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TSR's 2024 Preseason D2 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): #8 Chico State Wildcats
- Gavin Struve
- Sep 6, 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.
Chico State has finished in the top-10 of the team standings at each of the past eight cross country national meets. While our preseason rankings aren't necessarily intended to be predictions of where teams will finish at the upcoming NCAA XC Championships, we're not betting against Coach Gary Towne's Wildcats to meet that threshold again.
This squad may not have the same elite upside that some of their peers in our top-10 team rankings do, but Chico State has continually proven to hold one of the higher floors among top-level D2 men's cross country programs.
That appears to be the case yet again entering this fall, as this squad returns four scorers from a group that finished top-10 on the national stage last fall.
We know that we're going to see strong results from this team year in and year out even if they have yet to win a national team title on the grass. And in 2024, you should expect more of the same sustained success from the always reliable Chico State men.
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The Wildcats opened their 2023 fall campaign over the unconventional (at least for men's teams) 6k distance at the Ash Creek Collegiate Invite. There, they swept the top-five spots with freshman Mario Giannini leading the way in his collegiate debut.
Chico State then ventured back to the state of California for the next month, beginning with their home meet: the Cougar Challenge 2023. They didn't sweep the scoring spots in that setting, but the Wildcats put forth a similarly impressive up-front scoring display even against a solid adversary in Cal Poly Pomona.
This time, Daniel Hernandez procured the outright win while fellow upperclassman Dylan White placed 3rd. Brayden McLaughlin (7th) and Joshua O'Neill (12th) were joined by freshman Damian Garcia (9th) in an otherwise junior-heavy lineup.
Giannini returned for the San Francisco State Invitational, and he finished runner-up behind Hernandez. White, O'Neill, McLaughlin and Jesus Villarreal all finished within the top-10 to give Chico State another comfortable win, this time over Simon Fraser and CUI.
The CCAA XC Championships didn't prove much more formidable of a challenge, as the Wildcats once again toppled the runner-up team, Cal Poly Pomona. White, Giannini, Hernandez and McLaughlin swept the top-four spots in that order, and Hunter Dougherty was close behind in 8th place.
Chico State grabbed its fifth win in as many 2023 meets at the West Regional XC Championships, responding well when the competition and race distance were raised. McLaughlin, White and Hernandez all finished in the top-seven and three other Wildcats joined them in the top-20.
Of course, it would be their next and final meet where the Wildcats would face their first legitimate national-caliber test of the season.
Despite not being able to crowd the front of the race at the NCAA XC Championships, the Wildcats fared relatively well against the national-caliber field.
McLaughlin stepped up for the best result of his season, placing 27th for his second cross country All-American finish. His tremendous postseason peak left him as team's only top-40 finisher, but Giannini and Hernandez added excellent complementary scoring value by placing 48th and 51st, respectively.
There was a noticeable gap between those three and the Wildcats' backend scorers, but the latter group was respectable enough. Matthew Gordon came out of nowhere to crack the top-100 and O'Neill placed 134th.
That added up to a 9th-place team finish. Yes, that matched Chico State's worst national meet finish since 2014, but we could find you a few hundred teams who would do anything to have a top-10 result be their "basement."
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Like virtually every other team, Chico State loses a couple of scorers from last year's lineup. Fortunately, they still return everyone who was essential to their national meet performance.
Joshua O'Neill was a backend scorer on multiple occasions last fall and finished top-135 at the past two cross country national meets. His departure gives this team one less experienced varsity contributor to rely on.
That being said, if you take those two men out of the 2023 NCAA XC Championships results, Chico State still would have secured a top-10 finish (by a thin margin). Then-freshman Damian Garcia finished 184th, and Chico State would have fallen just one place in the team standings after taking on the additional points from Garcia being 50 spots behind O'Neill.
With that in mind, one could argue that the three most important pieces from last year's squad return for Coach Gary Towne. And for a program that is known for their depth and consistent ability to peak for the postseason, that is super encouraging.
That starts with Brayden McLaughlin, who is listed at TSR #24 in our individual preseason rankings. He holds two top-35 results at the NCAA XC Championships and has never finished below 72nd place in that setting. He was also an outdoor national meet qualifier in the 10k this past spring after running a competitive 29:16 PR.
McLaughlin is not the most lethal low-stick you'll find for a top-10 team, but we know that he has a strong baseline of proven success in the postseason. He has become one of Division Two's most reliable lead scorers on championship stages and his recent success on the oval suggests that he may still have some room to improve.
Mario Giannini may be the man with the greatest upside on this team after cracking the top-50 at the NCAA XC Championships as a rookie last year. In fact, he was nearly included in our top-25 individual preseason rankings. Solid times of 14:21 (5k) and 29:53 (10k) from earlier this year suggest that he's on an All-American trajectory, theoretically giving this team just as much firepower as last year.
Daniel Hernandez feels similarly reliable to McLaughlin after posting top-100 finishes at the past two NCAA XC Championships. He flashed some winning pedigree by claiming two regular season victories last fall, and it wouldn't be a shock if he takes the small leap into the top-40 individuals now that he has even more seasoning.
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Matthew Gordon is our biggest curiosity for this lineup. He stepped up as a first-time scorer for this team when it mattered most last year, placing 98th in his first race on the national stage. That was an incredibly clutch result.
Gordon was a rookie last season, but not a true freshman considering that he used a couple of redshirt seasons. A full season of racing in the varsity lineup should pay dividends for someone who was already quite impactful a year ago. And if he naturally progresses enough, then it may be fair to question if the podium is Chico State's ceiling this fall.
If you only reviewed last year's national meet results, then you would have thought that Dylan White was a non-factor for this team last year. That, of course, could not be further from the truth. Remember, he was the CCAA individual champion last fall and was an All-American during the 2021 cross country season.
In fact, White didn't find outside of the top-five in any of his races leading up to the national meet last fall. Although, truthfully, Chico State's 2023 schedule wasn't necessarily stacked.
It's hard to know exactly what we're going to get out of White this fall. We know that his ceiling is that of an All-American, but that was from three years ago. His racing schedule wasn't super competitive last fall, his national meet showing was a bit rough and his track times, while by no means poor, don't necessarily capture a ton of attention.
And yet, it's impossible to deny how dangerous White can be when he's at his best.
Damian Garcia profiles as another likely scorer after making himself similarly valuable in his rookie campaign. His strong middle distance marks -- 1:51 (800) and 4:03 (mile) -- from earlier this year, if nothing else, corroborate the impressive raw talent that we witnessed from him throughout last fall.
While we'd argue that Gordon is this team's greatest unknown, Garcia's youth probably makes him the biggest x-factor.
Hunter Dougherty and Jesus Villarreal are also back, now as seniors. Neither finished the 2023 season in the Wildcats' top-seven, but both made varsity appearances last fall. The former seems even more qualified as a spot scorer this year after running 8:57 over the barriers and water pits in May.
Another senior, Omar Alvarez-Hernandez, was a fixture for this team in 2021 and 2022 when he posted back-to-back top-150 NCAA XC Championships finishes. But he raced just once last fall. Alongside Dougherty and Villarreal, he offers Chico State a troika of veteran options to fall back on and backfill the lineup with.
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If it felt like we cited these individuals' national meet efforts more than usual, that's because that was the only meet where Chico State was truly challenged by comparable opponents last fall.
That looks set to change in the months ahead, as the Wildcats contest a more challenging schedule in 2024. Notably, they'll venture to the WWU Bill Roe Classic on September 28th and the UAH Charger XC Invitational on October 12th.
The Wildcats have considerable continuity entering 2024, enough so that we expect a small improvement from what was already a top-10 team. Still, there's some reason for pause. Several of Chico State's varsity returners from the 2023 cross country national meet were competing in their first seasons.
That's to say they're not known commodities, despite their promise. They'll need Garcia, or someone else, to finish higher than 184th as the final scorer this fall. We feel good about that happening.
Coach Gary Towne's group should be favored to nab a ninth consecutive top-10 finish at the cross country national meet. Beyond that, a third podium appearance in a 10-year span seems unlikely (although still possible), but this group has far fewer questions than some more talented teams do and we know that they won't shrink under pressure.
