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TSR's 2023 Preseason D2 XC Top 10 Rankings (Men): #6 Colorado Christian Cougars
- Marissa Kuik
- Sep 9, 2023
- 6 min read
Written by Marissa Kuik, edits and additional commentary by Gavin Struve and Garrett Zatlin
NOTE: Earlier this summer, The Stride Report reached out to nearly every team that was considered for a possible ranking this summer. While we did receive numerous responses and great clarity, we did not get a 100% response rate. On rare occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
Colorado Christian’s finish to the 2022 cross country campaign solidified their program as an upper-tier Division Two mainstay. However, for those monitoring this team’s trajectory through the regular season, and in preceding years, the Cougars’ rise to relevancy didn’t come as an absolute shock.
On paper, this was (somewhat) expected.
But as we enter the fall months, the CCU men face an arguably more difficult challenge than rising towards the top of the Division Two ranks — staying there. Fortunately for Cougars fans, we think they’re well-prepared to do so.
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Coach Jon Poag is known to race his top athletes sparingly in the regular season and their 2022 fall campaign was no exception.
The Cougars opened up their season at the CU Time Trial, effectively a dual meet with Colorado. Josh Pierantoni led the way, holding his own against the Division One competition with a 7th place finish.
The rest of CCU’s scorers stayed close together with Alexander Vance placing 15th, Trent Cochran coming in 17th, Storer finishing in 19th and Nicolas Ramirez rounding out the top-five in 24th place. Just behind Ramirez was a pack of Cougars taking the next four places.
In a dual meet, teammates are naturally going to be close together, but for the first meet of the season, it was a promising effort to kick-off the year.
Colorado Christian’s only other regular season showing for its varsity group came at the Lewis Crossover, a legitimate test for most fringe top-10 teams in D2. And it was there that the Cougars flexed their firepower with a team title behind Cochran's and Pierantoni's 2nd and 3rd place finishes, respectively. Not too far behind were Matthew Storer in 9th, Isaac Russo in 14th and Jeremy Miller in 20th.
The Cougars beat some very competitive Division Two teams at that meet, including Illinois-Springfield, Western Washington and Michigan Tech. CCU had flexed outstanding firepower and put together a complete lineup void of any glaring flaws.
The Lewis Crossover was exactly what the Cougars needed to build their confidence entering the championship season.
In typical Colorado Christian fashion, the Cougars' top-seven did not race at the RMAC XC Championships, a not-so-uncommon move for Coach Jon Poag. Instead, their next big competition was the South Central Regional XC Championships.
On that stage, the Cougars finished an impressive runner-up, giving them even more confidence entering the national meet. Once again, the Cougars were led by Pierantoni (3rd) and Storer (6th) while the backend continued to keep a tight spread with the final three scorers finishing in the top-20.
Of course, the national meet was what we were really focused on.
After placing 2nd at their regional meet, Colorado Christian almost repeated their placement with an outstanding 3rd place finish at the national meet. Pierantoni led the way for his team once again with an 11th place finish, but not too far behind was Storer crossing the line in an impressive 17th.
Yet again, the upper-half All-American firepower of this team came through.
Cochran also secured an incredibly valuable All-American spot in 31st place while Russo and Vance rounded out the team's top-five by placing 57th and 112th, respectively. The gap from Russo to Vance did hurt the team score a little bit, but overall, the firepower of this team carried the Cougars to a comfortable podium spot and a program-defining finish.
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The biggest challenge for Colorado Christian in 2023 will be to find a new front-runner for this team as well as a consistent middle-pack runner if they want to return to the podium. And yes, that probably sounds easier said than done.
The Cougars will be without low-stick Josh Pierantoni along with supporting talents such as Jeremy Miller and Isaac Russo, the latter of whom was a highly dependable middle-lineup scorer last fall and a top-60 finisher at the national meet.
The CCU men will have their hands full trying to find replacements to fill in the gaps left by those men. Pierantoni had such a massive impact on this team and he carried a significant amount of scoring emphasis in all of their major meets.
However, after seeing significant improvements on the track from Storer, Cochran, Vance and Hudson Majeski, this team could legitimately make a run for the podium once again. On paper, they may be just as complete as they were last year.
After a wildly successful track campaign, Storer appears the best candidate to fill Pierantoni’s role as the team's premier low-stick. He finished 5th over 5000 meters at the indoor national meet, placed 4th in that event at the outdoor national meet and emerged as the national runner-up over 10,000 meters.
That latter result should serve Storer well as he aims to take a leap from very "good" to "great". He also ran personal bests of 13:56 (5k indoors), 13:54 (5k outdoors) and 29:51 (10k) at altitude! That latter mark later converted to a time of 28:57.
Storer clearly made a jump in fitness this past year and should have no problems leading this team on the grass. His TSR #6 placement in our preseason top-25 individual rankings shows the immense level of confidence that we have in Storer this fall.
Cochran has been a reliable competitor for the Cougars for the past couple of seasons, so we expect him to continue to improve as he likely aims to step into Storer’s role from the fall of 2022.
Cochran’s indoor track season was not exactly what we expected, but he still competed well on the outdoor oval, making it to the national meet over 1500 meters.
His consistency and constant improvement leaves little doubt in our minds that he can move up and help narrow the gap between Storer and the rest of the scorers. And let's not forget, you're looking at someone who was contending for a top-20 result at the 2021 national meet before collapsing not too far out from the finish.
Vance also had an underwhelming indoor track season, but came alive on the outdoor oval. He qualified for his first outdoor national meet in the metric mile and ran a 1500 meter PR of 3:49 at altitude.
If Vance can translate his improved middle distance fitness to the grass and build upon his 112th place result from the 2022 cross country national meet -- and his performance at the South Central Regional XC Championships (15th) says he can -- then he’ll provide Colorado Christian with another lead scorer.
And suddenly, diminishing firepower isn't as much of a concern for CCU as we once thought.
* * *
Luke Meyer is a name who will likely need to step up and play the role of a scorer for Colorado Christian this season. He did place consistently in their top-seven a year ago, but without Russo, Meyer may be a major x-factor for this team.
The returning veteran had a modest track season with personal bests of 14:58 (5k indoors) and 30:51 (10k). Those aren’t necessarily times that jump off the page, but if he can continue to build on his fitness, then Meyer could certainly appear as a backend scorer or at least limit excessive scoring.
The final piece to the Cougars’ puzzle could be Hudson Majeski. He did not even run for this team in most of their major meets last fall; his last cross country race was actually the conference meet where Colorado Christian rested their top-seven.
However, Majeski surprised everyone with his middle distance speed over the ensuing winter and spring months.
The breakout Cougar talent qualified for the 2023 NCAA Indoor Championships in the mile, running a time of 4:05 during the regular season before snagging an 8th place All-American finish on the national stage. Then, during the outdoor track season, he ran an unconverted mark of 3:49 for 1500 meters, qualifying for the national meet at that distance as well.
For someone who was not even among CCU's top-seven men on this roster during the 2022 cross country season, Majeski has a lot of potential to help the Cougars in 2023 if he can translate a good portion of his middle distance fitness to the grass.
Nicolas Ramirez also returns as an occasional varsity contributor from 2022. Without any major additions, the CCU men may figure to rely on internal improvement to close out their scoring and varsity lineup. That means developing Ramirez into a more potent varsity option.
* * *
Colorado Christian performed exceptionally well last season, especially when they needed to the most. Even so, the Cougars will need to fill significant holes left by key scorers Pierantoni and Russo. Luckily, Storer projects to fill the space occupied by Pierantoni last fall and the improvements from Cochran and Vance will help as well.
From a low-stick perspective, we aren't necessarily worried about this squad.
However, whether the Cougars can get back to the podium this year will come down to how much better their backend, namely Meyer and Majeski, can become.
It would be nice if this team fielded its best group at the RMAC XC Championships to give us a better (and earlier) gauge of their ability against elite competition. Even so, we can’t fault Coach Poag for operating the way that he has over the last years, especially when his methods have yielded the kind of results that Colorado Christian has enjoyed as of late.
