TSR's 2022 D3 XC Top 20 Individual Rankings (Men): Update #2

TSR Collaboration
Oct 25, 2022
10 min read

Written by Kevin Fischer, Hannah Thorn & Brett Haffner

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.

20. Matt Carter, Junior, Connecticut College (-3 / 17)

Carter finished a very solid 5th place on his home turf at the Connecticut College Invitational in a personal best time of 24:15. After generating some hype for himself at Pre-Nationals, he seems to have backed up that performance with a result that reflects some promising consistency.

Yes, Carter does drop a few spots in our rankings, but that's largely because of other performances that we saw from around the country. This drop is no cause for concern when it comes to what he has done.

If anything, this most recent performance validates Carter’s spot from our previous rankings update. He is here to stay as one of the top distance runners in D3 and probably has one of the higher floors in our top-20 despite sitting at TSR #20.

19. Gunner Schlender, Sophomore, UW-Whitewater (-6 / 13)

Gunner Schlender has not competed since our last rankings update.

18. Frank Csorba, Junior, Lynchburg (-8 / 10)

Frank Csorba had a tough day at the Rowan Interregional Border Battle after what had been a promising start to the season. He came through the three-mile mark in 4th place behind Nick Andrews, Matthew Lecky and Cory Kennedy, but then faded to a disappointing 12th place.

This result was a bit concerning for Csorba, but we don’t have too much reason to believe that anything similar will happen later this season.

For now, Csorba drops down in our rankings, but we know that he has the ability to get back into the top-10, nationally. At the very least, he is simply too talented (on paper) to not be a top-15 name when the season eventually concludes.

17. Simon Heys, Junior, Wilmington (OH) (-6 / 11)

Since our last update, Simon Heys took home a comfortable win at the Jenna Strong Fall Classic. During a weekend when many of the best names in the country were competing against each other, he dismantled a field that didn’t have anybody who could realistically challenge him.

Admittedly, we aren’t quite sure what to make of that result. Winning is always great, but there wasn’t an opportunity for Heys to do anything more than what was expected of him.

He’ll drop a little bit in this week's rankings, but don’t be surprised to see him move back up after he faces elite competition again at the Ohio Athletic Conference XC Championships.

16. Colin Kirkpatrick, Junior, Pomona-Pitzer (-4 / 12)

Colin Kirkpatrick was Pomona-Pitzer’s second scorer at the Augustana Interregional Invitational, finishing 7th overall in a stacked field. And truthfully, you could interpret that result in a couple of different ways.

On the one hand, four of the six guys who Kirkpatrick lost to were not in our rankings at the time, which isn’t great. But on the other hand, he only finished seven seconds out from the individual winner, Christopher Collet, so the Sagehen ace is clearly not far off from the top men in terms of fitness.

We know that Kirkpatrick can hang tough with the most elite talents of Division Three, and with a couple of small adjustments, he has the potential to be beating them, too.

But for now, he drops a few spots.

15. Graham Tuohy-Gaydos, Sophomore, Williams (-8 / 7)

Finishing 6th place overall at a deep meet like Connecticut College is never a bad result, but in the case of Tuohy-Gaydos, it left a little bit more to be desired when you consider how heralded he was coming into this year.

The Williams youngster has bounced back from his tough start to the season, but he hasn’t had a statement race to validate his preseason TSR #3 ranking (yet).

Regardless of whether or not he reaches those levels, he has still been running solid races and should be able to improve upon his 17th place finish at last year’s national meet.

14. Cory Kennedy, Sophomore, RPI (0 / 14)

Cory Kennedy continues to show how good he is week after week. He has broken onto the scene this fall and established himself as a reliable second low-stick for RPI. He may actually be one of the biggest breakout names of the year.

Most recently, he finished 3rd in a highly competitive field at Rowan to show us that his big day at Paul Short was no fluke. That is major validation which gives his seasonal resume far greater consistency in competitive settings than more established D3 distance stars who he now ranks ahead of. We’ll have to get used to saying his name because Kennedy is in a position to be a very high finisher come the national meet.

13. Sam Acquaviva, Sophomore, MIT (Unranked)

MIT has a lot of strong distance talents, but Sam Acquaviva might be the strongest of them all.

He didn’t race during the winter or spring months, so he came into the season very much under the radar. However, he did finish 13th the NCAA XC Championships last fall, so we knew he had upper-tier talent.

Even so, there were a lot of questions surrounding his fitness and how long it would take him to bust the rust that had accumulated over the last year.

Well, as it turns out, it didn’t take that long.

At Pre-Nationals, he placed 11th overall in 24:50 and more recently, finished 3rd at the Connecticut College Invitational in a time 24:10. That latter result was a big finish from him considering that it was only seven seconds off of his PR from last year's national meet.

Yes, he'll have to work on closing the gap between him and the duo of Elias Lindgren and Tyler Morris, two guys who were 20 seconds ahead of him. Even so, Acquaviva is clearly getting better as the season goes on, and that momentum could be really dangerous for anyone who has to toe the line next to him.

12. Lucas Florsheim, Junior, Pomona-Pitzer (+4 / 16)

The top runner from last year’s national champions, Pomona-Pitzer, Lucas Florsheim is having yet another great season. It admittedly took a while for the Sagehens to leave the west coast, but they made it count when they did.

At the Augustana Interregional Invitational, Florsheim led his team to a win by finishing 5th overall. His blistering fast mark of 23:52 was actually the fastest that he has ever run, an improvement on his 24:04 mark from last year's national meet which is certainly an encouraging step in the right direction.

Believe it or not, the top-seven men in that race were only seven seconds apart, making Florsheim's most recent result a little more impressive.

If we had to pick apart anything from Florsheim’s racing, it's that he needs to work on his kick / finishing ability. He got out-sprinted by Christopher Collet and Connor Riss in the final moments of that race.

Even so, he's a great 1-2 punch alongside teammate Colin Kirkpatrick. Between his recent momentum, ongoing progression and extensive experience, there's a lot more to like than dislike when it comes Florsheim.

11. Connor Riss, Junior, North Central (Unranked)

Connor Riss has slowly risen to become the leader of a resurgent North Central team. We’re seeing the Cardinals come back to life this fall and a huge part of that is because Riss is having a monumental year.

At Augustana, the North Central men were led by Riss who secured a massive runner-up performance, making him one of three guys on his team in the top-eight. That scoring potency helped them finish 2nd behind the defending national champions, Pomona-Pitzer.

Admittedly, Riss started out the season more as a supporting scorer, finishing as the fourth man on his team in their first meet of the season, the Elmhurst Invite.

But in recent weeks, Ross has been slowly making a charge to the top. He was 4th overall at the Spartan Classic, placed 36th at the MSU Spartan Invitational and finished 18th at Pre-Nats. In each of those races he was anywhere from the second to the fourth scorer on North Central's team.

He may not have the same seasonal resume that a few others in these rankings do, but his momentum is arguably the best in the NCAA. Riss is on absolute fire right now.

10. Cal Yackin, Junior, Otterbein (Unranked)

After a rough race at Pre-Nationals, Cal Yackin seemed to be back to his former self after thriving at the Augustana Interregional Invitational.

It was a very close race through the line and Yackin ended up finishing 3rd. He came up just short behind Christopher Collet and Connor Riss. Now, rumor has it that the course is short (which is unconfirmed), but 23:50 is still a very fast time.

Critics may say that this is too high of a ranking based on one good result. But we like to see that Yackin has clearly learned from a bad Pre-Nationals race and that he was uber-competitive in one of the biggest meets of the year.

Plus, he was snubbed a bit from a preseason ranking, so this was a bit of a correction as well.

9. Nick Andrews, Junior, SUNY Geneseo (0 / 9)

Nick Andrews had a great battle against Matthew Lecky from RPI at the Rowan Interregional Border Battle. The SUNY Geneseo ace ran 24:17 to barely lose out to Lecky who ran 24:15. Both marks are spectacular times as they were 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

That 24:17 was also a big PR for the SUNY Geneseo junior.

Andrews continues to get better as the season has gone on. Funny enough, he has yet to win a race, but he still runs fast times while being competitive. He is the odds-on favorite to win the SUNYAC XC Championships next weekend. That should boost his confidence (and his resume) heading into the regional and national meets.

8. Spencer Moon, Junior, Simpson (IA) (Unranked)

Making his first appearance in our rankings is Spencer Moon. He is currently undefeated against D3 competition this year...and it hasn’t really been close.

At the Platte River Rumble, he won the race in a blistering time of 23:34 ahead of runners from Division One and Division Two teams like Nebraska-Kearney, Augustana and South Dakota. At the Aurora Invitational, he again took the win in 24:59 which was over a minute faster than the 2nd place finisher from Central College.

One reason why Moon wasn’t on our radar is because he hasn’t raced in a competitive D3-centric field yet. We probably won’t see that happening until the Midwest Regional XC Championships when he’ll have to race Christopher Collet among others.

That’s when we’ll see whether or not he is the real deal.

7. Christian Patzka, Sophomore, UW-Whitewater (-3 / 4)

Christian Patzka has not competed since our last rankings update.

6. Matthew Lecky, Junior, RPI (0 / 6)

Continuing his fantastic season as RPI’s true front-running ace, Matthew Lecky brought home a solid win at the Rowan Interregional Border Battle, finishing just ahead of Nick Andrews from SUNY Geneseo.

Admittedly, Andrews was a little closer to Lecky than we expected him to be, but Lecky still got the win to his credit and demolished the rest of the field behind Andrews.

With teammate Cory Kennedy in tow, Lecky is spearheading one of the best scoring duo in Division Three right now with the potential for a podium finish also in the eyes of the Engineers. And with a dynamic and high-momentum star like Lecky leading the way, it's hard to dislike what RPI is doing this fall.

5. Ethan Gregg, Junior, UW-La Crosse (-2 / 3)

At the Jim Drews Invitational, the duo of Ethan Gregg and Isaac Wegner finished right along with UW-La Crosse teammate, Cory Fairchild, in what was evidently a team effort to help boost the Eagles’ backend scoring.

With that performance being Gregg’s only result from the last two weeks, that doesn’t affect his stock too much, but it sets him up well to get after the WIAC XC Championships against Christian Patzka, Gunner Schlender and Spencer Schultz.

4. Tyler Morris, Junior, Colby (+4 / 8)

Morris has been having a very low-key season on the grass thus far, but after his runner-up performance at the Connecticut College Invitational, he’s proven that he’s in elite form, finishing close behind Elias Lindgren of Williams.

Results like that are not entirely unusual for the Colby star who seems to “appear out of nowhere” after the regular season, but rounds into fantastic shape once the second-half of the season rolls around.

His 5th place finish at last year’s national meet was no joke and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him improve on that finish at this year’s national meet or even vie for the individual national title. This is probably one of the sharpest regular season performances we've ever seen him produce.

3. Christopher Collet, Junior, Wartburg (+2 / 5)

Christopher Collet’s winning performance at the Augustana Interregional was a statement victory which continues to show how scary he is on the grass, defeating a large handful of midwest distance talents along with everyone from Pomona-Pitzer.

He’s faced solid competition all season, and Spencer Moon will certainly be giving him a run for his money at the American River XC Championships and the Midwest Regional XC Championships.

However, Collet's elite consistency and ability to thrive in numerous race scenarios makes it undeniable that he should be a top-three name in the country.

Collet will be one of the biggest challenges to Alex Phillip’s reigning throne as Division Three’s cross country national champion. That matchup between him, Lindgren and Phillip will be electric.

2. Elias Lindgren, Senior, Williams (0 / 2)

As if there’d be any doubt about Elias Lindgren’s abilities this fall, the Williams star keeps on winning, bringing home yet another victory at the Connecticut College Invitational for his fourth consecutive victory on the year.

With conference and regional meets coming up shortly, it shouldn’t be surprising to see Lindgren add two more victories to his current streak – this dude has been so darn consistent this fall.

Will he make it an undefeated season? His renowned national meet heroics certainly reach a point where he ends up upsetting Alex Phillip, even if that is an absurdly tall task.