TSR's 2022 Preseason D3 XC Top 20 Rankings: Just Missed & Honorable Mentions (Men)

Here we go. Our 2022 men's and women's preseason individual cross country rankings. Let's start out with our Just Missed and Honorable Mention names.

As a reminder, you can find our rankings rubric here.

This week will be our D2 and D3 rankings.

Please note: The Stride Report made every effort to contact standout teams and key individuals who could have (potentially) had an influence in our rankings. While we do feel confident in the integrity of our lists, it is possible that the altered eligibility from the last two years forced one or two key names to unintentionally miss a spot in our rankings.

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JUST MISSED (in no order)

Andrew Mah, Senior, MIT

Andrew Mah is the first of numerous top-tier MIT runners who will be discussed within (or just outside of) these rankings -- and rightfully so! Mah was a fairly strong distance running coming into the 2021 cross country season, but the leap he took over the last 12 months brought him to an entirely new level.

Last fall, Mah started his season with a bronze-medal finish at the Williams Purple Valley XC Invite. While he did fall to Elias Lindgren and teammate Matthew Kearney, Mah was still able to take down top-tier talents like Aidan Ryan, Sam Acquavia and Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos.

The MIT men would later venture to the Louisville XC Classic and toe the line for the "Silver" race. Mah would finish 5th place overall, earning wins over similarly ranked names that faced at Williams a few weeks earlier.

A 12th place finish at the Connecticut College Invitational was fine, but unexciting. Luckily, a pair of runner-up results at the NEWMAC XC Championships and the East Regional XC Championships more than made up for that result.

Mah would prove at the national meet that none of his earlier performances were flukes, earning a very solid 33rd place All-American finish at the NCAA XC Championships. The MIT ace would later venture to the indoor and outdoor ovals where he ran 14:25 for 5000 meters.

Overall, Mah is a great talent who can absolutely be relied upon to score key points. His consistency is promising and he has shown that he can take down some of the better talents in the country.

Admittedly, his performances on the track were somewhat quiet in comparison to his peers, but there's a good argument for Mah to be ranked this summer. He still needs to take one more step before he's a top-20 cross country runner in D3, but he's closer to that point than our "Honorable Mentions" section.

Matthew Kearney, Junior, MIT

If you were a fan of Andrew Mah, then you'll almost certainly like his teammate, Matthew Kearney. The MIT standout has been a top-tier scorer at times, flashing moments of brilliance, albeit, not quite as consistently as Mah.

At the Williams Purple Valley XC Invite, Kearney made a statement, securing runner-up honors in a very top-heavy field loaded with some of the better distance runners in Division Three. Kearney would later travel to the Louisville XC Classic for the "Silver" race where he earned a strong, but not overly exciting, 8th place finish.

A 6th place finish at the Connecticut College Invitational was far more encouraging, as were 3rd place and 5th place finishes at the NEWMAC XC Championships and the East Regional XC Championships, respectively. Kearney would then end his season at the NCAA XC Championships with a 28th place All-American finish.

On the track, Kearney would find fairly strong success, posting times of 8:12 (3k), 14:20 (5k) and 9:37 (steeple), the second of which qualified him for the indoor national meet.

On paper, Kearney can be argued as a different, somewhat equal, version of teammate Andrew Mah. Yes, it's true, Kearney's All-American finish and track performances almost certainly give him the edge, but we just couldn't find enough room for him in our rankings.

Will he make us regret that decision?

Probably, but that's the beauty of our summer rankings.

David (Drew) Donahue, Sophomore, Middlebury

In a world where Williams' Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos isn't a distance runner, Drew Donahue is probably considered as the best true freshman in the country during the winter and spring months.

But now, with a year of experience under his belt, Donahue has the potential to take his past results from good to great in the fall of 2022.

After a rust-busting 4th place finish at the Aldrich Invite, Donahue ventured to the Williams Purple Valley XC Invite. It was there that the Middlebury ace would finish 11th overall, a respectable finish for his second collegiate race ever in a field that was headlined by numerous All-American standouts.

A 5th place finish at the SUNY Geneseo Mike Woods Invitational and a 20th place finish at the Connecticut College Invitational were solid and fairly respectable results. Sure, they didn't necessarily blow you away, but for someone who was a true rookie, they were solid performances.

The Middlebury freshman would go on to earn a promising 7th place at the NESCAC XC Championships as well a similarly impressive 11th place finish at the Mideast XC Championships. A 42nd place finish at the national meet, just two spots away from All-American honors, felt right for Donahue who was solid throughout last fall, but never amazing.

That, of course, is to be expected with a rookie.

Donahue would later venture to the indoor and outdoor tracks. There, he posted excellent marks, specifically in the 3000 meters where he ran 8:18 and qualified for the indoor national meet.

Overall, Donahue was strong throughout the entirety of last year. Sure, he wasn't perfect, but he didn't have to be nor was he expected to be. The overall progression and consistency that he showed as only a rookie was extremely promising.

Everything that we've seen from this Middlebury ace, on paper, suggests that he is going to be much better on the grass in 2022 than he was in 2021. We still need to see him execute on that potential, but that upside still lands him inside our "Just Missed" section.

Spencer Moon, Junior, Simpson (IA)

Ah, yes. Spencer Moon. A TSR favorite when it comes to our rankings.

Trying to find the right spot for this Simpson College product is admittedly a challenge. His cross country season was solid, but there were only a few select results that truly caught your attention.

Moon won his rust-buster (the Buxton Invite) and later earned 5th place, 4th place and 4th place finishes at the 59th Les Duke XC Invite, the Augustana Brissman-Lundeen Invite and the Jim Drews / Tori Neubauer Invite, respectively.

Most of those meets were fairly top-heavy within the top-five, and Moon did beat a notable name here or there. Still, we were waiting for him to find his edge.

A 6th place finish at the America Rivers XC Championships and an 11th place finish at the Midwest Regional XC Championships, while solid, didn't necessarily change our opinion of his overall resume.

Seeing the Simpson College standout place 118th was hard to see, but that result was so far back from general expectations that it was clear that Moon simply had an "off" day.

That theory turned out to be true as Moon began to make a major rise on the track. The Iowa-based distance runner ended his indoor track season with a very strong 8:15 personal best in the 3000 meters and a 10th place finish in that same event at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

Moon was even better in the spring, running tremendous marks of 3:47 (1500), 14:18 (5k) and 29:53 (10k). He would later qualify for the outdoor national meet in the 10k where he ended his season with a 17th place finish.

For the most part, there are a lot more pros when talking about Moon than cons. He's fairly consistent, rarely had poor races, showed tremendous progress during the track season and his newly-minted PRs suggest that he can be a top All-American.

Now yes, it's true, Moon isn't without his criticisms.

His performance at the cross country national meet wasn't ideal, his other appearances at the indoor and outdoor national meets weren't exactly incredible and we still didn't see a top-20 spark from him throughout last fall.

Even so, the level of progress that we saw from Moon on the indoor and outdoor ovals was overwhelmingly encouraging. At the end of the day, that potential is too great to ignore and that is why Spencer Moon sits in our "Just Missed" list.

Cal Yackin, Junior, Otterbein

If you didn't have any disagreements with our first four "Just Missed" names, then you'll almost certainly not be happy about our fifth name: Cal Yackin.

On paper, Yackin is hard to dislike. He's 3:47 for 1500 meters and qualified for the outdoor national meet in that event this past spring. It doesn't hurt that he's run 14:49 for 5000 meters.

Oh, and he also placed 18th at the NCAA XC Championships last fall...

So what gives? How is someone as accomplished as Yackin listed in our "Just Missed" section?

Throughout last fall, this Otterbein athlete held his own. Yackn finished runner-up at the Wooster Invitational, 23rd at the All Ohio XC Championships (which featured a few respectable D1 and D2 teams) and then 7th at the SUNY Geneseo Mike Woods Invitational.

Overall, those were solid performances, but it was admittedly challenging to look at any of those results and find a top-tier D3 distance who Yackin beat. The same can be said for his 12th place finish at the Ohio Athletic XC Championships, although both Peppard-Kramer and Domitrovich have proven to be exceptional talents since then.

The good news, however, is that Yackin would eventually place 4th overall at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships, taking down the likes of Nicholas Hoffman, Liam Galligan, Bill Daily and Jamie Dailey. That performance would then catapult Yackin to his aforementioned 18th place All-American finish at the NCAA XC Championships.

If you were to look at Yackin's two most important meets of the 2021 cross country season, he would be a ranked runner without even the slightest hesitation. He peaked when it mattered the most and oftentimes, that's hard to argue against.

Still, Yackin's 2021 regular season results and his conference meet result weren't incredible. He didn't always emerge as a top name and it felt like he left firepower on the table at times. And while his 1500 meter results during the spring were plenty strong, it's harder to translate those times to the grass in comparison to the 5k, the 10k and the steeple.

And with so many distance-oriented names breaking out on the track this past winter and spring, it was hard to find the necessary room that we needed to put Yackin in our rankings.

But when these rankings are all said and done, there's a good chance that this Otterbein ace will be in our D3 XC Top 20 come November.

Matthew Lecky, Junior, RPI

One name who we are VERY high on this fall is Matthew Lecky, the breakout distance star from RPI who put together some fantastic performances on the track this past winter and spring.

But what Lecky could do on the grass in the next few months could allow him to elevate his resume to an entirely new level.

For the most part, Lecky was a solid cross country runner in 2021, although his consistency was very up and down. After winning two unexciting rust-busters, the RPI star toed the line for the Paul Short "Brown" race...which he won!

While that field didn't necessarily hold tons of firepower, it was still deep enough for Lecky's win to be considered a significant one. But then, two weeks later, Lecky went to the Connecticut College Invitational where he placed 23rd overall, an admittedly underwhelming result, especially after a big win at Paul Short.

Lecky would then win the Liberty League XC Championships, but later falter (slightly) to 8th place at the Mideast Regional XC Championships.

The RPI would star would end his 2021 cross country season with a 38th place All-American finish at the NCAA XC Championships. And generally speaking, that result seemed to be a somewhat accurate middle-ground for the highs and lows that Lecky saw throughout last fall.

However, it was on the track that Lecky would flex elite firepower.

Between the indoor and outdoor ovals, the RPI ace would run times of 4:05 (mile), 8:16 (3k) and 14:12 (5k). At the NCAA Indoor Championships, Lecky placed 5th in the mile and 7th in the DMR to earn two All-American honors. He later placed 9th at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 5000 meters.

Everything that we've seen from Lecky on the track suggests that he'll substantially improve upon his 38th place finish from last year's cross country national meet. The problem, however, is that we don't know how much that success will translate. His inconsistency on the grass also makes it challenging to properly place Lecky in D3's hierarchy of distance runners.

Regardless, few men in the NCAA have both a ceiling and a floor that are as high as Lecky's this fall. There are so many signs which signal that he'll have a big year and that is truthfully hard to ignore when constructing the 20-best cross country runners in D2.

Now we'll just have to wait and see if our hunch is right.

HONORABLE MENTIONS (in no order)

• Cormac Peppard-Kramer (JohnCarroll)

• Jeffrey Love (Connecticut College)

• Sam Verkerke (UW-Eau Claire)

• Ryan Stracke (Pacific Lutheran)

Quick Note(s) & Key Omissions

• Despite extensive research and outreach, we were unable to confirm whether or not Whittier's Ben White will be returning this fall. The Stride Report has opted to exclude White from our rankings based on TFRRS data.