TSR's 2022 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Rankings (Men): #8 Wartburg Knights

Edits and additional commentary by Garrett Zatlin

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In 2015, the Wartburg men finished 32nd at the NCAA XC Championships.

The following year, they finished 21st.

The next year? 20th.

In 2018, they were 5th.

And after a 13th place finish at the 2019 NCAA XC Championships and a 9th place finish at last year's national meet, the Wartburg Knight have seemingly found themselves comfortably in the mix of being a top-10 national meet team on an annual basis.

Now, as we approach the fall of 2022, we have every reason to believe that the Knights will continue to amongst the best D3 distance programs in the nation.

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With an extremely talented, veteran squad at their hands in 2021, Wartburg was looking especially likely to make some serious noise last fall, maybe even for a national title.

The lethal 1-2 punch of Joe Freiburger and Christopher Collet, along with great supporting names like Dalton Martin, Morgan Shirley-Fairbairn and Sam Pinkowski, was sure to lead the Knights to major success come the postseason.

In nearly every single meet of the 2021 cross country season, Wartburg was looking like a top contender. They steamrolled through the regular season, as well as the first two stages of the postseason, winning every meet they contested against strong midwest competition.

The trounced Simpson (IA) and Central College at the Les Duke XC Invite with a 1-2-3-4-6-7-11 string of finishes.

At the Dan Hueston Invite, the Knights took down a highly talented Washington U. team with just 18 points. That score allowed them to beat the Bears by more than 20 points while putting five men (all of whom were mentioned above) across the line before Washington U.'s second scorer.

The Knights' dominance also included wins at the Augustana Invite (where they racked up 39 points), the American Rivers Conference XC Championships (where they scored just 20 points) and the Midwest Regional XC Championships (scoring 39 points, the most of their season at that point).

Time and time again, Freiburger and Collet were finishing 1st and 2nd, respectively, at all of those meets. That duo was becoming extremely potent and consistent with the rest of the scoring lineup not too far behind.

But with all of that regular season success in mind, one had to wonder...what happened to this team at the national meet? Was a 9th place finish truly the best they could do?

While not necessarily translated to the splits, but seen clearly by fans and viewers of the livestream alike, the combination of Collet, Shirley-Fairbairn and Martin were the ones leading this race 400 meters in -- an admittedly aggressive racing approach.

On a day where they needed a solid team race from their veteran performers, those same men may have utilized a less-than-ideal tactical approach. That's maybe why a 9th place team finish, while great for almost any other team, seemed somewhat underwhelming for a team that likely had podium (or even national title) aspirations.

That feeling could have also been because the Knights were unanimously ranked at USTFCCCA #1 throughout the entirety of last fall.

Freiburger’s individual run for an 8th place finish was right on the money. Teammates Shirley-Fairbairn and Martin ran decently well for 55th place and 76th place finishes, respectively. However, Collet had a poor showing relative to expectations, placing 80th overall for someone who could have probably finished in the top-20. The team's fifth scorer faded to 177th place.

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Let's get the bad news out of the way: Joe Freiburger is gone. His departure alone makes it almost impossible for this team to be as potent as they were in 2021. Not only was he a true superstar, but he was one of the most reliable front-runners that a team could have in Division Three over the last few years.

It also doesn't help that backend contributors such as Matt Heinzman, Sam Pinkowski and Jay Mixdorf are also gone, although of those three men, Pinkowski was the only one to emerge as as an occasional scorer (except for the postseason).

Even so, Wartburg is a team that is still plenty deep, fairly stable as far as scoring is concerned and they still have a star low-stick.

Don't fret, this group will still be very competitive in the fall of 2022.

After his underwhelming performance at the cross country national meet, Christopher Collet was a completely different runner on the track.

We talked about him all winter and spring as one of the best all-around D3 distance talents, having run 4:06 in the mile, 14:12 in the 5000 meters and a remarkable 8:50 in the steeplechase, the latter of which earned him his first national title.

Collet was also a remarkably consistent performer throughout his entire track season. If he can translate that over to the grass, similar to his 2021 cross country regular season, then he should be in the running to finish in the top-10 at the NCAA XC Championships as an individual.

And if that happens, then replacing Freiburger's scoring value from the 2021 national meet will become almost a non-existent issue. Of course, we're sure Wartburg wants to build on their national meet finish, not necessarily replicate it.

Both Shirley-Fairbairn and Martin didn’t necessarily have stellar track seasons, but Martin really started to show some promise toward the end of the spring, running 1:50.18 in the 800 meters at the Augustana Twilight Qualifier.

Martin's range has always been impressive from the 800 meters all the way up to cross country. But does that mean that his 1:50 PR will also translate to a better cross country finish? We think there's a greater chance of that happening than not, but it's hard to say for certain.

As for Shirley-Fairbairn, he brought his 10,000 meter time down to 30:17 this year which should bode well for the upcoming season. If he can pair up with Martin and put themselves in the hunt for back-half All-American placements at this year's national meet, then Wartburg will be in a great spot as far as establishing greater firepower.

Other than their tactics, where Wartburg really got buried at the NCAA XC Championships last fall was the gap from their fourth runner to their fifth runner. Collet finished 80th, but Alec Ille, a usually reliable scorer, faded to 177th to act as the team's final scorer.

Ille returns this fall along with juniors Jacob Green and Connor Lancial. These three men could be some of the contenders to be the contenders. They’ll need to shrink down that gap between them and the top-half of this lineup, but Ille has shown that he can do it.

Seeing Ille run 8:26 (3k) and 14:57 (5k) this past winter and spring may not cause much excitement, but for a backend scorer, those are very respectable marks.

Historically, this team is deep enough to fill out the backend of their lineup, although we admittedly don't know who those men will be. Even so, guys like Green and Lanical are two potential options. The same could be said for Sam Schmitz who has some early promise despite holding freshman eligibility last fall.

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For some people, it may seem odd to rank a team at TSR #8 despite them placing 9th at last year's national meet and losing their top scorer. On paper, this team should be going regressing based on how they ended their 2021 season.

But it's important to not forget that this team was ranked as the top program in the country for nine-straight weeks (including preseason) last fall. If anything, last year's national meet performance was a fluke and this ranking is simply trying to balance their returners and varsity losses.

In fact, we may go as far to say that their ranking may actually be too low. We could have made an argument for them to be TSR #6 or TSR #7.

Of course, there are plenty of questions and uncertainties surrounding this roster. We don't know how this team will handle the loss of elite scoring that Freiburger once provided and we don't know for sure who will fill out the backend of their lineup.

We also just saw Shirley-Fairbairn start his season with an unattached result, forcing us to wonder what that means for the rest of his fall campaign.

Still, as it stands, Wartburg returns another impressive group of runners coming into this season. While it will certainly take some growth from their backend scorers, as well as some refinement of racing tactics, there's a good chance that the Knights will replicate (or improve upon) their 2021 results over the next three months of competition.