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TSR's 2024 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): #5 North Central Cardinals
- Conor Daly
- Sep 9, 2024
- 8 min read
Written by Conor Daly, 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 North Central men are viewed as a perennial cross country powerhouse in the Division Three scene and for good reason. In the four-year span from 2016 through 2019, the Cardinals were national champions three times and national meet runner-up the other year.
Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the team didn’t have that same spark. In 2021, the Cardinals finished their cross country campaign as the 15th-best team in the nation, a disappointing result for a program that was used to being the absolute best (or at least in that conversation).
Since then, North Central has crept back toward finding its trademark sustained success. The 2023 season, in particular, was a huge step towards reaching their pre-COVID standard.
There were times throughout last fall when this program looked capable of winning a national title. While that did not come to fruition, winning the Augustana Interregional Invitational and the Midwest Regional XC Championships before reaching the podium were clear signs that North Central was getting its swagger back.
With the Cardinals losing several crucial contributors, it feels unlikely that the 2024 edition will be able to match last year’s successes. We should, however, see a lineup that can contend for another podium finish on the right day.
* * *
Entering the 2023 season, we knew that the Cardinals would be led by the four-headed beast of veterans which featured Emerald Svienty (who previously went by Max Svienty), Connor Riss, Andrew Guimond and Braden Nicholson.
Each runner was already incredibly accomplished, entering the season with a sub-14:10 (5k) or sub-29:40 (10k) personal best, if not both! The only question that remained was whether Coach Matt Sinnott could find a fifth man to match the ambitions set by his leading quartet.
The 'Cards opened up their 2023 cross country campaign over 8k with a trip up north to the Auto-Owners Spartan Invitational hosted by Michigan State. In that setting, North Central went up against a horde of Division One and Two programs.
Even with an “off” day of sorts from Svienty, the other three lead scorers whom we just mentioned looked frightening for their opponents. However, any of their individual results were fairly insignificant relative to the most important development of the day: rookie BJ Sorg finishing as the team’s third runner.
The 9:13 (3200) high school talent completely leveled up and ran out of his mind in his first-ever 8k race. He looked to be exactly what the lineup was missing, and it appeared North Central had quickly answered the question as to who would be their final scorer.
North Central's next battle was another deep race against D1 opposition: the Live in Lou XC Classic.
Svienty rebounded nicely to place 6th for one of the single-most impressive performances out of any Division Three talent last season. Riss, Nicholson and Guimond were all solidly within the top-50 as well, while Sorg proved that his previous performance wasn’t a fluke with a 62nd-place run.
The North Central men finally went head-to-head with some of the best Division Three talent in the country at the Augustana Interregional Invitational.
The Cardinals' firepower was as strong as any in the field, but it was their depth that separated them from their opponents...so much so that North Central was responsible for fielding the best third, fourth and fifth scorers in the race.
That level of depth was a recipe for success, as the Cardinals posted a dominant 30-point win over runner-up UW-Whitewater. That made for a statement worthy of our TSR #1 spot entering the postseason.
The CCIW XC Championships proved to be a breeze for the Cardinals, who put the entirety of their top-seven within the top-eight spots. The group next focused their efforts on the Midwest regional meet.
Even in the absence of Riss for that meet, North Central's firepower proved to be too much for their opponents. Nicholson, Sveinty and Guimond finished 2-3-5, respectively, and senior James McGlashon stepped up big time with his best race of the season to place 17th while Sorg was a few steps behind in 22nd.
That performance was enough to win a regional title over a strong Wartburg squad, but to see Sorg struggle was a bit of a concern. The Cardinals had to shift their hope that their rookie, who was once thought of as an All-American candidate, would be a sufficient enough scorer to make their national title hopes a reality.
At the NCAA XC Championships, Svienty was downright fantastic in taking home the individual bronze medal. That was probably the best possible result that they could have produced. Guimond (15th) and Nicholson (17th) were both quite impressive as well. Through 60% of their scoring lineup, the Cardinals looked like the national title favorites.
Riss, who returned to racing with a calf sleeve and didn't fully look like himself, still managed an 81st-place finish to keep the title hope alive. Sorg finished an acceptable 92nd place while the Cardinals' remaining two varsity runners resided in the top-115.
When it was all said and done, that was enough to comfortably finish on the podium, but North Central placed 3rd and missed out on the team title by a narrow 11 points. It wasn’t the performance that we thought this group was capable of, per se, but it was still a great season finale for a team that had struggled relative to expectations in recent years.
* * *
It's difficult to come to terms with the fact that North Central loses three of their four stars who carried much of the scoring responsibilities last year. Connor Riss, Andrew Guimond and Braden Nicholson were all cross country All-Americans, so finding replacements to fill those big shoes is no easy task.
To make matters slightly worse, another reliable veteran contributor in James McGlashon is also gone after he placed 111th at the 2023 cross country national meet.
Svienty, who was the best of the group when it mattered most, is the lone returner out of the Cardinals' front-runners. While not necessarily the main favorite for NCAA gold, Svienty is very much a contender for the individual national title after placing 3rd at the 2023 cross country national meet.
We currently have the Cardinal veteran ranked at TSR #2 not only because of that postseason performance, but also because Svienty finished 6th at the Louisville XC Classic and 4th at the Augustana Interregional Invitational.
We did question Svienty's fitness a bit last winter after not qualifying for the 2024 indoor national meet, although that was seemingly all part of the plan as they went on to have a historic outdoor track season by running all-time marks of 13:57 (5k) and 29:06 (10k).
Of course, this team will need more than just Svienty if they are going to validate this ranking. Backing up this star low-stick are fellow national meet returners BJ Sorg and Matthew Jett.
Sorg was voted "Best Freshman" in our End of Season Awards last fall (and the votes were unanimous). He took no time adjusting to college races over the 8k distance, as he placed within his team’s top-five in every race last fall. His freshman campaign was highlighted by his 15th-place finish at the Augustana Interregional Invitational before taking home a solid 92nd-place result at the NCAA XC Championships.
In the outdoor track season, Sorg ran 14:38 (5k) and 30:45 (10k), a pair of fantastic marks for a rookie. He’s shaping up to fit the cross country specialist mold that the Cardinals are accustomed to producing, and he enters the season as an All-American candidate particularly if you're a believer in the freshman-to-sophomore leap.
Jett also had a very strong 2023 cross country season, especially considering that he had not raced collegiately for the previous 11 months leading up to that point. He was the Cardinals' sixth man at the Midwest regional meet, finishing only four places behind Sorg. But it’s even more impressive when you consider that he did that with just one shoe for most of the race!
Even with the toll his body took from that shoeless effort, Jett was not affected the next week when he placed 103rd at the national meet. His sub-31:00 (10k) personal best doesn’t jump off the page, but after a string of consistent training in the 2023-24 academic year, Jett could be someone due for a step forward this fall.
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North Central has another pair of men who have been just as competitive over 10k as Jett. Kyle Nofziger is a 14:37 (5k) and 30:51 (10k) man who was one of the Cardinals’ better non-varsity runners last fall.
Jonathan Olenek has run 31:02 over that distance and was even more quietly impressive last fall, finishing runner-up in the Augustana Interregional Invitational "Open" race and 3rd in the CCIW XC Championships "Open" race. Don’t be surprised if either (or both) of these upperclassmen emerge as stable pieces in the Cardinals’ 2024 lineup.
Even though he trailed Nofziger and Olenek over 10,000 meters on the track, Luke Hoffman was better than both on the grass in 2023. He placed 77th in the Augustana Interregional Invitational varsity race and 11th in the CCIW XC Championships varsity race, finishing as a top-10 name for his team in both competitions.
He’s a sub-31:30 (10k) and sub-15:00 (5k) talent, but his 9:10 steeplechase PR is by far his best mark. Top steeplechasers aren’t always good cross country runners (which is not to say that they can't be), so we’ll have to wait and see how that talent translates for Hoffman.
If some of the names who we mentioned don't pan out, the Cardinals have three more veterans in reserve who have run 14:50 (5k) or faster: Clark Kelly, Aidan Armstrong and Ishaan Patel. There's also a chance that newcomers could make a difference in their first season on the scene.
Incoming freshmen Ari Elmayan and Oscar Frontjes have both run under 15:00 over a three-mile cross-country course, although neither has run a comparable two-mile effort on the track to back that up.
Transfer Frankie Reid from Lewis & Clark is an intriguing name, with a 3:48 (1500) personal best that dates back to 2021. He hasn’t found similar success since then, but recently ran 15:04 (5k), which shows that he’s at least in reasonable form.
* * *
In case we haven’t gotten the point across, the Cardinals have many names who could be potential scorers. Depending on whether you believe that recent track success or 2023 cross country results matter more in forecasting for this fall, you could make a realistic argument for nine men who did not compete for North Central at last year’s cross country national meet to do so in 2024.
And that’s an awesome conundrum for Coach Matt Sinnott to sort out.
Usually, a program that loses so many of its top talents and doesn’t have backend names who they’re confident about would struggle. But North Central isn’t like most programs. It seems that any one of these sub-15:00 (5k) men on this roster could turn into a top-100 finisher at the cross country national meet.
In that case, you have a fairly compelling team that we can't imagine falling out of the top-10.
Assuming the backend scoring spots are filled capably, the Cardinals’ top duo also needs to stay consistent to keep this team in podium position. Svienty had a fairly inconsistent cross country season in 2022, although much of that worry was eliminated last year.
As for Sorg, both his cross country and track seasons cooled off just a few weeks too soon. His learning how to peak for the postseason will be of the utmost importance to the success of this squad.
All told, things are generally looking up for this program even amidst a sea of change. This year will be no different: When the Cardinals’ signature postseason candy-cane striped singlets come out, they mean business.
