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TSR's 2026 Preseason D3 XC Top 10 Team Rankings (Men): #1 Johns Hopkins Blue Jays
Written by Kevin Fischer, edits & additional commentary via Gavin Struve
NOTE #1: 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.
NOTE #2: The Stride Report is aware that a number of meets have already taken place during the 2026 cross country season. However, The Stride Report believes that these early-season races (often called "rust-busters") hold little-to-no importance on a team's national standing due to the limited competition and the lack of top names being entered at these meets.
The men of Johns Hopkins are coming off of their highest team finish at a cross country national meet since 2019, and that was with a national meet result that didn't quite reflect how good they were throughout the fall.
Even with their talisman Emmanuel Leblond out the door, the Blue Jays should be better all-around than they were last fall. Not only do the rest of their scorers return, but they bring in a ridiculous freshman class loaded with athletes good enough to immediately contribute.
Despite qualifying for 13 of the last 14 cross country national meets, Johns Hopkins has never finished a season on the podium. With how the lineup looks entering this fall, it would be a massive surprise for that not to change in 2026.
Their sights, though, will be set a bit beyond simply reaching the top-four.
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The 2025 cross country season started with a strong runner-up showing from Johns Hopkins at the Virginia Invitational, led by Emmanuel Leblond’s 3rd place finish against mostly D1 men. While it was still difficult to make direct comparisons to Division Three competition, freshman Anthony Clark’s 7th place finish was an interesting development that made it clear that he would be a key figure right off the bat.
That direct comparison came at the Paul Short Run, where the Blue Jays competed in the “Gold” race and finished comfortably ahead of Division Three counterparts SUNY Geneseo and RPI.
Leblond was excellent as expected, and Clark continued to establish himself on the scene with a 50th place finish. Connor Oiler (128th) and freshmen Cedar Nichols-Barnhart (148th) and Caleb Tenney (167th) stayed within 15 seconds of one another to help record a strong team finish, but it was actually Olaf Dietz who ran the third-fastest time for the team out of the “Open” race.
While the separation between the Blue Jays' backend scorers wasn’t bad at the Paul Short Run, it still got much better at the Connecticut College Invitational, where Brady Ott, Nichols-Barnhart, Kenny Wanlass, Dietz, Rowan Cassidy, and Oiler all finished between 21st and 29th with just six seconds between them.
That development, along with Leblond’s individual victory, was enough to secure the win despite the absence of Clark, and establish the Blue Jays as a clear podium favorite.
Unsurprisingly, they dominated at the Centennial Conference XC Championships, taking eight of the top-10 spots and notching a score of just 19 points. Clark was notably back in the lineup with a runner-up finish, which was a welcome sign despite it not mattering much for the team race.
With both Leblond and Clark resting at the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships, the next group delivered, beating runners-up Carnegie Mellon by 41 points and recording a top-five time spread of nine seconds.
That supporting pack, which was so strong throughout the season, got broken up at the cross country national meet. That led to a team day that wasn’t exactly what they desired. Wanlass (54th) and Ott (77th) were solid, but Cassidy hitting the wall late exposed the gap back to Nichols-Barnhart in 125th, and he became the fifth scorer in that last kilometer.
It helped that the Blue Jays got everything they could have asked for up front, with Leblond earning the individual NCAA title and Clark finishing 19th. That wasn’t enough to land Johns Hopkins on the podium, but a 6th place finish was the program's second-highest ever on the national stage.
There was a bit of a bittersweet nature to their 2025 season, because while it didn’t end up where it could have, it foreshadowed an incredibly bright future and allowed this program to dream bigger than it had before.
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The most obvious departure that will impact Johns Hopkins is that of Emmanuel Leblond. He graduates as a cross country national champion, an eight-time All-American, and one of just 18 men in the history of Division Three who have four cross country All-American finishes.
Rowan Cassidy and Connor Oiler, the Blue Jays' sixth and seventh runners at the 2025 cross country national meet, also graduated after serving as varsity fixtures throughout last fall.
Matt Kelly will not be on the roster either, as he has transferred to Washington and Lee as a graduate student. Kelly did not compete after the opener during the 2025 cross country season, but he has his share of accolades on the track, most notably an indoor national meet appearance over 5000 meters this winter. He will be playing a significant role on a strong Generals squad looking to break into the top-10 on the national stage.
It’s not easy to replace a superstar like Leblond, especially in a scenario where you also lost some nice depth pieces. Of course, Johns Hopkins has provided the blueprint for how to do that.
The loss in firepower isn't as concerning once you consider that there will once again be an individual NCAA title contender on the team: Anthony Clark. Following Clark’s exceptional debut cross country season, he continued to progress on the track, finishing 3rd over 5000 meters at the indoor national meet and 9th over the same distance at the outdoor national meet after an abbreviated spring season. He currently sits at TSR #2 in our individual rankings.
Several stars having graduating from the top of the D3 individual scene leaves the door wide open for Clark to quickly become one of the top runners in the nation. We anticipate he'll seize that opportunity.
One of the more interesting developments to observe in Division Three will be what happens with Caleb Tenney. He wasn’t on the Blue Jays' cross country national meet roster last year, but he lit up the track this spring, running 3:41 over 1500 meters as a freshman. While he specializes as a miler, he also has an 8:04 (3k) mark to his name to suggest that an aerobic jump took place as well. We aren’t sure exactly where he’ll be this fall, but his ceiling is well within the top-half All-American spots.
While Kenny Wanlass had a few underwhelming performances during the track season, we still project a bit of progression for the man who was 54th at last year’s cross country national meet and ran 14:29 (5k) on the track in 2025. Brady Ott should be right with him as he was throughout most of last fall, indicating a pretty good chance for this squad to have four All-Americans.
Rising sophomore Cedar Nichols-Barnhart should be in the mix again as a potential scorer, as should Olaf Dietz, after a nice track campaign saw both men run 14:25 for the 5k. Unlike Nichols-Barnhart, Dietz doesn’t have national meet experience, but he was the top sub-varsity finisher for the Blue Jays at the Paul Short Run and finished 6th at the Centennial Conference XC Championships, so it’s not as if he was far off in terms of fitness last fall.
Two 14:43 (5k) runners -- Nash Minor and Eli Merritt -- also return, and sophomore Tyson Bhalla ran 14:47 in that event last spring. Minor is the most proven among those three on the cross country course, with his accolades including an 8th place Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championship finish, but we could realistically see any of them contributing to the varsity lineup this fall.
And now we come to the freshmen. It’s often hard to know what will happen in their first autumn on campus, even with all of their high school data available. Using Anthony Clark as an example, he ran 9:16 in high school over 3200 meters, which of course is very fast, but at many top-tier programs you might not have expected him to immediately break into the varsity group. It goes the other way too, where we sometimes see sub-9:05 (3200) guys take a while to get going in college.
All that to say, we need to be a bit cautious in our assessment of recruiting classes and how they impact rankings. But with this incoming class, it’s very tempting to throw all that caution to the wind.
Edward Stout of Utah seems the likeliest suspect to make an immediate impact. He's an 8:53 (3200) runner who finished 64th at Nike Cross Nationals in 2024 and 10th at Brooks West Regionals last fall. His twin brother Elliot joins him after finishing only three spots behind him at that Brooks West Regional meet. He has nearly broken the 9:00 (3200) and 15:00 (5k XC) barriers as well.
Connor Fanberg (Louisiana) and Anthony Sarro (Washington, DC) could also feasibly be in the mix. Sarro, an 8:57 (3200) runner, is probably more likely to thrive over eight kilometers. Fanberg’s 4:04 (1600) speed suggests that he will make a bigger impact on the track, but he has also run well enough on the cross country course to where we shouldn’t be surprised if he can get close to that varsity lineup.
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Between having one of the best low-sticks in the country, several other All-American threats, and a deep group of reserves, Johns Hopkins has a serious case to be Division Three's most potent and complete team.
And for as great a recruiting class as the Blue Jays have, another great advantage they have is that they don’t need to rely on any of them to break through. There is enough firepower among the returners that those guys can be given a bit of time to develop.
A couple of things need to happen between now and November for this season to end how they want, but if everybody can develop how we expect them to, there’s no reason why these Baltimore-based men can’t be NCAA team champions. Either way, this is shaping up to be a historic season for Johns Hopkins.
