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TSR's 2026 NCAA Preseason D3 XC Top 25 Rankings: #25-21 (Men)
Written by Kevin Fischer, edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve
25. Logan Murphy, Senior, UW-Stevens Point
Coming off of a 10th place finish over 10,000 meters at the 2025 outdoor national meet, expectations were high that Logan Murphy could break into the All-American spots the subsequent fall. While that progression didn’t quite happen, Murphy remained solid throughout his campaign to help the Pointers earn their second-straight team bid to the cross country national meet.
At the UW-Eau Claire Blugold Invite, he placed 5th behind two eventual All-Americans and two Division One athletes, beating some really solid names along the way. He continued to face high-level fields, and while the Blugold Invite was probably his best overall showing, Murphy held his own fairly well throughout the season.
After a solid 15th-place finish at the Augustana Interregional Invitational, he was 16th at the WIAC XC Championships and 19th at the North Regional XC Championships to open the postseason. Those weren’t show-stopping placements, but you have to consider that he was running in one of the toughest conferences and regions in the country. It was a similar story at the cross country national meet, where Murphy's 64th place finish certainly wasn’t a breakthrough, but it certainly wasn’t what you would call a “bad” race, either.
This fall, Murphy is once again coming off of an outdoor track season in which he once again qualified for the national meet over 10,000 meters, this time after running a personal best of 29:26. With as reliable as he’s been throughout the last two academic years, he seems more likely than not to take another jump forward during his senior year.
24. Max Sudrzynski, Sophomore, Washington U.
As a true freshman last fall, Max Sudrzynski made an immediate and substantial impact. It was clear that the talent was there from the beginning, but he took a little bit of time to truly find his groove. After a 5000-meter season opener and a couple of races against what were largely Division One fields, his first true test against Division Three competition came at the Augustana Interregional Invitational. There, he recorded an admittedly shrug-inducing 70th-place finish.
However, something clicked over the next month as Sudrzynski found his footing at the collegiate level. He was his team’s top finisher with a top-10 placement at the UAA XC Championships, and he was solid at the Midwest Regional XC Championships with a 21st place performance. The cross country national meet was his best outing of the season; his 62nd-place finish was fourth among freshmen.
On the track, Sudrzynski showed great middle distance prowess, anchoring an All-American DMR and running 3:51 over 1500 meters. That shouldn’t come as a surprise given his background as a 4:12 (1600) runner in high school. Plus, his 14:38 mark for 5000 meters may be a bit more relevant when assessing his potential on the cross country course.
Of course, in order to justify this ranking, Sudrzynski will need to make a significant jump compared to where he was last fall. With that being said, he is more than capable of doing so as he enters this fall with ample upside and a year of collegiate racing experience under his belt.
23. Alex Hrycyszyn, Senior, NYU
Entering the 2025 cross country season, there were questions as to whether Alex Hrycyszyn could be an impactful contributor for NYU. He had run pretty well over 1500 meters the previous spring, but had never finished above 65th place at the UAA XC Championships.
His season opener was solid last fall, but as an August result against largely Division One competition, it was hard to know what to make of it. Instead, the first real big splash he made last fall was a 21st place finish in the highly competitive Paul Short Run "White" race where he was the sixth Violet to cross the finish line. Another respectable outing at the Connecticut College Invitational (34th) cemented his status as a key piece.
Hrycyszyn’s momentum carried over to the postseason, where he was 11th at the UAA XC Championships. And while his regional meet performance in a fairly weak Niagara region didn’t match some of his other results, the cross country national meet was a different story. His 44th-place finish helped NYU reach a team podium finish by a margin of just seven points.
Some great development on the track gave even more credence to Hrycyszyn's cross country breakthrough. While his 1500-meter PR remained at 3:53 this spring, he knocked his 5000-meter PR down from 15:05 to 14:31, confirming his transformation into a much more aerobically inclined athlete.
Nowadays, Hrycyszyn can no longer fly under the radar, as we expect him to enter the All-American ranks for the first time in his career.
22. Owen Clark, Junior, UW-La Crosse
Following an extraordinary outdoor track season, Owen Clark appears ready for a big leap on the grass. His accolades from this academic year include All-American finishes over 3000 meters this past winter and in the 3000-meter steeplechase this past spring, along with national-caliber marks between the 1500 meters and the 5000 meters.
With that level of success on the oval, it’s difficult to imagine Clark not making big improvements from one fall season to the next.
For as much as we can talk about his breakthrough this winter and spring, he did have some modest cross country success prior to that. While he did not make the national meet lineup for UW-La Crosse, Clark probably would have been on that start line for almost any other team that qualified.
Finishes of 15th at the WIAC XC Championships and 34th at the Augustana Interregional Invitational suggest that he was likely already a top-100 talent in Division Three (and likely much better than that).
Yes, the expectations for Clark will be much higher moving forward, as will the scoring burden after the Eagles lost numerous major names to graduation. It's clear that Clark will be better than he was in 2025, but what’s not clear is by how much.
His ceiling is so high, and a top-10 cross country national meet finish wouldn’t be all that surprising. However, a finish on the fringes of the top-40 may not be shocking, either. As such, we just about split the difference in settling on a preseason ranking of TSR #22.
21. Jonah Reisner, Senior, Tufts
Even though he has never finished within the top-100 at a cross country national meet, or reached the national stage on the oval, we still remain very high on Jonah Reisner.
Based on the body of work that he accumulated last fall prior to the national meet, his ceiling is incredibly high. That resume included a win over several stars at Keene State's KSC Invitational by a fairly definitive margin, along with a runner-up finish at the NESCAC XC Championships. The East Regional XC Championships were not quite up to par with his NESCAC showing, nor was his 102nd-place national meet finish.
However, it's not just a couple of meets from last fall that give us the idea that Reisner can suddenly be a top-half All-American. He also ran 14:16 over 5000 meters in the spring of 2025 and was NESCAC Championship runner-up over that same distance that spring.
It’s admittedly hard to evaluate Reisner over the course of the 2026 track season. While his marks didn’t match those of 2025, the fact that he missed the entirety of the 2026 indoor track season can serve as at least a partial explanation.
Ultimately, in the past year-and-a-half, we’ve seen Reisner both while he was in his best form and while he was struggling. His high-end ability is too clear to ignore, giving him the right to some benefit of the doubt over men who have done less in major cross country meets than he has.
