NAIA XC/TF 2024-25

Ireland will not be returning for Aquinas

Rumor is head coach at the Masters is leaving… that team is deep and talented, so should be fine, but interesting late development just before the season starts.

Are you his mom? How the hell are you supposed to know pal.

How does anyone know anything on this thread?! It’s all a bunch of 💩 with no real leads or information.

NAIA thread year after year is a crapshoot. How is anyone supposed to know what's going on with a 15:00 5k athlete at a less than 1k student population school lollllllll

Too Early Women's Top 25-

Here is my Women's Top 25 as of right now. I would also like to add that I am assuming that everyone will be healthy unless I have heard otherwise, and like someone said, it is hard to know what is going on in a school of 1000 people, lol. Once again, my previous ranking will be in parentheses.

1 (3) Taylor- The additions of one of the top high school recruits in the country, Jaynie Halterman, and Malarie Pinwar from Huntington, makes Taylor the #1 ranked team on my list. They also return Noel VanderWall and Aubrey Brinkruff, which helps Taylor take the top spot on a super competitive list.

2 (2) Cumberlands- Much improved from last year, the Cumberlands return Wiljkmans, Durrant, Betancourt, and add key transfer Jessica Chapell from Harding (D2). A very deep team, the Cumberlands will make the jump from fringe trophy contender to national title contender (Did not consider Alina Boshchuk in this edition, but it seems like she is returning as well).

3 (1) Saint Mary- Saint Mary was set to return everyone back from their 3rd place finish last fall, but lose Maddy Walter-Sherrett to SCAD Savannah. With the returners and impact transfers from other schools, they fall to 3 for now, but they are also another school that should be in contention for the top spot this fall.

4 (4) The Master's- The Master's return 4 All Americans from last year's team, including Hannah Fredericks, who had a really good track season, and Suzie Johnson. However, they lose 2 of their top 7 (on paper). At the moment, they currently have depth issues from 5 on, which is keeping them out of the top 3. However, if this issue is fixed, this is another team that could very well win the national championship this year.

5 (6) Milligan- Milligan returns 4 of their top 7, including All Americans Ellen-Mary Kearney and Hannah Brown, but lose Caitlyn Dominy to graduation. They do add transfer Kirsten Geary, an indoor 5K All American, which will help with the front end of things. However, Milligan is a step behind the top 4 teams, and will need their 4 and 5 to step up if they want to trophy this fall.

6 (5) College of Idaho- College of Idaho loses Ellyse Tingelstad, Abbey Shirts and Charlie Duff from their national championship squad, but return Sage Martin and Kahea Figuera. This year, they lack the depth needed to trophy, which leaves them at 6 for now.

7 (19) SCAD Savannah- As the forum poster mentioned, SCAD Savannah will make a huge jump this fall by adding Maddy Walter-Sherretts from Saint Mary, and Liz Hogan from Gonzaga, as well as incoming freshman Mila Gresh, who will likely be in their top 7 this fall. SCAD Savannah should be a top 10 team this fall.

8 (8) Grace- Grace returns Kylie Sauder and 3 others from last year's 13th place squad. Also, a couple returners had good track seasons, including Esther Cameron who ran 17:19 and Tame Baylis who ran 18:14 , which should help Grace make the jump to the top 10 this fall.

9 (9) Embry-Riddle- On paper, Embry-Riddle returns all 7 runners from last year, where some runners made small jumps in track, including Zoe Tizard with an 18:07 5K time. Embry-Riddle keeps on rising, and should be contending for a top 10 finish in November.

10 (10) Saint Francis (Ill)- On paper, Saint Francis is returning 6 of their 7, including Riley Jo Ford, and Alison Ramsey, who ran 17:21 in the spring. However, no returners were All Americans last year, leaving Saint Francis at 10 for now, but with top 8 upside.

11 (11) Indiana Wesleyan- Indiana Wesleyan is still a really young team, even after last year's 14th place finish. With only 4 upperclassman on this year's roster, including juniors Addi Dewey and Elizabeth Barrett, IWU is set to return 6 of their 7 next year as well. They also add two freshman, Chaney Cedarleaf, who has ran 18:33 in cross and 5:13 in the 1600, and Naomi Nelson who ran 18:45 and 5:15 to add to their depth.

12 (13) Southern Oregon- SOU loses their 1 and 5 from last year's team, but return All-American Lauren Forster. A team that typically adds JUCO transfers who can make immediate impacts, the projected top 7 could change a bit from now until the season starts. For now, SOU is slotted at 12 with an outside shot of cracking the top 10.

13 (12) Dordt- Dordt loses All-American Jessica Kampman from last year's roster. Without a true lowstick this year, it will be tough for Dordt to crack the top 10. However, this year's 1-3 finished within 20 seconds of each other at Nationals, so they do have a tight front pack.

14 (15) Montreat- Montreat is slated to return their top 5 from last year's nationals squad. They will also return Dylan Garcia, who seemed to miss last year's postseason due to injury, which will add to a tight 1-3. Also waiting to see if 10K All American runner Ali Ray will return to Montreat, as she missed nationals last year as well, but should have a year of eligibility left if she chooses to use it. If she is back, Montreat will be ranked higher than they currently are at the moment.

15 (14) SCAD Atlanta- SCAD Atlanta comes in at 15 after not making it to nationals as a team last year. They return individual qualifiers Avery Raymond and Belinda Chepoksgei, and (re)add Katie Clark, who got 3rd in xc nationally in 2019, as well as a couple of freshman, including Tatum Dykstra, who ran 18:42 in cross as a high schooler. Having SCAD Atlanta this high is a hot take, but if Katie Clark is fit, and their incoming freshman runs well, they should at least make it to nationals.

16 (17) Tabor- As far as I know, the new Montreat coach is not taking any women's Tabor runners with him, meaning that Tabor will return Brooke Wiebe and Audrey Bahner, who were the main duo from last year's team. Depth is a bit of an issue at the 5-7 spots, so if Montreat poaches anyone from this top 7, Tabor could fall out of my Top 25.

17 (16) Olivet Nazarene- ONU returns 5 of their top 7 from last year's team, and hoping to crack the top 20 this year after a 24th place finish last year. It is definitely possible with this many returners, but will have to do some work to do, even with a rank of 17 at the moment.

18 (18) Carroll- Carroll seems to be on the rise a bit nationally as a program. They were very young last year, as they should return 6 of their top 7 from last year, and add incoming freshman Audrey Vanwestrienen out of Colorado, who has ran 18:43 in cross country, to add to their depth.

19 (20) Concordia (Neb)- Concordia loses their top two runners from last year's team, which leaves them just inside the top 20. They return everyone else, but lack a lowstick that they had last year.

20 (23) Montana Tech- Montana Tech returns all American Carlin Manning, but lose one of their six runners from last year's team, leaving them with 5 runners. They have huge depth problems, can could completely drop out of the rankings if one of those runners decides not to come back, and if they don't have any incoming freshman.

21 (22) Cornerstone- Cornerstone loses All American Haley Nieukwoop, as well as their #7 runner. They have a few 5th years on this team, but like everyone else outside the top 20 or so, they lack a low scoring runner that would help their score.

22 (24) Our Lady of the Lake- OLLU was a fairly young team last year, with 4 freshman and a sophomore in their top 7. They also return a junior, so it is fairly safe to say that OLLU should make it back to nationals again, with a possibility of making a decent jump from last year to this year after a measly 35th place finish from last year.

23 (25) Evangel- One of two teams on this list that did not make nationals last year, Evangel is a super young team, returning 3 freshman, 3 sophomores and a junior from last years team. A couple of runners had good track seasons last spring, and this fall should hopefully reflect that a bit. This is one of the few teams that returns everyone, and with good coaching, should improve a lot from last year, and earn a bid to nationals in November.

24 (NR) Rocky Mountain- Rare to see 3 teams from the Frontier Conference in the top 25, but Rocky Mountain is another team that returns everyone from last year, where they placed 26th last year. As long as everyone stays health and improves, Rocky Mountain should help the Frontier conference be a 3 bid league (out of 5 to 6 teams, which is wild) for nationals this year.

25 (NR) Oklahoma City- The other team who did not make nationals last year who is in the top 25 is Oklahoma City. They add Louise Cocking, who did not run cross last year for them to this years roster (should be at least) and return 5 others from what is still a super young team, full of sophomores and juniors this year. Last year, they barely lost to Texas Wesleyan at their conference meet. With Cocking, they should have the autobid and a lowstick barring any additions from Texas Wesleyan.

Dropped Out:
(7) Huntington

(21) Lewis-Clark

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

Eastern Oregon

Lewis-Clark

William Woods

Benedictine

Hastings

The Stride Report previews suck.

Who are the transfers you're talking about for St. Mary?

Also I don't think that Carlin Manning is back at Montana Tech.

I am so happy I didn’t pay for the Stride Report one.

I got a few screenshots of it from a friend and by just looking through Instagram and team rosters for a good 15 minutes I was able to find out that a good deal of info in there was wrong.

It looked they just did a laCCtic simulation and took out everyone marked as a senior. It didn’t seem like they really considered any additions and got who was returning to their school wrong pretty often.

The list NAIA nerd made already looks better from what I can see, and I’m sure the one on Instagram will be significantly better once it’s released.

I was interested in what they had to say about it. You wanna provide the spark notes?

I didn’t think either article was completely awful, but there were some things I would have certainly changed.

On the men’s side…

1. 
   Their analysis on Milligan seemed to be missing several key contributors coming to Milligan this fall. They mentioned Winston Telford and Blake Hipkiss, but it seems like they forgot to mention some other big time additions the Milligan is bringing in, including Walid Jarfani, Luis Peralta, and DJ Cornfield. From what I’ve heard Milligan isn’t even close to be done recruiting. Some of that falls into the problem of “way too early” rankings and the rosters not coming out yet, but some of those were already posted on Milligan’s social media as well.
2. Their analysis on St. Mary on both sides seemed to be the best, and I’m guessing they actually did talk to some team members or coaches there. There were still a few athletes that they missed out on covering there who have potential to make some big impacts. Luis Perez ran in the low 25s in the 2022 XC season and could definitely get back to that point again this season. Daniel Pantoja had a strong track season as well and from I’ve heard should be someone looking to have a breakout in cross country. I thought it was also worth mentioning that Chris Metz was struggling with sciatica during track season and Liam Neidig was injured as well, so their health will likely dictate a lot of what St. Mary does.
   
3. Their Cumberlands analysis missed a lot, but to be fair, nobody knows exactly what is going on with Cumberlands. For starters, they once again didn’t mention anything about significant injuries related to Serhiy Shevchenko that will greatly impact this team. They’re still under the impression that Dennis Kipkurui is the same Dennis Kipkurui who ran 13:25. In addition to that, I’ve heard from quite a few sources close to Cumberlands that he will not be back in the fall. They also did not mention Hamza Belkafi, who could potentially greatly impact Cumberlands next year. Something else worth mention is that despite having a PR of 3:41 in the 1500, Sashi Singh has only run 3:56.98 in the 1500 this season, something that may be significant considering he is already 28 years old.
   
4. Leaving out the breakout seasons of Hunter Wasnich and Luke Bantz from IWU’s analysis was also odd to me. Calling them very top heavy, but forgetting about two very solid depth runners for them was odd to me.
   
5. The CoI analysis was spot on, but not mentioning Cristian Mendoza’s track season for EOU also seemed strange to me.
   
6. Also no mention of a bit of a rough track season from some of Dordt’s top returners seemed off to me.
   
7. Only a very short mention of Oklahoma City, who I see as easily one of the best teams in the nation.

1. On the women's side...

1. Regarding CoI, I think TSR has the same wrong idea that I had just a little while ago. Not only is this team lacking depth, but from what I have heard Sage Martin has been very seriously injured and has been doing more PT than running. I know I called the idea of CoI potentially missing out on the top 10 crazy, but in hindsight it is a very real possibility.
   
2. Carlie Gregg from St. Mary is not coming back from what I have heard. That hurts their depth a lot.
   
3. They once again missed a big one with Milligan. Alyssa Bearzi is back and she is a former national champ, on top of that they’re still not done recruiting on the women’s side.
   
4. The St. Francis women’s analysis was probably the worst of any team. St. Francis loses three of their top seven athletes from last cross country season, rather than returning all seven. On top of that I’ve also heard some of their athletes returning have been struggling with injuries for a while and might not look as strong as they did in 2023.
   
5. LCSC loses both of the potential low sticks (Overberg and Correa) that TSR mentioned according to their roster. However they are adding Damaris Kibbiwot, which they also missed.

A side note: Pinwar will not be able to compete the whole year (XC and T&F) due to Crossroads League transfer rules.

I’m pretty sure they gave her a waiver on that rule

There is no waiver. It’s a black and white rule. Plus, what would be the basis? Because her coach that she followed resigned willingly?

Pinwar will sit out a year. The claim mentioned earlier on this thread that she’s being given a waiver is bogus. There is no waiver process and it’s a black and white rule. Per usual, there is a lot of misinformation on this thread either from inaccurate rumors or deliberate trolling. Some people fall for it every time though.

It looks like a lot of teams aren’t going back to the blazing tiger invite this year.

Pretty surprising it was a good meet last year.

Both assistant coaches at Milligan resigned this morning. Not sure what's going on there but odd that both resigned the same day.