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TSR's 2024 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): Just Missed & Honorable Mentions
- Gavin Struve
- Sep 3, 2024
- 9 min read
Written by Gavin Struve, edits & additional commentary via 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.
Just Missed (in no particular order)
Amherst Mammoths
If you are, for some reason, looking for another Northeast team that returns six of seven 2023 scorers and finished around the middle of the 2023 NCAA XC Championships field, then Amherst is your squad.
This group made a living on finishing runner-up throughout much of last fall. They were really challenged for the first time at the NCAA D3 Pre-Nationals meet. In that setting, the Mammoths' lack of up-front scoring potency hampered them a bit en route to a 9th-place team finish.
Amherst rebounded to again place 2nd at the NESCAC XC Championships as they didn't place anyone in the top-seven but had all five scorers finish in the next 10 places. That solid effort, in which they beat Tufts and Middlebury, was a precursor for their success at the cross country national meet.
The Mammoths' depth shone through in that setting as they placed four men in the top-130 and five in the top-200 en route to an 18th-place finish.
This group peaked for the postseason in 2023, and we expect them to do so again with such a large returning cast. Nick Edwards-Levin, George Cahill, Harrison Dow and Aidan Gemme all return as scorers from a team that fielded five underclassmen in its varsity lineup.
A leap appears especially likely when you consider that the Mammoths can also add Stan Craig, who was one of D3's top freshmen on the oval last spring, running 14:22 (5k) and finishing as a conference runner-up over that distance. He gained regular season racing experience last fall, and we'd hardly be surprised if he cracks the top-seven this year.
Drew Stephens is another familiar face from 2023. He was Amherst's fifth scorer at the NESCAC XC Championships.
The competition to fill the backend varsity spots doesn't end there. As part of a solid recruiting class, Jacob Connolly comes in as a transfer by way of Boston University and holds a solid 24:28 (XC 8k) PR from 2022.
There are more positives than negatives for the Mammoths entering 2024. They return essentially everyone from a team that was at its best when it mattered most. Several of those individuals were underclassmen last fall, and competition for the final few varsity spots should make both the individuals and the team better.
With all of that in mind, this is still a team that wasn't all too close to the top-15 for much of last fall before the NCAA XC Championships. It feels more likely than not that they get there this season, but it seemed fair to temper our expectations of anointing them in the top-10 until this somewhat unproven group strings together some high-level consistency.
NYU Violets
Perhaps overshadowed by the meteoric rise of the NYU women's team last fall was the steady success of the Violet men.
Not only did they reach the NCAA XC Championships for the first time in recent memory, but the men of NYU snuck into the top-half of the team standings upon getting there!
Ryan Tobin raced individually at the cross country national meet in 2021 and 2022 and was finally joined by his teammates last fall. That seemed to lift him, as he finished five spots away from All-American honors in 2023 after failing to crack the top-135 in the two prior seasons.
Tobin is back in 2024 along with the team's two other top-three scorers from the 2023 cross country national meet -- Jeffrey Chen and Andy Taylor -- who narrowly finished in the top-85 as sophomores last fall. In fact, the Violets lose just one man from the varsity lineup that they ended last season with.
Unfortunately, that was fourth scorer George Brady, after whom there was a considerable drop-off. His departure is made more palatable by the fact that the Violets' fifth and sixth scorers were sophomores last fall.
One of a pair of mid-major Division One transfers -- Evan Sherman (Brown) or Liam Hagerty (Davidson) -- could fill in the backend of the lineup as well.
The Violets tested themselves against Division One competition early last fall, but didn't necessarily thrive against Division Three fields until the national meet. With that in mind, we would like to see more from this group before anointing them as a top-end squad after one strong result that still saw them finish well outside of the top-10 nationally.
Despite lacking a definitive low-stick star (Tobin is close), the front-half of this lineup is worthy of a spot in our rankings. We're banking on Coach Tyler Deck Shipley working some developmental magic to bring the rest of the group up to speed and lead to further improvement for this potential emergent D3 powerhouse program.
Johns Hopkins Blue Jays
The men of Johns Hopkins have finished in this range each of the past two seasons -- 14th at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships and 12th at the 2022 NCAA XC Championships.
Their challenge in 2024? Trying to remain a top-15 team, and perhaps jumping into the top-10, without a man who was one of their driving forces in recent years.
That would be Gavin McElhennon, a three-year varsity runner who was a cross country All-American in 2022 and is coming off his best NCAA Championships finish (11th in the 10k at the 2024 outdoor national meet). Alas, he's out of eligibility, leaving star running mate Emmanuel Leblond to lead this team.
Leblond, listed at TSR #9 in our preseason individual rankings, should be up to the task. After all, he's been an All-American at the past two cross country national meets and is a regular participant in the NCAA Championships on the track who's run multiple PRs in 2024.
What if we told you that the Blue Jays' second scorer from the 2023 cross country national meet is back as well? McElhennon was a scorer in that setting but wasn't at his best. Instead, it was Rowan Cassidy, who delivered an 82nd-place finish in his first national meet appearance.
Matt Kelly and Tommy Li also return from last year's national meet lineup. Even after strong track seasons, they're not necessarily locked into scoring roles because of the depth and expected improvement throughout the rest of this team.
Conner Oiler was in the Blue Jays' top-seven before suffering an injury just before the 2023 cross country national meet. He has since recovered and went on to break nine minutes in the 3000-meter steeplechase and run 14:35 (5k) earlier this year.
Kenny Wanlass ran 14:29 (5k) in April, Sean Enright ran 14:48 (5k) and raced at the 2022 cross country national meet and fellow senior Andrew Myers just ran 14:49 (5k). Add to that an elite freshman class that features a 4:11 (1600) and 8:51 (3200) guy in Olaf Dietz and a 4:08 (1600) and 9:03 (3200) guy in Brady Ott.
We should also mention Luckas Rackers, this team's closest resemblance to a headline transfer addition, who ran 14:37 (5k) for Division Two program Missouri S&T this past spring.
Coach Bobby Van Allen has a cupboard replete with viable varsity options. If a couple of consistent scorers emerge around Leblond and Cassidy (assuming that the latter can come close to validating his season-ending 2023 effort), the 'Jays have one of the higher ceilings among teams in our "Just Missed" section.
SUNY Geneseo Knights
You probably didn't expect to see the last-place team from last year's cross country national meet to be one that we more or less expect to finish in the top half of the field in 2024. Let's get this out of the way too: the Knights lost their only low-stick star (Nick Andrews). You'll have to hear us out on this one.
The SUNY Geneseo men were on the podium as recently as 2022, but they entered the 2023 national meet without three of their top four scorers from the previous year's group despite three of them being rostered (more on that soon). The circumstances are different in 2024, as the Knights return their top three scorers from the 2023 cross country national meet and six of their seven varsity runners.
Andrews faltering on the national stage last fall (a year after placing 6th in that setting) was a significant reason why this team plummeted down the team standings. Now, the Knights can enter this season with far more continuity and comfort in the knowledge that they'll be relying on collective depth rather than asking too much of a singular star who may or may not deliver.
Believe it or not, there are still a few holdovers from the Knights' excellent 2022 team on this roster. William Hall led this team at the 2023 cross country national meet (finishing 138th) but was better the year before when he was their fifth scorer and placed 74th on the national stage.
Alex Hillyard was an All-American on the grass in 2022 before sitting out last fall. A sub-9:00 steeplechase PR and subsequent appearance at the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Championships suggests that he should be near top form.
Dillon McClary enters 2024 in a similar position to Hillyard after sneaking into the top-50 at the 2022 cross country national meet. He raced for much of last fall but not at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships.
Assuming that Hillyard and McClary are operating close to their best, someone from last year's national meet lineup will be bumped out.
That's before even mentioning Georgetown transfer Ryan Hagan, who joined the team at the beginning of this year and qualified for the indoor national meet in the mile. If that gives you the impression that he's solely a middle distance runner, consider that he ran 8:55 over 3200 meters in high school.
Anson Butler is entering his third year in the program and also has strong odds of cracking the varsity lineup after running 14:29 (5k) in mid-May.
While it seems apparent that this team was out of its element at the national meet last fall, the Knights were also nothing spectacular during the regular season. A Niagara region title over NYU was promising, but we tend to take regional results with a grain of salt.
But with last year's lineup returning almost entirely intact, the reintroduction of two key 2022 pieces, the addition of a transfer (Hagan) and the development of a potential scoring contributor (Butler), there are 10 guys who could be varsity runners for this team over the coming months. That's a good problem to have for Coach Dan Moore.
Assuming one or two of those men step up as lead scorers (it seems more likely than not that a couple of Hall, Hillyard, McClary, Hagan and/or Butler do so), the Knights should be well in line to improve upon their 32nd-place finish from the 2023 cross country national meet.
Williams Ephs
This may feel like a prodigious drop for a podium team, but we still have high expectations for a Williams squad that pleasantly surprised us last year before losing a couple of key scorers.
In their first season under Coach Dusty Lopez, the Ephs hardly looked like a team in transition. They won their first three meets and earned a solid runner-up finish at D3 Pre-Nats, then won their conference and regional meets and snagged the final podium spot.
It was almost a dream season for a team that didn't enter the fall as a championship contender. Now, the hard truth is that Williams' low-stick star from that group, John Lucey, is out of collegiate eligibility. He was a top-half All-American at the past two cross country national meets.
Also gone among the scorers is Nate Lentz, someone who would have been a fringe All-American candidate after two great track seasons earlier this year.
There's still plenty of talent in reserve with Nikhil DeNatale (TSR #18 in our preseason individual rankings) and Charles Namiot ("Just Missed") leading the way. The former was the Ephs' second scorer last fall and a 20th-place finisher at the NCAA XC Championships. He's more than capable of being the lead scorer for a top-10 team.
Namiot nearly cracked the top-50 on the national stage last year before finishing 8th over 10,000 meters at the 2024 NCAA Outdoor Championships. Between him and DeNatale, this team may quietly have one of the best 1-2 punches in the country.
Their middle-lineup scorers have just as much potential, but that portion of the team is filled with more uncertainty. Ryan Hardiman had arguably the best race of his life at the 2023 cross country national meet to place 120th and round out the scoring.
Hardiman was solid throughout last season, so it doesn't necessarily feel like that result was a fluke, but we're also not totally confident that he'll be able to replicate that national meet performance after a track season that didn't reflect the potential he showed in the fall.
Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos is this team's biggest wild card. He has run as fast as 14:00 (5k) and is a four-time All-American. The catch is that he has not raced collegiately in close to a year and a half after studying abroad and was not in top form when he was last competing.
If Tuohy-Gaydos can near his 63rd-place finish from the 2022 cross country national meet, Williams has strong odds of being a top-10 team. This squad returns just three men who raced at the national meet last fall and could use a stable veteran presence perhaps just as much as a third All-American candidate.
It's hard to gauge this group beyond the names who we've outlined. Those four individuals are more likely than not to be varsity contributors even if Tuohy-Gaydos isn't at his best and Hardiman doesn't improve.
While it feels like they have one of the wider ranges of outcomes on paper, Williams traditionally has a strong baseline of success. With that in mind, we'd bet they'll remain a top-half team at the 2024 NCAA XC Championships. And they have the potential to be far more than that.
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
St. Olaf Oles
Tufts Jumbos
Middlebury Panthers
MIT Engineers
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags
UW-Stout Blue Devils
John Carroll Blue Streaks
