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TSR's 2024 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Team Rankings (Men): #14 Harvard Crimson
- Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
- Aug 19, 2024
- 7 min read
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 certain occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
Going into the fall of 2022, we were high on the Harvard men. They had a few excellent young stars and a lethal 1-2 punch who found tremendous success at the 2021 NCAA XC Championships.
But truthfully, the Crimson struggled a bit throughout the fall of 2022 until the national meet where they placed 17th overall -- matching their prior preseason ranking and their future preseason ranking going into the fall of 2023.
And yet, with each passing season and with each new recruiting class that ventured to Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Harvard men have been able to chip away at the NCAA hierarchy of cross country teams in front of them.
As we enter the fall of 2024, we once again find the Crimson men gunning to be a top-10 team in the country. And while they did lose a crucial low-stick, the timing felt appropriate as Coach Alex Gibby attempts to integrate his younger scorers into this lineup.
* * *
As we reflected on Harvard's 2023 cross country season, we found that their first legitimate test of the season didn't come until the Nuttycombe Invitational. The Battle in Beantown, which featured a relatively decent field, felt more like a simple rust-buster.
On a muddy and ugly Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin, the Crimson men made a fantastic early-season statement. There, Graham Blanks asserted himself as a dominant superstar with a massive victory. Fellow teammate Acer Iverson would go on to produce a fringe low-stick result of his own, snagging a valuable 36th place finish.
However, we already knew that Blanks and Iverson were a lethal duo -- they had established that in prior seasons. Instead, the unsung heroes of this team were Ben Rosa, Joe Ewing and Shane Brosnan. Those three men shattered expectations, going 60-94-98, respectively, in the overall results.
With five men in the top-100, one outstanding low-stick, one fringe low-stick and one highly valuable middle-lineup scorer, Harvard emerged with a massive 6th place result, just a single point behind Texas.
Last year's Nuttycombe Invitational was a season-defining performance which significantly altered Harvard's place among the best distance programs in the NCAA. And with newfound momentum on their side, it was hard to envision this team not having even more success in the postseason...right?
Well, unfortunately for them, that didn't happen at the Ivy League XC Championships. There, a depth-heavy Princeton squad filled in the gaps between Harvard's lineup. While Blanks, Rosa and Iverson all cracked the top-five, the rest of their teammates didn't cross the line again until 12th place. That, in turn, gave the Crimson a tough loss by just three points.
After getting out of the Northeast Regional XC Championships, the Harvard ventured back to the NCAA XC Championships. In theory, their success from the Nuttycombe Invitational signaled that the Crimson would fare well in a larger field.
That wasn't quite the case, but Harvard still held their own.
Graham Blanks took home a dominant national title victory, giving his team the coveted lone point. The team's secondary scorer, however, was Ben Rosa who snagged a surprisingly strong 47th place finish! That was a great result for someone who had run well throughout last fall, but not quite top-50 well.
Acer Iverson faded a bit, settling for a 97th place finish. That result still provided solid value, but it was also clear that Iverson was capable of more. He was, after all, a cross country All-American two years before. Sophomore Shane Brosnan (139th) would wrap up a fairly respectable season, but the team's final scorer didn't cross the line until 196th place.
In the end, the Crimson settled for a 15th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
* * *
If you read the intro of this article, then you likely saw that this team is losing a "crucial low-stick" going into the fall months. Naturally, you may instantly think, "Oh, did Graham Blanks turn pro?" But to our knowledge, he has not -- at least not yet.
Instead, we're talking about Acer Iverson, someone who has been such an invaluable member and often underrated piece of Harvard's recent rise. Sure, the fall of 2023 wasn't Iverson's best stretch of races, but he still offered great scoring value. Plus, his floor was still fairly high if he was to ever have an "off" day.
For years, so much of Harvard's scoring investment has been placed on their low-sticks -- and Iverson was one of them. Now, with him gone, this Ivy League power will need to find a way to either, a) replicate another top-heavy scoring group, or b) collectively improve the team as a whole to make up for the lost scoring.
And if we had to guess, the former option is the most likely.
We all know how amazing Graham Blanks is. He is, after all, our TSR #1 runner going into this fall as long as he ends up returning (and we're assuming he will). But any scoring improvements that this team makes in 2024 will quite literally not come from Blanks.
That, of course, is simply because he was undefeated last year and mathematically can't offer any more value than he already did.
Instead, it's Ben Rosa, one of our "Just Missed" names in our preseason individual cross country rankings, who seems like the perfect Acer Iverson replacement. In fact, he may have already filled that role last year via his 60th place finish at Nuttycombe, 3rd place finish at the Ivy League XC Championships and 47th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
Sure, Rosa still has some room for improvement before we can decisively say that this Harvard team has a true 1-2 punch. And yet, that feels like a more-than-realistic ask as we enter the fall months.
* * *
While Blanks and Rosa will certainly act as the baseline scoring identity for Harvard this fall, it's their supporting cast that will truly dictate just how competitive team will be in 2024.
Let's start with Shane Brosnan, a rising junior who showed plenty of promise last year. His 98th place finish at the Nuttycombe Invitational was a subtly-great result while his 139th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships, while maybe not amazing, still acted as a serviceable scoring result.
Since then, Brosnan has made encouraging progress, running a very strong 10k PR of 28:39 on the oval this past spring. That mark was tremendous validation of the improvements that we saw from the Harvard runner last fall.
Brosnan still needs to be more consistent than last year and fully translate the fitness shown in his excellent 10k PR to the grass. In many ways, this junior could be the most important scorer on his team this fall.
Joe Ewing, another rising junior, is an extremely challenging name to gauge. Part of that is because he is predominately a miler on the track (boasting a 3:40 PR for 1500 meters). The other part is because he had only one "good" race last fall (94th at Nuttycombe) before struggling a bit throughout the postseason.
There is no denying that Ewing his talented -- you can see that in his track PRs and in the fact that he cracked the top-100 at the biggest non-national meet of the year. But those are/were only a few strokes of paint in the larger picture of his resume.
The best version of Ewing is an impact name who stabilizes this lineup while avoiding significant backend scoring inflation. We just don't know how often we'll see that version of Ewing throughout the next few months.
Ferenc Kovacs is a name that we're very excited about. We think this rising Crimson sophomore has the potential to be a national-caliber name, specifically over 1500 meters, at some point in the future. The promising youngster also boasts excellent range, posting an 8:43 steeplechase PR this past spring as a rookie.
Kovacs toed the line for four races last fall...but only finished two. He finished a shrug-inducing 130th place finish at the Nuttycombe Invite and later recorded a DNF at the Ivy League XC Championships. He did finish a respectable 18th at the Northeast regional meet, but another DNF at the NCAA XC Championships was far from ideal.
It seems fairly clear that Kovacs can at least offer legitimate scoring value at the backend of this lineup. While his Nuttycombe Invite and Northeast regional results weren't exactly jaw-dropping, we still saw enough promise to feel comfortable about his role as a scorer, especially with an invaluable year of experience under his belt.
The rest of this lineup will likely be constructed by Coach Alex Gibby who will be able to from a large handful of underclassmen who each boast exciting pedigree and a very solid veteran.
Rising senior Reed Pryor, for instance, ran new personal bests of 13:57 (5k) and 8:45 (steeple) earlier this spring. That's a great sign for a guy who hasn't had much of a role for Harvard during the cross country season.
Then there are guys like Owen Bosley, Charlie Ortmans and Sam Burgess who were fantastic recruits from the Class of 2023. However, the latter two men, while clearly talented, simply weren't prepared enough last fall to be impact names in national-caliber fields.
That, of course, could change in 2024 now that they have a crucial year of experience under their belts. Ortmans, in particular, is an exciting name after seeing him run a 28:57 (10k) PR this past spring as just a rookie. Burgess, meanwhile, was 14th at the Ivy League XC Championships -- a solid result for a first-year talent.
The final name to monitor is William Brunner, an aerobic-centric distance recruit who was the Colorado 4A cross country state champion. Harvard's latest posting, which details their newest arrivals from the Class of 2024, suggests that Brunner boats a monstrous 8:43 PR for two miles.
Unfortunately, we didn't see any evidence of that. His best marks that we could find were 8:22 for 3000 meters and 14:47 for 5000 meters on the grass (at elevation).
* * *
Harvard has now become more firmly established as a nationally competitive cross country team. They have a balanced lineup structure, the single-best collegian who you can find on the grass and tons of youth-based upside. That latter part will be crucial this fall. We feel confident that one of the underclassmen will take that next step, but...who?
With Blanks now entering his final season of cross country eligibility, the fall of 2024 feels like the Crimson's last (and maybe best?) chance to end the upcoming fall campaign within the top-10 of the national meet results and our rankings.
