they’ve proven it time and time again. They’ll walk away with our TSR #1 spot for 2022 and we’re only left with one question.

Where does this performance rank in the history of Division Two?

We'll let you decide that for now.