TSR's 2024 D3 XC Top 20 Individual Rankings (Men): Update #3

TSR Collaboration
Nov 12, 2024
10 min read

Written by Conor Daly, Kevin Fischer & Gavin Struve

Edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve and Garrett Zatlin

NOTE: These rankings are based on how an individual 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 athlete has moved in the rankings.

The second number indicates where the athlete was ranked in our last update.

20. BJ Sorg, Sophomore, North Central (-4 / 16)

There isn't all that much to say about BJ Sorg's day at the CCIW XC Championships. Sure, he lost to two unranked individuals, which isn't ideal, but when you factor in that they were his teammates in a dominant team win, it really isn't concerning.

With that said, we did drop Sorg a few spots to make way for others who took steps forward. Even so, his stock can rise right back up with a good regional performance.

19. Cullen Capuano, Senior, Washington U. (-6 / 13)

On paper, finishing 3rd at the UAA XC Championships was an underwhelming individual day for Cullen Capuano.

Still, he was only four seconds away from the win, and his top-three finish at the Augustana Interregional Invitational a few weeks ago serves as an indicator of what he can do when at his best.

An encouraging sign is that even on his “bad” days, Capuano still operates at an All-American level. Having that be your floor at this point in the season is a pretty good situation to be in.

18. Will Shuflit, Sophomore, Colorado College (-1 / 17)

The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference isn't the deepest league, but Will Shuflit did face a possible pre-race threat from Will Salony of Trinity (Tex), a great miler with solid aerobic ability.

But ultimately, Shuflit ended up dispatching Salony pretty comfortably on his way to a 22-second conference title victory.

The 6th-place finisher from the Augustana Interregional Invitational continues to trend in the right direction as we get deep into the business end of the season. It seems clear that he is peaking at the perfect time.

17. Matthew Coyle, Senior, Carnegie Mellon (Unranked)

Entering the UAA XC Championships, we wouldn't have necessarily been shocked to see Matthew Coyle take the individual conference title. Still, his doing so felt like a moderate surprise given the history of guys like Cullen Capuano and Ryan Tobin.

With this win, Coyle seemingly has taken the next step forward from an All-American contender to a true star.

It's hard to envision him beating Emmanuel Leblond at the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships this weekend, but the way he is trending suggests that there is absolutely reason to think he can make it close.

16. Vince Simonetti, Senior, RPI (+2 / 18)

Ideally, Vince Simonetti would have liked to win the Liberty League individual title, as he was a slight favorite going in. However, taking silver behind ranked competitor Nicholas Lyndaker is not a bad result by any means.

After a rough few races to start the season, Simonetti has now put down two solid efforts in a row. That allows him to gain some more momentum entering the regional and national meets, and that's a scary thing when you consider his All-American pedigree.

15. Adam Sage, Senior, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (Unranked)

There's an argument to rank Adam Sage even higher given his recent record of twice defeating our TSR #8 runner, Cameron Hatler.

Those victories (which included a conference title) over a top individual were enough to move Sage into our rankings. However, the Pomona-Pitzer Invite and the SCIAC XC Championships featured fields that were not all that deep beyond Sage and Hatler.

There are questions as to how Sage can perform in a larger field with multiple top-20 names and whether he truly is a top-half All-American talent after struggling in the Paul Short Run "White" race earlier this year. He'll see our TSR #18 runner, Will Shuflit, at the West Regional XC Championships in addition to Hatler, so some of those questions may be answered soon.

14. Isaac vanWestrienen, Junior, Cornell College (+1 / 15)

Despite a few ups and downs, it's plenty evident that Isaac vanWestrienen is still supremely talented.

He hasn't quite matched his result from the John McNichols Invitational in September, where he was 3rd behind Nathan Tassey and Grant Matthai and beat Emmanuel Leblond. Even so, he bounced back from a modest run at the Augustana Interregional Invitational by recently running away with a conference title, nabbing a 45-second win over an inferior field.

At his best, we know that vanWestrienen is a top-five or top-10 talent. But in order for him to make that a reality, he just needs to find a bit more consistency.

13. Nicholas Lyndaker, Junior, St. Lawrence (+7 / 20)

This St. Lawrence ace has been trending just as you’d want him to at this point in the season. Each of his last three efforts have been noticeably better than the prior.

Nicholas Lyndaker’s most recent win at the Liberty League XC Championships was encouraging. He waited until within the last mile to make his move on Vince Simonetti, a plan that worked wonderfully to break the tape with seven seconds to spare, a large margin of victory for a move made so late on a top-20 name.

With postseason history and regular season credentials to back him up, we have few worries about Lyndaker over the coming month.

12. Charles Namiot, Senior, Williams (+2 / 14)

Even though Charles Namiot hasn’t gone up against the most rigorous competition, there are few men who can say that they have won four of their five races this season. This Ephs ace is in that select group.

His win at the NESCAC XC Championships only adds to our confidence in the long distance stalwart. He has strung together a near-perfect season up to this point for a team in need of a new focal star after John Lucey's graduation.

11. Anthony Rodriguez, Senior, Babson (-1 / 10)

Seeing Anthony Rodriguez settle for silver at the NEWMAC XC Championships was certainly less than ideal. The Babson star was fairly heavily favored, and it’s not like he lost in a late-stage tactical error considering that he came up short by 10 seconds, a gap usually representative of a fitness difference.

This “off” day does worry us a bit considering that Rodriguez failed to make it out of the East Regional XC Championships last year.

That being said, Rodriguez’s runs at D3 Pre-Nationals and the Connecticut College Invitational provide reason to keep him high in our rankings. In each of those deep races, which feel like a better indicator for success at the national meet than the NEWMAC XC Championships, he topped several names who are currently in our rankings

10. Mohammed Bati, Junior, Augsburg (+1 / 11)

A recent win by upwards of 50 seconds at the MIAC XC Championships adds to Mohammed Bati’s undefeated season over 8k. While we don’t put much stock into times run during the cross country season, posting a PR on a tough course like he just did is definitely notable.

When you look at his season as a whole, the gaps that Bati has put on these fields are enormous. Most notably, he won by over 40 seconds against our TSR #14 runner, Isaac vanWestrienen, earlier this season.

Bati looks to be as fit as ever this fall. We just cross our fingers that this success will carry over to larger, more competitive fields over the coming weeks.

9. Peter LaRochelle, Senior, Haverford (0 / 9)

Like many men in this range of our rankings, Peter LaRochelle has simply not lost to many individuals, and those he has lost to are some of the best in the business. At the Centennial Conference XC Championships, LaRochelle earned silver, finishing only behind our TSR #4 runner, Emmanuel Leblond.

Funny enough, that meet was held at last year’s very challenging cross country national meet course, and LaRochelle ran just two seconds slower than he did at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships (where he placed 35th). Considering that he didn’t have anyone within 20 seconds in front or behind him and he still has three weeks to get fitter and fresher, this is a result that we can be satisfied enough with to maintain his ranking.

Going forward, LaRochelle will have the luxury of competing in the admittedly weak Metro Regional XC Championships before attempting to capture his highest national meet finish to date, a prospect that looks very likely.

8. Cameron Hatler, Senior, Pomona-Pitzer (-1 / 7)

We pondered for quite some time as to where to rank Cameron Hatler. On one hand, he ran very well at his most important regular season meets. He was outstanding at the UCR XC Invitational (a course we are familiar with) and equally phenomenal at D3 Pre-Nationals.

But since then, Hatler has left us wanting a bit more. We didn’t overreact to a 3rd-place finish (2nd among Division Three competition) at the Pomona-Pitzer XC Invite since we weren’t sure how to gauge this Sagehen’s effort from that day. But a second defeat to Adam Sage at the SCIAC XC Championships left us wondering whether Sage is running out of his mind or if Hatler is falling off a bit.

In the end, we decided to split the difference and put more weight on Hatler’s early-season runs in more competitive fields. We can't in good faith move him below several of the stars that he beat at D3 Pre-Nationals.

Having essentially only one opponent to compare Hatler’s last two races to definitely makes it tricky, so we’ll be watching him closely at the West Regional XC Championships.

7. Chasen Hunt, Junior, Lynchburg (+1 / 8)

Chasen Hunt led a 1-2-3-4 procession of Lynchburg men at the ODAC XC Championships, helping himself to the individual conference title and his team to the conference crown as well.

That was his first ODAC title on the grass but his seventh overall. All signs point toward Hunt also earning his first cross country All-American honor by a wide margin this fall.

6. Isaiah Hammerand, Sophomore, Wartburg (0 / 6)

Just as Chasen Hunt did, Isaiah Hammerand led his squad to a sweep of the top several spots at a conference meet that he and his team easily won.

The difference was that Hammerand won going away, taking the American Rivers Conference title by over 40 seconds over his All-American candidate teammates. That marked a continuation of his rise to stardom after placing 13th at the ARC XC Championships a year ago.

In less than 12 months, Hammerand has gone from a promising freshman who was a backend varsity runner to the focal star of a team that appears set to crack the podium after finishing one spot off of it in 2023.

5. Gunner Schlender, Senior, UW-Whitewater (-2 / 3)

Gunner Schlender has cooled off a bit after a torrid start to his 2024 season in which he won D3 Pre-Nationals over superstar teammate, Christian Patzka. Since then, he finished 4th in what appeared to be a slight "off" day at the Augustana Interregional Invitational and then 3rd at the WIAC XC Championships.

Losing to Patzka and a runner who was previously ranked just one spot below him at his conference meet indicates that Schlender is still very much in the best cross country shape of his life. After all, he beat a few All-American favorites in his last outing.

How well he holds that form over the coming weeks will be crucial for a top-heavy UW-Whitewater team that needs all the firepower it can get as it seeks to crack the top-five at the NCAA XC Championships after placing 10th on the national stage last fall.

4. Emmanuel Leblond, Junior, Johns Hopkins (+1 / 5)

In winning the Centennial Conference individual title on November 2nd, Emmanuel Leblond produced a second convincing victory over Peter LaRochelle (TSR #9) this season.

The Johns Hopkins star appears to have leveled up even after placing 4th at the John McNichols Invitational in September. He may finish as high as 2nd if that race was run again this month.

The Blue Jay ace has been a steady presence at national meets in recent years. However, this season, he seems poised to dictate how the NCAA XC Championships play out rather than "only" being a participant and back-half All-American.

3. Grant Matthai, Junior, UW-La Crosse (+1 / 4)

Winning a WIAC individual title on the grass feels like the culmination of all of the flashes of superstar potential that Grant Matthai has displayed throughout his still-young NCAA career.

He became a three-time All-American during the 2023-24 academic year, but has yet to achieve that status on the cross country course. Now, reaching that status later this month feels like a fait accompli and the only question is how high up Matthai finishes.

A national team title for UW-La Crosse should be the primary goal. That being said, it doesn't feel outlandish to suggest that Matthai is now a contender for the individual NCAA gold, especially considering that he was leading our TSR #1 runner late in the race at the John McNichols Invitational before taking a fall and finishing runner-up.

2. Christian Patzka, Senior, UW-Whitewater (-1 / 1)

We're opting not to drop Christian Patzka too much after he recorded his third runner-up result in four races this season.

We thought that Patza was back in his title-favorite form when he won the Augustana Interregional Invitational on October 19th. However, he was not all that close to defending his individual WIAC title.

Patzka's floor still seems to be that of a top-three runner nationally, but he also probably has the highest ceiling in the country given that he's the back-to-back NCAA cross country runner-up and won national titles in both the 5k and the 3000-meter steeplechase this past spring.

Last year, Patzka defeated Ethan Gregg at the WIAC XC Championships before Gregg turned the tables on him at the national meet. Patzka will now be hoping he can follow Gregg's blueprint over the coming month.

1. Nathan Tassey, Junior, Roger Williams (+1 / 2)

A fourth race brought a fourth win this season for Nathan Tassey, who found little resistance en route to a conference title. His undefeated record and wins over Matthai, Leblond and several other top-20 individuals are enough to make him the new presumptive national title pick...at least, according to our rankings.