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TSR's 2024 Preseason D2 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): #5 Western Colorado Mountaineers
- Marissa Kuik
- Sep 9, 2024
- 6 min read
Written by Marissa Kuik, edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve & 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 certain occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
The men of Western Colorado narrowly missed the podium at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships. Finishing 5th overall is always bittersweet, and that's ironically where we have this team entering the 2024 season. That being said, the Mountaineers' first top-four team finish at the cross country national meet since 2018 is within reach.
The biggest task for Western Colorado will be finding a replacement for a low-stick superstar and a couple of other experienced contributors. Nevertheless, we believe that this team has the requisite lineup to match or improve upon a top-five finish from last year, with a combination of veteran returners and new additions.
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Western Colorado opened the 2023 season at their home meet, the Mountaineer/Cowboy Invite -- a tri-meet against conference (and in-state) rivals Fort Lewis and Colorado Mesa. The Mountaineers easily took the win with almost a perfect score, led by Simon Kelati and Tyler Nord finishing in 1st and 2nd place, respectively.
The rest of their season-opening lineup was filled by Aidan Scott, John Houdeshell, and William Johnson, who finished 4-5-6 in that order.
The next meet that Western Colorado's varsity contingent ventured to was the Chile Pepper XC Festival, where they took home an impressive 2nd-place finish finishing only behind a D1 podium team (Arkansas).
Kelati crossed the line in 7th place as the top Division Two finisher, with Nord not too far behind in 15th place. Albert Hesse finished 19th, Michael Grabowski placed 20th and Kyle Partin came through in 32nd place to give the Mountaineers an impressive, tight spread.
After those two area meets in the back half of September, the Western Colorado men quickly moved on to the postseason. That began with the hardest conference meet in the nation.
The Mountaineer men continued to show their strength and depth at the RMAC XC Championships. Kelati finished as the overall runner-up, and Nord proved his low-stick star credentials by placing 7th. Through two runners, the Mountaineers' firepower was delivering on expectations. With Grabowski, Partin and Houdeshell going 19-20-21 to close out the scoring in relatively short order, Western Colorado procured a 3rd-place team finish.
Admittedly, WCU couldn't match the middle-lineup prowess of Colorado Mines or Adams State, but it was hard to pick apart any of the Mountaineers' individual performances. That effort further proved Western Colorado to be a team that could go toe-to-toe with the best in Division Two.
Up next was the South Central Regional XC Championships, where the Mountaineers moved back a spot in the standings with the addition of West Texas A&M to the other RMAC powers.
However, that meet did not feature Kelati. Even so, Nord (12th place), Partin (17th), Grabowski (25th), Houdeshell (28th) and Hesse (41st) did more than enough to get this team through to the national meet. Knowing they could finish 4th in a loaded region without fielding their focal star had to instill this team with added confidence entering the cross country national meet.
At the NCAA XC Championships, the Mountaineers moved back one more spot again, placing 5th overall.
Kelati and Nord once again finished in the top-20, with Kelati crossing the line as the national meet runner-up and Nord placing 15th. Partin peaked excellently and closed hard for an All-American finish in 39th place, giving his team greater firepower than we expected. Meanwhile, redshirt freshman Branden Davis stepped up for the squad and finished 68th overall. The top-five was rounded out with Houdeshell in 74th place.
That was enough to edge out Adams State by a single point -- they finished ahead of Grand Valley State as well -- and it added up to the Mountaineers' best national meet finish in a half-decade.
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Losing Simon Kelati is going to no doubt be a blow to this team, especially with a couple of other names exiting as well. Kelati will be staying in the Centennial State to compete for the University of Colorado as a graduate transfer.
That being said, the Mountaineers proved that they could place well without their leading man at the regional meet. And it helps that he wasn't Western Colorado's only low-stick with eligibility remaining entering 2024-25.
The departure of Albert Hesse and Michael Grabowski means two other varsity roles will need to be filled as well. The good news in this case is that neither of those two individuals were scorers at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships.
That, of course, is not to say they wouldn't have been this year. Both took turns doing so last fall and each has at least one top-90 finish at a cross country national meet. But as with Kelati, we know that Western Colorado can enjoy high-level success even without Hesse and Grabowski. It just gives them a smaller margin for error.
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It won't have a sizable impact on scoring given how good he already was last year, but Tyler Nord taking a leap from star to superstar will help fill Kelati's void. He is qualified to be a leading man for a top-five team in the NCAA, having been a top-half All-American during his first collegiate cross country season last fall and holding three additional All-American honors on the track.
Nord's start to 2024 was not as impressive as what he achieved on the oval in 2023, but he still ran big PRs in both the 1500 meters (3:48) and the 5k (13:46), showing that he is on track to continue an upward trajectory on the grass. Nord will now be a redshirt sophomore, and we have to think that having a season of collegiate cross country under him (and a full academic year of competition) will pay dividends.
He may not replicate Kelati's national runner-up result, but our TSR #9 individual certainly has the capability to finish in the top-10.
Another name to look out for is Branden Davis, who ran incredibly well for this team when it mattered at the cross country national meet. He had a fairly strong track season, running 29:48 for the 10k. With another year of training under his belt, look for him to move up toward the All-American spots at the cross country national meet.
Davis has continued to improve with each season after he, like Nord, began competing during the 2023 indoor track season. He's a sleeper to close the gap behind Nord more than you would realize.
Kyle Partin is Western Colorado's second-highest returner from the 2023 NCAA XC Championships after he narrowly gave them a third All-American. He raced sparingly during the 2024 track seasons, but we're hoping the extended time off has given this rising senior time to rediscover his form from last fall. A glance at his Strava profile suggests that he's fit and ready for this fall.
The fourth returner from last year's cross country national meet is another senior: John Houdeshell. He's a back-to-back top-90 finisher at the cross country national meet who improved from 2022 to 2023. It feels realistic to suggest that trend will continue on a fast course in 2024 after he ran a couple of personal bests in the middle distance events this year while still nearing his 5k PR of 14:21.
Aidan Scott also returns after scoring at the Mountaineers' home meet and placing 37th at the RMAC XC Championships. He's qualified enough to be the final member of their 2024 varsity group.
Western Colorado is bringing in a couple of additions to bolster the top-seven and complement those four returning scorers. Edwin Siuda and Esteban Deniz are transfers who both gained the experience of competing for the Mountaineers on the track earlier this year and they made some noise, too.
Siuda ran 8:53 in the 3000-meter steeplechase and just barely missed the podium at the 2024 outdoor national meet, finishing 9th overall. He competed for the University of Illinois before coming to Western Colorado, and he has the potential to be a low-stick if he progresses enough on the grass, where he hasn't raced in nearly two years.
As for Deniz, he ran a personal best of 14:09 in the 5k as well as a 4:16 mile at altitude earlier this year, showing a good balance of turnover and endurance. Those marks, especially the first one, suggest that he could be an immediate scorer for an RMAC power.
When you step back to evaluate the potential scoring stability that both Siuda and Deniz could bring to the table, then the concerns that we once had about Western Colorado filling out their lineup feel less worrisome.
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Having experienced individuals like Deniz and Siuda join the ranks should help immensely as the Mountaineers attempt to reload and perhaps level up.
It's more likely than not that one of them flashes better-than-expected scoring and becomes a valuable addition to the top-five. They'll need one to be in order to recreate last year's depth given that six Western Colorado men finished in the top-90 at the 2023 cross country national meet.
Those two newcomers paired with minor progression from the returning scorers should have the Mountaineers in position to be a top-five team again with the potential for more.
Western Colorado is known for its depth and development, so we have little doubt that Coach Jen Michel's team will remain as one of the best in Division Two.
