TSR's 2022 D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): Update #2

TSR Collaboration
Oct 24, 2022
7 min read

Written by Kevin Fischer, Hannah Thorn & Brett Haffner

Additional edits and commentary by John Cusick & 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. SUNY Geneseo Knights (Unranked)

SUNY Geneseo is coming off of a solid runner-up performance at the Rowan Interregional Rumble, finishing 2nd behind a strong RPI team and just ahead of a very talented Lynchburg squad.

Nick Andrews continues to impress as one of the better individuals hailing from out east, finishing just behind Matthew Lecky of RPI. He’s the essential low-stick that this SUNY Geneseo team is centered around.

William Hall has been stepping up as the Knights’ second man in a strong fashion this season, but one looming question surrounds this team: Where in the world is Ezra Ruggles?

The 1500 meter star has been relatively unseen this cross country season, only running once so far this season. He nearly earned All-American honors on the grass in 2021, placing 43rd at the national meet, but has largely been unseen in the results.

If Ruggles can return to that boarderline All-American level during the championship portion of this season, then SUNY Geneseo might look a lot different than their current ranking reflects.

9. Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (0 / 9)

The Blue Jays opted to take their top runners over to the Panorama Farms Invitational in Virginia, being one of the only Division Three teams not to be at a meet that consisted primarily of Division Three programs.

With some solid performances, Johns Hopkins finished 14th out of 17 teams, running against only Division One schools.

Matthew Kleiman (58th) and Gavin McElhennon (86th) still look solid as their team’s top-two runners while their remaining pack of scorers stayed fairly tight-knit.

The Blue Jays' scoring lineup is producing great results fairly consistently, week-in and week-out. The scoring spread that we saw from this group the other weekend is comparable to what we’ve seen from them all season long.

Their floor this season seems pretty high...and that's a good thing!

Consistency will only continue to help Johns Hopkins as the postseason comes around, but getting those third, fourth and fifth scorers closer to Kleiman and McElhennon will help their team progress in these rankings.

8. Carnegie Mellon Tartans (0 / 8)

Winning the Oberlin Inter-Regional Rumble was a good next step for this young Carnegie Mellon team whose prominence in the Division Three circuit has continued to rise compared to our expectations for them at the beginning of the season.

Colin McLaughlin (5th) continues to be the star low-stick of this team, but he is truthfully not the main reason why this team ran so well back in mid-October. The Tartans were able to put their top-six runners within 18 seconds of each other at Oberlin, flexing some great depth to bring them the team title in that race.

Within a smaller meet setting like Oberlin, it’s not surprising to see more of a pack-running strategy from the Tartans. When it comes to a bigger meet like Paul Short, their group is naturally more spread out, but that also opens the door for guys like Colin McLaughlin and Jacob Hsu to shine as Carnegie Mellons' low-sticks.

We'd like to think that come the postseason, Carnegie Mellon’s experience from last year’s national meet, along with their rising success throughout this regular season, should set the Tartans up well to be a “sleeper team” that may slip under the radar at this year’s NCAA XC Championships.

7. UW-La Crosse Eagles (0 / 7)

The two main storylines surrounding the Eagles’ season in 2022 are a) the rise of Ethan Gregg and Isaac Wegner as one of the more potent duos in Division Three, and b) the Eagles’ struggles from their third scorer onwards.

But at the Jim Drews Invitational, the UW-La Crosse men were able to work on the latter concern as Gregg and Wegner helped boost Corey Fairchild, Parker Huhn and Aidan Matthai to some very impressive performances to round out their backend scoring.

Fairchild, in particular, was very impressive, running 24:47 to finish alongside Gregg and Wegner to complete a solid team effort for the Eagles.

UW-La Crosse’s depth is historically a strong facet for their team, so there could be other names who we may see contributing to their top-five scoring throughout the postseason as well.

If the Eagles' backend scorers can continue to maintain a solid top-five time-spread like they did at Jim Drews, while also letting the reins off of Gregg and Wegner’s low-stick abilities, then we could see a very dangerous squad from the Eagles over the next month.

6. Williams Ephs (-3 / 3)

After a bad start to the season, we are starting to figure out the team dynamic of Williams.

Elias Lindgren is the clear star. He will be battling for the individual national title and is probably the only one who can truly threaten Alex Phillip right now...we think. At the Connecticut College Invitational, Lindgren took home the win in a blistering time of 23:43 over a very talented field.

Lindgren is often followed by sophomore Grahm Tuohy Gaydos. He’s been a solid second scorer with hopes of finishing in the top-20 at the national meet. That’s not a lot of points for your top-two runners to bring to the table (which is a good thing), but the problem comes with the other three scorers in this lineup.

At the Connecticut College Invitational, the Ephs were tied with MIT through two runners, but then went 14-22-35-45-51 compared to MIT’s group which went 10-12-17-23-27. However, this Williams team might not have been at full strength.

Freshman Nikhil DeNatale was missing from the Ephs' lineup and has been for the last few weeks. His last race was at the Purple Valley Classic at the beginning of October. He could be a solid fifth scorer for the Ephs, allowing them not to bleed as many points in the postseason.

5. Wartburg Knights (-1 / 4)

Christopher Collet scored the win at the Augustana Interregional Invite, but that wasn’t enough to overtake Pomona-Pitzer and North Central on the team side of things.

And truthfully, that seems to be the general theme for the Wartburg Knights this fall. Collet is having a great season and will be an elite low-stick for this team, but that might not be enough to put the Knights on the podium.

Collet, Connor Lancial and Morgan Shirley-Fairbairn are a solid top-three for the Wartburg men. However, it’s hard to compete with Pomona-Pitzer and North Central teams who had three runners in the top-10 the other weekend...while Wartburg only had one.

We should note that Shirley-Fairbairn had an "off" day at Augustana, finishing in 18th place. We were expecting him to be top-10 at that meet, normally.

As for the rest of this group, nobody from Wartburg bombed, they just weren’t spectacular. The rest of the team was rounded out by Jacob Green finishing in 26th, Sam Schmitz in 31st, Jack Kinzer in 45th and Lance Sobaski in 53rd.

Not bad at all, but also not the greatest day ever for the Knights.

4. RPI Engineers (+2 / 6)

RPI continues to move up our rankings as the season goes on.

They took the win at the Rowan Interregional Rumble over strong teams like SUNY Geneseo, Lynchburg and Washington & Lee. In fact, their team score of 39 points was a total of 38 points ahead of the 2nd place SUNY Geneseo men.

Matthew Lecky took the close win over SUNY Geneseo’s Nick Andrew, proving to the country that he is the leader of this team and one of the best overall distance talents in Division Three. Those two men were head and shoulders above the rest of this field. The next closest runner, Lecky’s teammate Cory Kennedy, was 30 seconds back.

Kennedy was one of four RPI men finishing in the top-10. Teammates Patrick Smyth and Mitchell Dailey finished in 8th and 9th, respectively.

With sophomore Jonathan Craun finishing 18th and Steven Spreizer finishing 19th, these Engineers know how to run in packs. That will likely pay dividends for them during the championship portion of this season.

3. North Central (Ill.) Cardinals (+2 / 5)

The Cardinals just continue to impress us. They recorded a 2nd place finish at Augustana the other week, only losing to Pomona-Pitzer and beating some high-quality competition which included Wartburg.

As we touched on in our D3 Roundtable article last week, the best part of their performance was that they were first through three runners. Connor Riss has improved week-in and week-out and can now be talked about in the same breath as some of the nation’s elites.

And truthfully, both Svienty and Nicholson are very close to that level as well.

When we talk about North Central’s top-three, it's not to take away from their depth. They have a very good supporting cast, but it's just not quite at the same level as Pomona-Pitzer or MIT.

To truly contend for a national title, the Cardinals need to see improvements from the 4-5-6-7 guys in their lineup. But with all of the momentum in the world on their side, we wouldn't count them out of getting even better over the next month.

2. MIT Engineers (0 / 2)

MIT is the complete package. They have a great recipe with high-level star power and elite depth that will make them one of the teams to beat in Lansing.

Sam Acquaviva looks like a top-15 talent in the country, Matthew Kearney and Andrew Mah look like clear-cut All-Americans and both Vedang Lad and Ryan Wilson have the ability to be in that All-American mix as well.

They have made some very difficult tasks look easy this year, beating our current TSR #3 team, North Central, by 36 points at D3 Pre-Nationals and then beating our current TSR #6 team, Williams, by 32 points at the Connecticut College Invitational.

The Engineers won’t face any serious challenges at their conference or regional levels. That should, in theory, provide them with an opportunity to take their foot slightly off of the gas and stay fresh for the national meet.

1. Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens (0 / 1)

Pomona-Pitzer is in a similar boat to MIT where they have comfortably beaten some of the best teams that Division Three has to offer.

Their depth is probably the best in the country which is why they stay at TSR #1 for yet another week. And just how deep are they? Well, their eighth runner at Augustana finished ahead of every other team's fourth runner.

And if you need more evidence, then we should note that they also took their reserves to the Highlander Invitational that same day. At that meet, their top-five finishers averaged sub-25 minutes over 8000 meters.

As a result of this embarrassment of riches, some very good Sagehen runners will not have an opportunity to compete in the postseason...but you have to admit, that's a good problem to have.

You never know what can happen when we get to the national meet, but even if one or two guys do not have their best days, then the Pomona-Pitzer should still have the reinforcements to keep them in the title hunt.