TSR's 2024 NAIA XC Top 25 Team Rankings (Men): Update #1 (Three Sentences or Less)

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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 NAIA XC Championships. Click here to learn more about our ranking criteria (which was published in 2023). 

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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.

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25. Goshen Maple Leafs (0 / 25)

A 15th place team finish in the "Open" section of the Gans Creek Classic put the Goshen men behind a handful of strong NAIA programs, although that result (for the most part) still aligned with our expectations. Mathew Keitany looks like a great low-stick who has decent support from Anthony Roberts and Jacob Friesen. However, the gaps throughout their top-five make them slightly more vulnerable in larger fields.

24. Cornerstone Golden Eagles (Unranked)

The Cornerstone men only barely sneaked by Goshen in their last two outings. However, the difference is that Jamin Thompson wasn't anywhere near his best at the Gans Creek Classic, something that he proved was a fluke with a great win at the Warrior Challenge. The supporting cast of Peyton Tipton, Chase Holwerda, Andy Adams, Hunter Richards, Isaiah Jacobs and Ethan Krampe give the Golden Eagles tons of depth, but greater firepower will be needed to raise this team's ceiling.

23. Grace Lancers (+1 / 24)

Brandon Kleber and Cole Johnston give the Grace men plenty of firepower while Luis Loera-Arambula has offered sneaky-good value at the middle portion of this lineup. However, the drop-offs seen from the rest of their top-seven led to the Lancers' team score inflating quite a bit at the Gans Creek Classic. The Ray Bullock Invite was a more encouraging sign for Grace's supporting cast, but that will need to translate to a larger field.

22. SCAD Atlanta Bees (Unranked)

The SCAD Atlanta men were just two points shy of tying Cumberlands (Tenn.) at the Firehawk Invite and they later settled for a respectable 14th place finish at the UAH Chargers Invitational. The lone race that we've seen Paul Moore in was encouraging while Will Karim and Will Lanser have offered strong scoring value as well. It's admittedly hard to gauge this team right now, but we should have a better idea of their current talent level when they toe the line for the Appalachian Athletic Conference XC Championships.

21. Shawnee State Bears (-1 / 20)

An 18th place finish in the "Gold" section at the Louisville Classic was a respectable effort for Shawnee State as all five of their scorers cracked the top-150. However, Rio Grande was better through the first-half of their scoring group, ultimately allowing them to pull away from the Bears. Thankfully, the Lanoy brothers and Shawn Little put together a very strong top-three at the All-Ohio Intercollegiate XC Classic, something that can hopefully be translated to the postseason.

20. Caroll Saints (MT) (-1 / 19)

19. Rocky Mountain College Battlin' Bears (Unranked)

These two teams need to be analyzed together, mainly because they have faced each other three times this season with two wins going to the latter program (although the Battlin' Bears tempoed their second meeting). Zack Gacnik has been awesome low-stick for Carroll while Connor O'Hara and Brycen Gardner have been great as well. The Rocky Mountain men aren't quite as top-heavy as the Saints, but they're not far off and their collective pack is arguably better than Carroll's scoring group for now.

18. Montreat Cavaliers (-9 / 9)

Between September and October, we've only seen the Montreat men race once. They held their own at the Converse Kick-Off with Ryan Stade, Nathan Stamey and Ethan Stamey going 3-8-16, respectively, to give the Cavaliers great firepower behind a trio of strong D2 programs. However, a fairly substantial gap at their backend, paired with a very limited racing schedule, forced us to push Montreat back in our rankings.

17. Aquinas Saints (-1 / 16)

While they did settle for a 12th place finish in the "Open" section at the Gans Creek Classic, the Aqinas men were able to pull ahead of ranked NAIA teams such as Grace, Cornerstone and Goshen. Their top-five didn't feature a ton of firepower, but Ethan Barker and Matt Schieber offered strong value in Missouri and their overall scoring group didn't feature too many gaps or vulnerabilities. For the most part, we feel like the Saints are roughly on par with our expectations for them.

16. Kansas Wesleyan Coyotes (-2 / 14)

We have to commend the Kansas Wesleyan men who came within striking distance of a very respectable Doane squad at the Greeno/Dirksen XC Invitational. The Coyotes didn't have any specific aspect of their lineup that stood out, but there wasn't more than an 18-spot gap between any of their top-five men. From a stability standpoint, that's an encouraging development, although the overall scoring potency of this group does have room to improve.

15. Doane Tigers (-4 / 11)

There wasn't necessarily anything wrong or bad about the Doane men taking 8th place at the Greeno/Dirksen XC Invitational or settling for a runner-up result behind Dordt this past weekend. However, other teams are simply more proven that the Tigers right now. That, of course, could change given that Nelson Ruto seemingly joined Thomas Oliver and Porter Brickley this past weekend as a top low-stick in their battle against the Defenders.

14. Eastern Oregon Mountaineers (-2 / 12)

Truthfully, it's been hard to analyze/gauge the Eastern Oregon men. While they have held their own in their last two races, College of Idaho is seemingly the only other nationally competitive NAIA group who they have battled with this fall. They simply move back due to the performances of other teams rather than anything that they've done.

13. Lewis-Clark State Warriors (+2 / 15)

We really liked what we saw from the Lewis-Clark men at the Gans Creek Classic, a meet where they put four men -- Kobe Wessels, Conner May, Griffen Parsells and Carter Gordon -- in the top-70 spots. With Connor Alexander and Alexander Fry not far behind, the Warriors seem to have solid enough depth. The upfront scoring presence of this group may need to improve if they want to be a top-10 team this fall, but coming one point short of defeating a team like Taylor was impressive.

12. Rio Grande Red Storm (+5 / 17)

So far this season, the Rio Grande men have looked very strong, comfortably securing a clutch win at the All Ohio Intercollegiate XC Classic before emerging as the top NAIA team at the Louisville XC Classic (Gold section). However, the best NAIA team who they've beaten this fall is Shawnee State, a squad that's not even ranked inside of our top-20. That's ultimately why we're being cautious with this update, but the trio of Duncan Kogei, Tyler Jenkins and Danuel Persinger give this team some semblance of an argument to be listed in our top-10.

11. Taylor Trojans (-4 / 7)

The Taylor men actually defeated Indiana Wesleyan in an early-season battle well over a month ago, but the Wildcats have begun to gain momentum and are a much stronger group. That was shown at the Trojans' home meet and at the Gans Creek Classic where IWU pulled away by comfortable margins. For the most part, the Taylor men have a great upfront scoring presence via Luke Harber, Nathan Burns, Ryan Hanak and Joel Mumaw, but they've also had some occasional slippage at the backend portion of their scoring group.

10. Embry-Riddle Arizona Eagles (+3 / 13)

Demetris Love, Jr. looks like a true superstar while Ben Smith could be argued as a low-stick as well. The backend of the Eagles' scoring group also looks promising, but there is seemingly very little margin for error after their top-five crosses the line. Even so, this group fared relatively well at the The Master's University XC Invite and took a loss to the home team who is ranked as a podium contender.

9. Cumberlands Patriots (KY) (-7 / 2)

A 10th place finish at the Gans Creek Classic put the Patriots behind a number of ranked NAIA squads and it also wasn't ideal to see this group without a number of scorers at their latest meet, the Royals Challenge. Thankfully, we know that Cumberlands (KY) has been holding out top-tier scorers such as Youssef Asslouj, Victor Carpeggiani and maybe a few others who have yet to debut. The best version of this lineup is almost certainly a top-10 team, but until we see them at full strength, we'll need to bring them back a bit in our rankings.

8. Dordt Defenders (+2 / 10)

There's only been one race where Dordt has competed against a nationally competitive NAIA program and that was this past weekend as they took down a sneaky-good Doane team. The quartet of Aidan Vorster, Craig Becker, Tage Hulstein and Luke Swanson overwhelmed the Tigers by finishing inside of the top-nine while the rest of their lineup wasn't far behind. The ongoing absence of All-American ace Ethan Summerhays isn't ideal, but a return from him in the postseason could put this team in the podium conversation.

7. Indiana Wesleyan Wildcats (+1 / 8)

Yes, the IWU men did fall to Taylor back in early September, but the Wildcats are a much better team now than they were over a month ago. Their 5th place finish in the "Open" section at the Gans Creek Classic put them behind Spring Arbor, but Eli Fullerton looks like an elite talent, Ben Neideck had a sneaky-strong race and the backend stability of this group is excellent. Braden Vernot will need to be better moving forward, but we think his Gans Creek Classic performance, while far from poor, was a fluke.

6. Spring Arbor Cougars (+17 / 23)

We've have been extremely impressed by the Spring Arbor men, a group that was 4th at the top-heavy Spartan Invite in early-ish September and a team that secured an outstanding 4th place finish in the "Open" section at the Gans Creek Classic. Dean Reynolds looks incredible, Kobe Blanco has been sneaky-great and both Camden Khon and Glen Davis offered tremendous scoring stability at the latter meet. Sure, there is a little bit of a gap after those four, but it's not by much and the overall depth of this group is stronger than we expected it to be.

5. The Master's Mustangs (-1 / 4)

The three-headed low-stick monster of Connor Ybarra, Jack Anderson and Nate Day has been exceptional this season. We also love that the Mustangs gave the Biola men, a strong team at the D2 level, a major run for their money back in September. Yes, they're dropping back one spot, but that's largely due to the natural movement of these rankings rather than anything else.

4. Saint Mary Spires (KS) (-1 / 3)

We really like the fact that the Spires have been competitive (relatively speaking) in meets that feature a variety of Division One, Division Two and Division Three teams. Sure, Dominick Beine has been an excellent lead scoring talent, but it's the compact nature of the rest of their scorers that has left us encouraged about St. Mary's podium hopes.

3. Milligan Buffaloes (-2 / 1)

We haven't seen Milligan face any national-caliber NAIA teams yet this season, but their latest showing at the Pirate XC Invite led to them getting 7th place over a host of Division One mid-major programs such as East Carolina, Davidson, UNC-Greensboro and Elon. Bryn Woodall looks flat-out incredible right now as a focal low-stick while Zimri Kuhn has shown great scoring promise as well. With the remaining scorers staying compact and limiting excessive scoring, we like the position that the Buffaloes are in right now.

2. Oklahoma City Stars (+3 / 5)

The Oklahoma City men were insanely good at the Gans Creek Classic, emerging as the top NAIA team and the 2nd place squad overall with a group of scorers who could all be low-sticks on certain teams. Evert Silva will have a chance to win the individual national title this fall while Ayenew Devany, Damien Williams, David Boulanger and Beckam Hartis may each be contenders for All-American honors.

1. College of Idaho Coyotes (+5 / 6)

The COI men have been incredible so far this fall as they have secured two wins in fields that have featured respectable Division One programs (including a very limited Portland lineup). Daniel Butler, Hayden Bostrom and Elias Everist may have an argument to be the best scoring trio in the country while Brevin Vaughan, Oclan Ryan and Cyress Wilson are seemingly some of the better backend scorers in the NAIA. There's an argument for the OCU to be ranked at our TSR #1 spot, but the overall firepower of this group is what ultimately gives the Coyotes an edge.