TSR's 2024 D2 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): Update #1

TSR Collaboration
Oct 14, 2024
9 min read

Updated: Oct 15, 2024

Written by Gavin Struve & Marissa Kuik

Edits & additional 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 2024 NCAA XC Championships. Click here to learn more about our ranking criteria (which was published in 2023).

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. Colorado Christian Cougars (-1 / 9)

Despite dropping a spot in our rankings, Colorado Christian's latest effort was a mostly positive one. As outlined in our First Thoughts analysis, CCU put together a surprisingly potent top-three around superstar Matthew Storer. Expected scorers Zachariah Vance and Caleb Hershey were absent from their Lewis Crossover lineup.

Storer finished runner-up, but Klay Grant (12th) and Mateo Luna (21st) were even more impressive relative to expectations, providing invaluable middle-lineup support. The Cougars finished 3rd despite a 37-second gap between their third and fourth runners.

All told, that was a solid effort in CCU's first 8k race of the year.

Assuming they get Vance and Hershey back and Grant carries over some measure of the low-stick potential he showcased at the Lewis Crossover, the Cougars are once again very much a top-10 team on paper.

9. Western Washington Vikings (Unranked)

In our Lewis Crossover preview, we outlined that many of the men's teams would be racing for runner-up. While pre-race favorite Colorado Mines didn't field their best lineup, the Orediggers still cruised to victory. That left Western Washington with the best of the rest billing by a wide margin, as the Vikings put five men in the top-40 and another in the top-45.

The Vikings' full contingent has raced only twice so far this fall but did so in two of the most competitive regular season meets available. First, they won their home meet, the WWU Bill Roe Classic, with four individuals in the top-20.

Missing from that group was Ryan Clough, who complemented focal star Kevin McDermott with a low-stick result (13th) at the Lewis Crossover. While their firepower and depth may fall short of being truly elite, the 'Vikes don't seem to have any real gaps in their lineup.

Despite landing in the top-half of the team standings at the past two cross country national meets, WWU has yet to break into the top-10. There's a good chance that'll change for this experienced group next month.

8. Chico State Wildcats (0 / 8)

For as high on Western Washington as we are, we should point out that Chico State scored half as many points as the Vikings at WWU's aforementioned home meet! The Wildcats packed all five scorers into the top-10, totaling just 20 points.

While it may have been overshadowed by the Lewis Crossover results, Chico State picked up another valuable victory across the country at the UAH Chargers XC Invite this past weekend. They landed six men in the top-15 to once again finish with half as many points as the meet host (Alabama-Huntsville).

While they didn't have the top collegian in their last effort like Dylan White gave them at the Bill Roe Classic, sophomore Damian Garcia (4th) emerged as a somewhat unlikely lead scorer. Coach Gary Towne appears to have a well-rounded, interchangeable lineup.

We're eager to see how Chico State how stacks up against a higher-ranked team, but we may not learn as much about the Wildcats over the next month as we did in their first two outings. That being said, they're trending toward a top-10 finish at the NCAA XC Championships for the ninth season in a row.

7. Adams State Grizzlies (0 / 7)

Despite a new-look lineup, we're expecting Adams State to be a pretty similar caliber of team to last year's Grizzlies group, which finished the season 6th on the national stage.

The 2024 iteration got off to a solid start at their home opener, beating two other strong RMAC teams in CSU-Pueblo and Fort Lewis. That was especially impressive because Adams State was missing its lead scorer in that setting and came into this season with less continuity than those two teams, who should have been more competitive with the Grizzlies.

Next came a major step up in competition in the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational's top section.

It was there that lead scorer Romain Legendre made his seasonal debut and looked the part of one of the nation's top runners, finishing 7th amidst some strong Division One talents as Adams State finished 8th (2nd among D2 teams in the field).

Whether Kidus Begashaw can give the Grizzlies a second low-stick star, as well as the development of new scorers Housem Hrabi and Juan Rosales, will be critical with the ever-important RMAC XC Championships now less than two weeks away.

6. Grand Valley State Lakers (0 / 6)

Our preseason placements came to look prescient at the Joe Piane Invitational, where the Grand Valley State men placed one spot ahead of Adams State in the team standings after finishing one place below the Grizzlies at the 2023 cross country national meet.

Caleb Futter (17th place) has continued to look like one of Division Two's singular stars this year after also winning the MSU Spartan Invitational. Koby Fraaza (40th) and Brock Wooderson (51st) were valuable middle-lineup runners as fringe low-sticks behind him, and seniors Scott Spaanstra and Samuel Martens closed out the scoring admirably in 74th and 75th place, respectively.

Nothing about the Lakers' effort at Notre Dame was revelatory, but it's hard to pinpoint areas where they could have realistically been better. Unfortunately, we did not get to see them race a full varsity group at the Lewis Crossover this past weekend.

The fact that they still salvaged 6th-place effort in that competitive setting is a testament to their continued depth.

5. East Central Tigers (-1 / 4)

East Central has competed in two relatively competitive regional meets -- the Chile Pepper XC Festival and the DBU Old Glory Gallup -- to open this season, but we're still left with more questions about the Tigers than we had heading into this fall.

None of their stars (they had four men ranked among our preseason top-25 individuals) looked great in their opener, as five D2 men finished ahead of the top Tiger. That led them to finish 3rd overall -- behind Arkansas and Western Colorado -- in the meet standings, which is why they swapped spots with the Mountaineers in these team rankings.

East Central collectively looked better in winning the DBU Old Glory Gallup, but their lead scorer from last year (Aspel Kiprob) has continued to struggle and wasn't even a scorer in that setting.

The Tigers' depth of talent gives them a relatively high floor even when Kiprob is off his game, but they'll need the multi-time All-American to be firing on all cylinders in order to make good on their top-five ceiling.

East Central still has a month and a half to get right, as they'll likely cruise through their conference meet. The Central Regional XC Championships and a step up to the 10k racing distance will be a more telling barometer for a team that entered this fall as a podium favorite after reaching that status at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships.

4. Western Colorado Mountaineers (+1 / 5)

We've only seen the Mountaineers' top group race once, and that came in a decisive loss (to D1 podium contender Arkansas) at the aforementioned Chile Pepper XC Festival.

However, that 32-point head-to-head win over East Central was enough to move Western Colorado to the projected podium range of our rankings at this point of the season.

Tyler Nord (11th place) ran more or less how we expected him to, but the Mountaineers' middle-lineup depth was what really shone through as Oliver Diaz (21st), Kyle Partin (24th) and Esteban Deniz (29th) stepped up and were joined by two other teammates in the top-50.

While Partin and Deniz largely matched expectations, that was an impressive result from Diaz, a Venezuela native, in what was his NCAA debut and his first race in the United States to our knowledge.

His emergence raises Western Colorado's ceiling. Although, his rookie status could make this team's outcomes a bit more variable. We'll be eager to see if they finish closer to conference favorite Colorado Mines or to Adams State at the RMAC XC Championships later this month.

3. Colorado Mines Orediggers (0 / 3)

After losing several program veterans to graduation, there were some questions as to how the Orediggers would perform in 2024. Luckily, a lot of those queries were answered after two very strong showings to open this season.

First, Colorado Mines destroyed a decent field at the Roadrunners Invite in Denver with Paul Knight finishing 3rd (first among attached runners), followed by Max Bonenberger (4th), Jeremiah Vaille (6th), Ethan Grolnic (8th) and Chandler Wilburn (10th).

That collective effort helped Colorado Mines finish with nearly a fifth as many (20-to-97) points as runner-up Fort Lewis (a team who was in our preseason rankings).

This past weekend, the Orediggers took home another dominant win at the biggest D2 meet yet this season: the Lewis Crossover. They did so without even racing Knight or Bonenberger!

Grolnic stepped up and finished 3rd overall, while Vaille placed 7th. Then came Braden Struhs in 14th place, Alberto Campa (20th) and Max Mettler (22nd). Their ridiculous depth and continued spawning of low-sticks make Colorado Mines a heavy favorite for another podium finish next month.

It should be scary for competitors that this team could get even better. Loic Scomparin, the 8th-place finisher at last year's cross country national meet, and Logan Bocovich (another top-half All-American) have yet to race this season despite being listed in the entries for the Lewis Crossover.

2. West Texas A&M Buffaloes (0 / 2)

West Texas A&M officially opened up their season at the Louisville Classic earlier this month, running what was close to a full-strength lineup after racing just a few varsity runners in a 2nd-place effort at Texas Tech last month. In Louisville, they came away with a 2nd-place finish in the "Gold" race, just two points behind Michigan.

William Amponsah picked up where he left off last year, finishing 1st overall, and new addition Dennis Cheruiyot crossed the line in 3rd place. Returning scorers Harry Louradour (17th) and Enrico Oddone (27th) were solid in the middle portion of the lineup, and Adrian Legarreta was close by in 28th place.

With that level of firepower and backend support, West Texas A&M can be competitive with anyone (including in D1 to an extent). We've also yet to see them field Aziz Mohammed, who was a cross country All-American last year and the metric mile NCAA champion in the spring.

Despite the addition of the 75th-place finisher from the 2023 cross country national meet (Matthys Bourse) via transfer, the Buffaloes aren't as deep as Colorado Mines and have a slimmer margin for error.

That being said, the successful introduction of Cheruiyot into their lineup (and the fact that Louradour can be even better and Mohammed could raise their ceiling) was enough to keep them ranked as the best of the rest behind an all-time D2 lineup...

1. Wingate Bulldogs (0 / 1)

In some ways, there is not much to analyze with this team. With how strong of a season Wingate had last year in winning their first cross country national title, it was hard to imagine them being better. But they appear to have reached a new plane of existence among Division Two powers.

Wingate didn't race their top lineup until the Paul Short Run "Gold" race, and they didn't disappoint once they finally decided to unleash their talent against the rest of the country. Wingate won the meet in dominant fashion, even over a nationally ranked D1 team (Harvard) with a score of just 30 points. Hamza Chahid finished runner-up, Lukas Ehrle placed 3rd overall, Antonin Saint Peyre was 6th, Ricardo Barbosa finished 8th and Titouan Le Grix was 11th.

Those results look like an early-season rust-buster meet, where the home team puts everyone in the top-10, but Wingate put this kind of show on at a large invitational against Division One competition!

Beyond the men who scored in that setting, the Bulldogs have plenty of other options if someone has an "off" day, including All-Americans Soheil Boufrizi, Cas Kopmels and Scott Nutter, just to name a few.

Right now, the likelihood of anyone in Division Two coming close to Wingate seems pretty low. Nobody else has so many star-caliber options. Although they're more of the hunted than the hunter this year, the Bulldogs look ready to dominate the rest of the country with a target on their back.