TSR's 2022 Preseason D2 XC Top 10 Rankings (Men): #6 Wingate Bulldogs

Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin

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This Wingate men's team may be one of the most severely overlooked teams by the rest of the country throughout Division Two. And when you take a look at their 2021 resume, it’s a surprise that they aren’t higher in our rankings to start this season.

We're not just saying that because they return six of their top-seven runners from last year.

We say that because the Bulldogs have added even more depth to last year's lineup which placed 6th at last year's NCAA XC Championships, a result that might have been considered a disappointment when you analyze just how good they were last fall.

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The Bulldog men kicked-off their season at their 11th Annual Wingate University Bulldog Stampede where they ran away from conference rivals, Mount Olive, in convincing fashion.

Bastian Mrochen led his team by just out-leaning Cas Kopmels (more on Kopmels later) as they ran identical times of 25:34.6. The rest of the Wingate team finished inside the top-10 and that includes some of their unattached athletes.

Yonas Sauers was 4th, Pierre Galbourdin was 6th, Brent Surratt was 7th and Soheil Broufizi rounded out the scoring in 9th place, giving the Bulldogs a total of 27 points on the day.

But what was most significant about this early-season race was the amount of depth that Wingate had flexed with their unattached runners.

Oliver Way was 3rd overall, Simon Bong finished 5th, Titouan Le Grix was 8th, and Scott Nutter was the 10th place finisher, making it nine athletes associated with the Bulldogs program inside the top-10.

Of course, as solid as that result was, this was simply a tune-up race. Trying to draw any major insights from that meet would have been ill-advised.

At the Converse Kick-Off just one week later, the Wingate men previewed what their regional course would look like, and despite emerging as the top D2 program in the field, they were not the top team in the final standings.

In what felt like a somewhat surprising upset, the Bulldogs would settle for runner-up honors behind the likes of Emory, a strong and promising Division Three school.

The Bulldogs' grouping wasn’t as good as it was in their first meet of the season, but that was to be (somewhat) expected when attending a larger meet. Mrochen ended up finishing 10th overall to lead his team as their front-runner.

Sauers finished 12th, Galbourdin was 15th, Saul Valdez placed 22nd and Broufizi was the final scorer in 32nd place. Wingate would end up with 71 points, just four behind the aforementioned Emory squad.

Depth was clearly not an issue for this group, but it was clear that their firepower needed to be better moving forward.

At what could be considered their toughest meet of the regular season, the Bulldogs made their way to the D2 Pre-National Invite at the Abbey Golf Course in Saint Leo.

And to say that Pre-Nationals was a success would be an understatement.

Wingate walked away with a 53-point dismantling of the rest of the field. They scored 28 points and placed four athletes inside the top-10 as a respectable Fresno Pacific team was the next best squad in the standings with 81 points.

While it was Patrick Kiprop (D1 TSR #22 this fall) who took home the individual title, it was Mrochen who once again led this Wingate team. He finished runner-up with Galbourdin and Felix Nadeborn finishing right behind him in 3rd and 4th, respectively

After not racing in a singlet earlier in the season, Oliver Way finished 6th overall in his official season debut, making him the fourth and final Wingate athlete inside the top-10 of the field. Teammate Valdez rounded out the scoring yet again in 13th place.

Between Mrochen and Way, only 13 seconds separated the team's top-four, speaking to the level of fitness and amount of depth within this Wingate program that we hadn't seen earlier. And if that time-spread had extended to Valdez, then the gap was just 53 seconds which separated their first athlete to their fifth runner.

That was the end to Wingate’s regular season racing, but they didn’t stop their level of domination there. As they headed into the postseason, it appeared that they were firing on all cylinders and it was put on full display for the rest of the country to see.

At the South Atlantic XC Championships, the Bulldogs scored just 24 points as they ran away from the next best team, the Queens (NC) Royals, with ease. They placed seven athletes inside the top-10 of the overall results.

And while that was impressive in and of itself, there were just 26 seconds between Nadeborn (their top scorer) and Galbourdin (their seventh runner), making it nearly impossible for any conference foe to have taken them down.

It was much of the same at the Southeast Regional XC Championships as Wingate scored just 33 points to trounce Queens’ 73 points.

Scott Nutter had his redshirt status pulled and led this team finishing 3rd overall with the rest of the scoring squad of Mrochen, Sauers, Valdez and Le Grix finished 6-7-8-9, respectively. Bur for good measure, Way and Nadeborn were 10th and 12th, respectively, only reiterating the overwhelming depth that we had seen from this team earlier in the season.

This season-long momentum and mass number of scoring options culminated in a fantastic 6th place team finish at the NCAA XC Championships. And as we said earlier, that result could have been considered as a small disappointment given the amount of success that the Bulldogs had prior to the national meet.

Way led this team yet again, finishing 45th overall with Nadeborn in 54th place and Nutter in 58th placing, making them the only three Wingate athletes inside the top-60. Mrochen, who was arguably the team's best runner all season long, was back in 81st place while Valdez finished 90th overall.

Still, despite the off day from some athletes, there was just 44 seconds between Way and Valdez. And with Sauers recording a DNF, it was clear that this team was capable of earning even an even stronger finish had everything gone right.

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Now, we have already mentioned that the Bulldogs will be returning six of their seven athletes from last year's national meet. And that alone would usually be more than enough to rank them inside our top-10 to start this season.

But that is not all who will be part of this team in 2022.

Transferring in from Mount Olive is the aforementioned Cas Kopmels who will likely be an immediate impact runner for this Wingate team. He was 11th at the D2 Pre-Nationals and would have been Wingate’s fifth scorer in that race had he been wearing their uniform.

Kopmels was also the 2nd place finisher at the Conference Carolina’s XC Championships last fall behind only TSR #6 runner Joshua Chepkesir before opting to end his season just before the Southeast Regional XC Championships.

Kopmels lowered his personal bests to 8:18 (3k), 14:15 (5k) and 29:32 (10k) earlier this year, making him a legitimate low-stick threat on a Wingate team that could have any of their six returners in that same role on any given day.

Oliver Way was their top runner last season and he’s also coming off his best track season to date in a Bulldogs uniform. He’s now run 8:47 (3k), 14:52 (5k) and 30:53 (10k). Those are certainly not the fastest times in Division Two, but the improvement is what we like to see, especially for someone who was as good as he was on the grass when it mattered.

Scott Nutter was the team's third scorer at the national meet last fall and his improvement should fall in line with the rest of these returners. His most significant times include 14:29 (5k) and 30:39 (10k), making him another viable option for Wingate's 2022 campaign.

Bastian Mrochen was Wingate’s most consistent runner last fall and that may be the case yet again in 2022. Despite finishing the 2021 season as his team's fourth scorer, Mrochen’s times on the track align with some of best in the country.

He’s run 8:17 (3k), 14:11 (5k) and 30:06 (10k). Combine that improvement with his level of talent on the grass, and he has all the makings for a top-40 All-American finish in December.

Saul Valdez is also proving to be a long-distance threat as he has run 14:26 (5k) and 30:04 (10k) while Yonas Sauers, who recorded a DNF at the 2021 cross country national meet, has clocked times of 8:24 (3k), 14:19 (5k) and 30:28 (10k), only solidifying that Wingate could have been even better at the end of last season.

Titouan Le Grix was the final runner across the line for Wingate in 2021 and despite his 136th place national meet finish, he’s much better than that. His 8:32 (3k) and 9:05 (steeple) marks are respectable track times, leading us to believe that his national meet finish was more of an outlier than anything else.

And we also can’t forget that Pierre Galbourdin was a consistent staple of this team before an injury derailed the end of his season. We also need to mention Souheil Boufrizi who didn’t make his team's top-seven, but has times of 14:46 (5k) and 9:03 (steeple) from this past outdoor track season.

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We may have gotten a bit long-winded talking about this Wingate team, but we wouldn't have highlighted all of those names if we didn't think that they could each have a legitimate impact this fall.

It is truly incredible how much depth and potential that this team holds heading into the 2022 cross country season. The Bulldogs were already overwhelmed with lineup options, but now have an even better supporting cast with Kopmels joining the program.

The only critique, however, is that the Wingate don't have any legitimate national-caliber low-sticks. Despite Oliver Way finishing 45th the national meet, this team didn't have a single All-American last fall. If they want to be on the podium, then they need to have at least two men in the top-40 come December.

It's also hard to gauge just how good this team was throughout last fall. They lost to Emory earlier in the season and although they beat the Queens men, their competition leading up to the national meet was fairly light in comparison to a few other top-10 teams.

But everything that we've seen from this team suggests that they could produce multiple All-Americans this fall. On paper, this team has a high ceiling and a VERY high floor.

And if the Bulldogs do produce the All-Americans that we are talking about, then we'd argue that you’re looking at a top-five team in Division Two, if not a top-three squad when it’s all said and done.