TSR's 2022 D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): Update #3

TSR Collaboration
Nov 7, 2022
9 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.

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. Carnegie Mellon Tartans (0 / 10)

The Tartans got the short end of this year’s “deepest conference” stick, placing 2nd in a heated UAA XC Championship battle, losing by 16 points to Emory.

However, there is one major takeaway that we had about this squad: Carnegie Mellon is the deepest team in the UAA, putting seven runners across the finish line before every other team’s fifth runner...minus Emory.

Colin McLaughlin and Elijah Sech carried their team’s low-end scoring by placing 6th and 7th, respectively, while Matthew Coyle placed 13th overall as the Tartans’ third scorer.

Keeping their top-five time-spread at only 32 seconds was roughly what you’d want from this team, but having their scorers lose head-to-head against Emory’s top talents is what ultimately separated this team battle.

Their depth and tight time-spread will be the defining factors that carry this team (akin to Johns Hopkins) throughout the rest of the postseason. And at the very least, that improves their chances of a solid national meet finish compared to more vulnerable lineups.

9. Johns Hopkins Blue Jays (0 / 9)

While the team scores were a little closer than anticipated, the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays ultimately earned another Centennial Conference Championship title, winning in a narrow battle again Haverford, 33 points to 36 points.

In a smaller meet setting, the low-stick prowess of Matthew Kleiman and Gavin McElhennon was less impactful in the team scoring, although those two placing 2nd and 3rd overall is still a very solid result and right along with what we’d expect from them.

Even Emmanuel Leblond finishing 5th overall was a very solid performance for the Blue Jays, finishing only eight seconds behind Johns Hopkins' low-stick duo as a true freshman.

It’s really hard to knock Daniel Chen and Sean Enright as the fourth and fifth scorers for the Blue Jays as their performances were plenty respectable. They kept their team’s top-five time-spread at only 25 seconds while also recording top-12 overall finishes.

The monstrous performance of Haverford’s scorers made this team battle shockingly close. But in the end, it was Johns Hopkins’ depth that was still on full display with nine finishers in the top-20.

Keeping their top-five time-spread low has been working all season for the Blue Jays. Continuing to replicate that kind of lineup structure will inevitably carry Johns Hopkins to a probable top-10 finish at the national meet.

8. Emory Eagles (Unranked)

The UAA XC Championships was truly a bloodbath with five extremely solid programs battling for the conference title.

The one to emerge on top?

Probably the most underrated team on this list: Emory.

The Eagles have flown under our radar all season long. They’ve primarily competed in meets that haven’t included a ton of Division Three talent, but they also soared onto the national scene with this impactful conference meet victory.

Spencer Moore and Brett Lucas placed 3rd and 4th the other weekend to give the Eagles an identity at the top of this field. Those two men have traded the lead low-stick role throughout the season.

Ethan Thompson, a graduate transfer from UW-La Crosse, has made a huge newfound impact for the Emory men this fall, serving as a reliable third scorer while placing 9th at the UAA XC Championships. Meanwhile, Scott Masterson and David Evans finished the job, placing 15th and 17th, respectively, to secure the title for the Eagles, their first men’s conference victory.

And as a result, we can no longer let this team off of our radar anymore.

Defeating programs like Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, U. of Chicago and Washington U. was an impressive result that may have come off as a surprise. However, the Eagles may very well continue this momentum and surprise us even more throughout the rest of the postseason.

Their confidence has to be crazy high right now.

7. Wartburg Knights (-2 / 5)

Bringing home another ARC XC Championship title, the Wartburg Knights earned their conference title handedly, scoring a mere 26 points.

Christopher Collet brought home individual gold, winning by 28 seconds and continuing his reign as the Knights’ quality low-stick. He still has not lost to another Division Three runner in this 2022 cross country season.

As his tactics have brought him some decisive wins this fall, each week’s performance only strengthens the question: Can Collet challenge for the national title? With his nasty kick and track speed in tow, this Wartburg star is probably going to be a top contender come the national meet if he’s in the race at the very end.

Connor Lancial placing 3rd and Jack Kinzer placing 5th overall were some very strong results, but usual scorers Morgan Shirley-Fairbairn placing 14th and Sam Schmitz placing 29th showed some evident struggles, placing well behind some runners who we expected them to beat.

However, what drops Wartburg back a few spots in these rankings is simply the result of certain teams experiencing booms and some inconsistencies from some of their usual scorers. It's not entirely based on anything that the Knights have done recently.

Going into the regional meet, the Knights could return to their top-five ranking with their lineup firing on all cylinders. Their impending battle with North Central at the Midwest Regional XC Championships will be fun to follow.

6. UW-La Crosse Eagles (+1 / 7)

Going into the WIAC XC Championships, we expected a solid battle between the Eagles and the Warhawks of UW-Whitewater. However, this was the time for the Eagles to address something that we've been harping on all season long: the limitations of their backend scoring.

Needless to say, the Eagles proved that they are truly a national-caliber team two weekends ago and not just a team with some solid low-sticks.

Let's start with Ethan Gregg. It was not a surprise to see him come home with the individual title, but it was a surprise, however, to see how much he truly demolished everybody at the WIAC XC Championships by.

Beating Christian Patzka by 30 seconds was a very impactful result for the Eagle ace, seriously cementing him as a top contender at this year's national meet.

Isaac Wegner continued to run solidly, taking 3rd overall behind Gregg and Patzka. He’s continuing to be a reliable, consistent second scorer for the Eagles who can do some serious low-stick damage, too.

And then it was everyone else.

The UW-La Crosse men essentially fixed all of their backend scoring concerns as Corey Fairchild stepped up once again, solidifying himself as a quality third scorer. Meanwhile, Aidan Matthai, Parker Huhn, Grant Matthai and Elias Ritzke followed close behind to round out the Eagles’ top-seven, putting all seven men in front of UW-Whitewater’s fourth scorer.

If these kinds of performances continue for UW-La Crosse, we are seeing yet another dark horse contender for the podium form right in front of us.

5. Williams Ephs (+1 / 6)

Williams’ dominant effort at the NESCAC XC Championships is what we should have expected from the Ephs, putting down 42 points to win by a healthy margin over Colby and Middlebury.

Elias Lindgren continues to do Elias Lindgren things, running an incredible mark 23:25 over 8000 meters to defeat Tyler Morris by 26 seconds. That is an impressive result to note when we release our individual rankings.

John Lucey stepped up big time as the Ephs’ second runner, placing 4th overall to serve as a reputable supporting low-stick, filling the hole left by Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos who has been quite as potent this year.

Luckily, Tuohy-Gaydos showed positive momentum, placing 7th overall behind some talented names and only finishing 16 seconds behind Lucey.

While he’s still not at the superstar level that we’ve seen from him in prior season, he’s still trending in a direction that could point towards some postseason success. We have seen multiple times from his 2021-2022 campaign that he is at his best in the postseason.

IF we could see Lucey and Tuohy-Gaydos operate as a low-stick duo behind Lindgren, then this would exponentially boost the Ephs’ scoring prowess. Both Lucey and Tuohy-Gaydos have the ability to earn All-American honors and have three true front-runners would be huge when it comes to the Ephs podium aspirations.

Williams may be hinging on a few “ifs” heading into the postseason, but their general ability to turn up the heat for championship races is hard to ignore before we enter the regional and national meets.

4. RPI Engineers (0 / 4)

The Liberty League XC Championships was RPI’s domain to truly dominate from top to bottom -- and they did exactly that, scoring 18 points to bring home the conference crown.

It’s been really interesting to see the interchangeability of low-sticks Cory Kennedy and Matthew Lecky as the Enginers’ top runner this fall. While Lecky was their top dog at the Siena Invitational and the Rowan Interregional Border Battle, Kennedy came out on top at the Paul Short Invite and the Liberty League XC Championships.

Given that they’ve alternated leading the team each meet, it’s really too murky to tell who shares that sole possession of being a singular “ace”, but rather, two legit “aces” who are shaping to be one of the best duos in Division Three.

Behind those two, Mitchell Dailey and Patrick Smyth have been running very well throughout the season as quality scorers. Connor Wooding also had a great performance at the Liberty League XC Championships to put himself between Dailey and Smyth as RPI’s fourth runner.

If we assume that those three backend scorers will remain consistent throughout the postseason, then the Engineers should be in a great spot to contend for a podium position at the national meet, with both low-stick prowess as well as terrific depth to flex as well.

3. North Central Cardinals (0 / 3)

In a completely expected result, the North Central Cardinals won their 48th-straight CCIW XC Championship crown (that is not a typo), continuing an unearthly reign over their midwestern foes.

Sweeping the top-nine spots individually, the Cardinals demonstrated some top-notch depth by running some quick times, even in a setting that could be compared to a glorified team time trial.

Connor Riss took home the individual title with usual suspect Braden Nicholson placing 3rd, but Andrew Guimomd was the man to step up for 2nd place, finishing just under two seconds behind Riss.

Max Svienty was slightly off of his game, finishing as the Cardinals’ seventh runner, but his performances at the bigger invitationals this season have more than proven his worth and value as one of North Central’s valuable low-sticks.

We wouldn’t put too much significance on this result from Svienty.

The Cardinals head to the Midwest Regional XC Championships this weekend, seeking to reclaim a regional title that this North Central program has been missing for a few years.

2. MIT Engineers (0 / 2)

The men from MIT dominated NEWMAC XC Championships and it wasn’t even close.

They swept the top-five for a perfect score and then took it a step further by taking 11 of the top-13 spots overall.

Sam Acquaviva continues to lead this team as he captured the individual title in a time of 24:24. That was six seconds ahead of teammate Ryan Wilson who had a very impressive outing given that he is primarily an 800 meter guy. He’s proved this season that he has the range to make an impact on the grass.

Coming after Acquaviva and Wilson were Lowell Hensgen, Matthew Kearney and Andrew Mah. They contributed to a 28-second top-five time-spread for the Engineers, pretty similar to what we have seen from them all season long.

We're excited to see what this team does later this month and if they can match/improve upon their 2nd place finish from last year's national meet.

1. Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens (0 / 1)

The story from the SCIAC XC Championships for the Pomona-Pitzer men is Derek Fearon’s exceptional run. He won the individual title in a time of 24:44 which was 11 seconds faster than teammate Lucas Florsheim’s mark of 24:55.

Only two weeks ago at the Augustana Interregional Invitational, Fearon was just the fourth scorer for the Sagehens, making this recent victory a standout performance for the junior.

Behind Fearon and Florsheim, the Pomona-Pitzer men won the team title thanks to a 3rd place finish by Ian Horsburgh, a 5th place finish by Jack Rosencrans, a 10th place finish by Owen Kobett and an 11th place finish by Ethan Widlansky.

Together, those men gave the Sagehens a total of 21 points compared to 65 points by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. That's a huge margin of victory in a race this small.

The other good news for the Sagehens is that their sixth and seventh runners, Nathaniel Getachew and Cameron Hatler, were right behind Widlansky in 12th and 13th place, respectively. As expected, Pomona-Pitzer still has elite depth.

The Sagehens went into SCIAC XC Championships and proved yet again that they are the national title favorites for a reason.