TSR's 2023 D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): Update #1

TSR Collaboration
Oct 9, 2023
7 min read

Written by Conor Daly, Kevin Fischer & Gavin Struve

Additional edits and commentary via Garrett Zatlin & Gavin Struve

NOTE: These rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at a singular meet or (eventually) at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships. Click here to learn more about our ranking criteria.

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. SUNY Geneseo Knights (-2 / 8)

To be honest, there’s a solid case for the SUNY Geneseo men to be removed from our rankings in favor of a couple of the teams in our “Just Missed” section.

At their first meet in which they fielded a full lineup, the Knights had a 40+ second gap between their fourth and fifth runners. Come the Paul Short Invitational, the whole team looked like a bit out of sorts. Top ace Nick Andrews (86th) didn’t show the same spark that he had last year, falling behind a number of Division Three talents, many of whom are not even in our top-20 rankings.

As far as the rest of the lineup goes, they just weren’t where they needed to be as William Hall was the only other runner in the top-150. Maybe the rainy conditions or the 400-person field threw a wrench in their plans, but what we saw did not equate to the SUNY Geneseo squad we were expecting.

With a veteran like Andrews probably still a top-15 name in Division Three and the pieces still in place to turn things around, we’re going to give the Knights the benefit of the doubt and preserve their top-10 credentials for the time being.

9. Carnegie Mellon Tartans (+1 / 10)

We’ve had no shortage of opportunities to see the Tartans this fall. They’ve raced frequently thus far and have capably defended their top-10 ranking, hence them moving up a spot.

In late September, the Carnegie Mellon men raced the Dickinson College Long-Short Invitational, held on this fall’s cross country national meet course. The field was not particularly deep and the Tartans easily took the win. However, if you compare their performances to the marks we saw at D3 Pre-Nationals on the same course a week later, then the Tartans would have placed in a mere 10th, behind many of our “Honorable Mention” teams.

That comparison isn’t particularly favorable for a team that we project to be better than 10th in the entire country, but it’s hard to compare across different races that are two weeks apart.

Nonetheless, these Pittsburgh-based men looked significantly more impressive at Paul Short. The Tartans finished well ahead of many strong Division Three teams in their race, boasting a five-man average that was 13 seconds faster than Lynchburg, 34 seconds faster than Johns Hopkins and 38 seconds faster than SUNY Geneseo.

Having Matthew Coyle (44th) and Matthew Porter (54th) run as well as they did was super encouraging. Plus, Ryan Podnar (68th) was a much better middle-lineup contributor than we thought this team would have in a field of that size. With Colin McLaughlin and Colin Hsu both capable of improving, it's hard to dislike this squad going into the second-half of the season.

That version of the Carnegie men shows us that they’re the real deal and that they have the potential to outperform this ranking.

8. Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens (-5 / 3)

D3 Pre-Nationals totally changed the way that we viewed the Sagehens. And to be frank, it was an ugly day for them.

A lot of the staff here at TSR was very high on Coach Amber Williams’ team after seeing them at the UC Riverside Invitational, but a 4th place team finish at Pre-Nats left us concerned.

From top to bottom, the Sagehens underperformed. Most notably, low-stick Lucas Florsheim finished 23rd, a disappointing performance for someone who was expected to contend for the win. Another notable development was the absence of steeplechase ace Colin Kirkpatrick. We generally don’t like to speculate about absences early in the season, but it was surprising that he was nowhere to be found and that the Sagehens only ran six men.

With Kirkpatrick’s presence, this team performance is probably not as underwhelming as what we saw on Saturday. He could have softened the impact of the Sagehens’ 55th place fifth scorer which ended up being Derek Fearon, someone who can be an All-American at his best.

This might be seen as a tough drop for a team that had one poor day, but the Sagehens looked like anything but the title-contending team we expected they’d be. They should, however, take solace in the fact that there are multiple areas where they can improve -- it's not like they hit their ceiling and can't go further up.

7. RPI Engineers (0 / 7)

The RPI men came to make a statement to open this fall. The Engineers opened their season in dominant fashion on a brand new home course as each of their top-seven men ran under 24:50 for the 8000 meter distance.

And although we’ve never seen this course before, it was speculated by some to even be longer than a true 8k. But as much as we wanted to read into that race, we knew that Pre-Nationals would give us a much better measuring stick.

In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the Engineers validated themselves as a serious threat to reach the podium in November by finishing 3rd, comfortably ahead of Pomona-Pitzer. The front trio of Cory Kennedy, Vince Simonetti and Mitchell Dailey was very strong, as expected. Yet, the performances of RPI’s fourth through seventh runners weren't exactly what we had hoped for.

Jonathan Craun and Jack Loughery closed out the scoring in 33rd place and 42nd place which were actually fairly strong results, but not quite the elite backend that we know this RPI team is capable of boasting.

Even so, the Engineers’ overall performance was roughly on-par with what we expected, keeping them at the seventh spot for the time being.

6. Williams Ephs (Unranked)

Williams has been one of the biggest risers in Division Three through the first month of competition. And while it still feels like a bridge too far, they could scare the podium range if they continue to improve at this rate.

The Ephs mostly coasted past Vassar in their opening race and did the same against Amherst at the Little 3 Championships before stunning MIT as they swept the top-three spots at their home meet. The emergence of Nikhil DeNatale and Charles Namiot as complementary stars to lead scorer John Lucey has been a welcomed development, especially with the gap year that is being taken by Graham Tuohy-Gaydos.

Nate Lentz also deserves plenty of credit for the progress that he has made since last year, especially as he translates his middle distance skillset to 8000 meters.

Williams lost narrowly to the Engineers at D3 Pre-Nationals, but it really feels like their stock still rose more than not as they took down teams like RPI, Pomona-Pitzer, George Fox and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in the same setting.

The Ephs appear far more capable of surviving their offseason losses than expected. They might just be primed for an improvement upon last fall as a top-five Division Three group.

5. UW-Whitewater Warhawks (+1 / 6)

The UW-Whitewater men have yet to leave the state of Wisconsin for competition, so their appraisal largely hasn’t changed.

Most recently, though, the Warhawks validated themselves as a worthy top-10 (and likely top-five) team with a comfortable win over St. Olaf at the Blugold Invitational. Christian Patzka is still likely the nation’s top individual in our eyes, but there’s not a whole lot more to say about UW-Whitewater until they face harsher competition.

4. UW-La Crosse Eagles (+1 / 5)

Near the beginning of the season, the Eagles handled the Carleton and Minnesota State men in a tune-up effort at the Running of the Cows and then took a couple of weeks off before earning a highly commendable 7th place effort in the Paul Short “Gold” race.

Ethan Gregg remains an individual national title contender after a monster 3rd place finish at Lehigh and Isaac Wegner (11th) isn’t far behind in that conversation. However, more importantly, Grant Matthai (41st) has stepped up big time and Adam Loenser (91st) was a highly valuable fourth scorer who could even be better moving forward.

Some gaps did begin to form for UW-La Crosse the further back we went into the Paul Short results, but this lineup feels like it's a bit more complete than it was last year.

3. Wartburg Knights (-2 / 1)

We liked the construction of Wartburg’s lineup a lot to start the season, but as the fall progresses, there are some unanswered questions that don’t make us feel comfortable with keeping them at TSR #1.

Jacob Green has been very respectable, but not phenomenal. Lance Sobaski’s track success hasn’t quite translated to the grass the way we thought it might, at least not yet. Connor Lancial isn’t having the season that we expected him to, although he has only raced once and generally knows how to peak for the postseason.

Nonetheless, the Knights have mostly gotten the job done this season with their only loss to Division Three competition coming short-handed in a 5k race the first week of September to our new TSR #1 team, North Central. And truthfully, we really can’t put much stock into that.

In fairness to Wartburg, the performances of Christopher Collet and Shane Erb have been a bright spot. And if some of the supporting cast improves, then this is still a national title contending group.

2. MIT Engineers (0 / 2)

We were critical of MIT after they surprisingly lost to Williams (who we perhaps undervalued, initially) at the Purple Valley XC Invite. But then the Engineers bounced back in a major way with a victory at D3 Pre-Nationals this past weekend.

Lowell Hensgen and Henry Hardart have stepped up in a huge way to fill the hole left by several major departures. Star returners like Sam Acquaviva and Vedang Lad haven't looked quite as sharp (the former more so than the latter), but their value as low-sticks is still very clearly there.

Even if it hasn’t been perfect, the picture for the Engineers now looks a lot prettier than it did a week ago. They appear to be improving as we shift into the nitty-gritty part of the season.

1. North Central Cardinals (+3 / 4)

The introduction of BJ Sorg as one of Division Three’s better support scorers has changed the way that we look at North Central from “arguably the most talented Division Three team through four runners” to “almost definitely the most talented Division Three team through five runners.”

While they have yet to face another top-10 Division Three team over 8000 meters, the Cardinals have held their own against some solid Division One and Two teams. We also know that if each of their scoring five stays healthy and runs up to their potential, then no other group in the country can touch them.

The gap between the fifth and sixth runners is large, so the Cardinals may be vulnerable to a small margin of error if somebody has an “off” day. But if that can be avoided, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t run the table the rest of the season...right?