Unofficial 2019 D3 XC Thread (Official)

Mueller will win the title, unless NCC creates another stud in the lab between now and December.

The fact that you put Amherst in the top 10 questions the legitimacy of your entire post. Ricciardelli is a question mark on returning, so if he's a no show then their prospects of a top 10 performance are squashed. Zilch percent chance they get it if the teams you listed have anything close to the days you suggest they'll have come November. You are just putting them in at 10th because what was good in the past must be good in the future – which is some misplaced confidence, amigo. It can't happen when teams graduate their whole shelf of cash crops. So you put Amherst in 10th – who cares, 10th is a participation ribbon. BUT you put NCC in 2nd???? I don't care how many babies Al Carius has in the oven, they cannot podium, much less get 2nd, after graduating 6 of their top 7. 6 of the top 7! For someone who did so much research, you completely omitted Williams from consideration, a team that will contend for the podium with the actual best 1-2 punch of Ryan/Cox. Apart from Ryan, their top XC guys don't have much, if any, track times this year, and it is true they also did meh work at nationals (save Ryan Cox's 6th place), but if you're yielding RPI a 3rd place spot after a subpar 2018 performance, the same courtesy can be extended to ole Pete Farwell's squad which is returning 11 of their top 11.

I concede that Pomona and Wartburg look pretty good right now, but the top 3 will go to them and Williams. Next question.

You know that you don’t get points for how many runners from your top 7 you return?

Quite a lot of emotion here. I suspect you are close to the Williams program or are at least a NESCAC kid. Therefore, I have some questions.

Why is Ricciardelli a question mark? Is he actually out of eligibility? Why would he not be back? Does anyone know his status?

How bad was Ryan Cox's injury? He has not been heard from since early January and was not even on the TFRRS listed roster for outdoor. Is HE coming back?? Even if he does, it will be a big ask to expect him to anywhere near the Top-10 given how long he has been out.

While I'm at it, I guess I throw out some rankings. I'll include my rationale

1. Wartburg -- I've been high on them for awhile. Look at my page 1 posts for rationale.

2. WashU -- They have a very low stick in Matteucci, and then return two more top 7 members. One was a sophomore that finished in the 50s and has 14:46 to his name. The other was in the 200 club but steepled 9:07 in May, so I don't think he had his best day at nationals. Behind that, they have a bunch of guys with good track times but not Nationals experience. There's 9:03 steepler, a 14:51 rising sophomore, and two guys who ran 3:51, one of whom made the finals outdoors. I think experience will carry the day for Wartburg, but this WashU squad is very talented, is deep as always, and always seems to be at their best in XC. I could see them winning, but I also could see inexperience keeping them off the podium.

3. Williams -- There's a lot to like here. The Ephs finished in the top 10 last year and return all 7, and most of them appear to have had solid or more than solid track seasons, especially their 1500 squad. However, Ryan Cox was not one of them as he had no track season. He's the big question mark. If he's back close to 100%, Williams could contend to win. Even without him, Aidan Ryan could definitely finish as high as Cox did last year and ameliorate most of that.

4. Pomona -- Generally agree with the sentiment from earlier posts -- they have a deep squad -- but they had one last year, too, along with the guy who finished 3rd place. They finished 7th with Reischling leading them, so I can't bring myself to get too high on the Sagehens. The track times are excellent and give me reason to hope, but I can't help but feel like they peak in March. They never really contended in Reischling's entire tenure and I don't see them suddenly winning nationals once they lose him.

5. NCC -- C'mon, you know who they are. I actually believe they will ultimately finish on the podium, but it would not be fair to rank them there preseason because they did lose 6 of 7. However, they should have a low stick in Osmulski and they have talent behind him that just hasn't gotten to prove their mettle because they were buried behind the juggernaut of the last two years. I think Pommier and Rohr will make huge leaps now that Al Carius will be able to focus on their development since he'll need them. I'm not sure who will round out top 7, but that team has so many bodies. I can't see them finishing worse than 5th, maybe 6th.

6. La Crosse -- Some will be surprised that I have them this low, considering they return 4 of 7 from a team that scored 125, including top national returner Josh Schraeder. But here's the thing. That team really only went 5 deep, and they lose two of those 5, including Thomas Schultz. Without any stellar track times to convince me otherwise, I foresee them having some 5th man issues throughout next season. They'll be a very good team nonetheless.

7. Johns Hopkins -- This team might finally be ready. Pangalozzi is a more than adequate low stick, and he's got a squad behind him. If enough of them step up, the Jays could finally find themselves on the podium they briefly thought they were on last year before the majority of the scores were tallied. Bobby van Allen has proven with the women that he knows how to coach, so if he can apply that to the men, they could be pretty good.

8. Carleton -- The top two of Mueller and Wilkinson will be lethal for the next two years. What do they have behind them? I'm curious to find out, but TFRRS suggests that it's not enough for serious podium contention.

9. RPI -- Yes, Jacques is legit. Falasco is also legit. They are returning 5 of 7. And yes, I understand that the pile up last year really hurt them. That all being said, RPI finished 13th last year with the two O'Conners up front and never really sniffed the podium the previous years they had them, either. I can't see them contending without them.

10. Carnegie Mellon -- This team was a threat to podium last year, and I believe that they will be this year if they put it together. That's the question, though. Will they? They always push WashU to the brink at UAA championships, both in XC and track, but never seem to perform well at nationals in XC, indoors, or outdoors. Looking through some results, their top 5 has historically fluctuated heavily from race to race, indicating that they may be struggling with injuries and peaking at the right time. That said, they return like 5 or 6 guys from the team that was ranked 5th going into nationals last year. I'm sure they'll be ranked in the top ten going in again this year, but it's anyone's guess how they'll do at the meet itself.

A couple of sleeper picks: UChicago, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

One last point. It is really wide open this year and pretty unpredictable. I'm not super confident in my own rankings because of the nature of this year.

According to TFRRS from the outdoor 2019 season (as this is what I initially stated was the basis of the predictions...track times that I admitted may not be the best predictor but just something to start the conversation) this is who Williams and Amherst have returning:

Williams:

Aidan Ryan: 14:23

Nick Gannon: 15:10

Elias Lindgren: 15:13

Jake Lange: 15:29

Franklin Reilly: 15:41

Matthew Peacock: 15:49

Add in Ryan Cox and that still leaves Williams with a lot of ground to make up with 3-5.

As for Amherst:

Clark Ricciardelli: 14:42

Braxton Schuldt: 14:57

Spencer Furguson-Dryden: 15:07

Billy Massey: 15:18

Spencer Davis: 15:21

Chris Stone: 15:38

Ajay Sarathy: 15:48

Amherst on paper looks like they bring more depth back compared to Williams. If Ricciardelli is potentially not in the mix as you say, then yes absolutely Williams will beat Amherst, but Williams does not look like a podium team. Compared to the likes of P-P, North Central, RPI, Wartburg, and Wash U. After these five team there is CMS, Hopkins, LaCrosse, and Geneseo, based on this past spring, bring back a team that looks better than Williams.

North Central returns Matt Osmulski (11th at XC) will battle Ryan Cox (6th at XC), and Aidan Ryan (42nd) will take down NCC's number two, but then NCC puts their top 6 in from of Williams number 3, and you think Williams will podium and North Central will not? I do not see how that is possible right now. North Central's 8-14 would have probably beaten Williams 1-7 at Nationals last fall and would have been a top 8 team. I does not matter that NCC graduated 6 of the top 7 because their 8-14 or whoever they return that was not in their top 7 is still better that what Williams is returning based on spring performances.

NCC's returners:

Matt Osmulski, 14:45, 30:20

Gabriel Pommier, 14:55

Bjorn Shroda, 14:55, 31:17

Thomas Rohr, 14:57, 31:04

Alex Makrounis, 15:04, 31:20

Zachary Chapman, 15:06, 31:21

Looking at what teams bring back based off of spring 2019 track 5k times:

1. P-P: 14:43, 14:44, 14:50, 14:54, 14:54, 14:55, 14:56

2. NCC: 14:44, 14:55, 14:55, 14:57, 15:04, 15:06

3. RPI: 14:26, 14:28, 14:54, 14:55, 14:56, 14:58, 14:58

4. Wartburg: 14:33, 14:34, 14:37, 15:04, 15:08, 15:23, 15:25

5. Wash U: 14:27, 14:46, 14:56, 15:02, 15:04, 15:09, 15:23

6. CMS: 14:24, 14:46, 14:55, 15:01, 15:03, 15:18, 15:18

7. Hopkins: 14:42, 14:58, 14:58, 15:10, 15:16, 15:24, 15:35

8. LaCrosse: brings back the top returner from XC in Josh Schraeder: 14:41, 14:51, 15:18, 15:19, 15:19, 15:31

9. Geneseo: 14:38, 14:48, 14:56, 15:23, 15:26, 15:38

10. Amherst: 14:42, 14:57, 15:07, 15:18, 15:21, 15:38, 15:48

Williams: 14:23, 15:10, 15:13, 15:29, 15:41, 15:39

Add in Ryan Cox to the mix for Williams as was not listed on TFRRS for spring track, and I will concede, Williams is a top 10 team, but podium seems like a stretch to me, even with two low sticks, given what is behind them and what other teams are bringing back. Certainly a team with only two All-Americans has been and can be a podium team, but it looks like there are teams with much greater depth. Again, this prediction is based primarily on track times, and I will state it again, I understand track is a different animal than cross country so this may not materialize on the cross country course, but here is a starting list to go off of. You have made good points that Williams is definitely in the mix but I am not predicting a podium finish for them. I think Williams can be on front of Hopkins for 7th, but CMS has too much depth right now. Williams at 7, Hopkins at 8, LaCrosse at 9, and Geneseo at 10, with Amherst out of the top 10.

There are certainly cases to be made for every team on this list to be higher or lower, but just trying to go by the numbers.

Enjoy.

To throw a little more support Carleton's way, I feel their spring 5K track times also support consideration. They are 14:22/14:49/15:23/15:23/15:32. The last three were freshman and this doesn't include Meikle, who was injured during the outdoor season. He finished 94th at Nationals last year (and was in the middle of the pile up) and has an outdoor 5K PR of 15:09 from his sophomore year.

TwoinMN wrote:

To throw a little more support Carleton's way, I feel their spring 5K track times also support consideration. They are 14:22/14:49/15:23/15:23/15:32. The last three were freshman and this doesn't include Meikle, who was injured during the outdoor season. He finished 94th at Nationals last year (and was in the middle of the pile up) and has an outdoor 5K PR of 15:09 from his sophomore year.

The 14:49 was run by sophomore Matthew Wilkinson early on in the outdoor season and did not run the 5k again. He ran 14:33 during the indoor NCAA Championship to A-A with his 6th place finish. He seemed to focus on the steeple this outdoor and ran 9:06 and later finished 4th at the outdoor NCAA Championship. This gives Carleton a great 1-2 so they could throw down a serious team this fall with their crop of freshmen running 15:23-15:32. Do not sleep on Carleton!

You are not only just looking at track times, but you are only looking at times from ONE EVENT. If I was only looking at 5k times, I would never have ranked WashU #2 and Williams #3. But WashU had great steeplers and Williams had great MD guys that I think -- let me me clear, I THINK -- will run well in XC. It's hard to project because a lot of guys did not even race the 5k or 10k at all.

I'm only sleeping on them for this coming year (I'm sorry, but 15:23 just won't cut it if we're talking podium). I think their team will be a force in 9 months time.

Full disclosure, I do have ties to the Williams XC team, but looking at those track times doesn't really do the team full justice. Elias Lindgren only ran a 15:13 yes, but he also ran 3:53 in the 1500 and last year as a frosh came in 109th so clearly has the ability to run well in cross. There 4-7 from xc nationals last fall also all don't have track 5k times for various reasons. Their 4th and 5th guys are mid-d and while Kevin Lafleche was/is injured, Tristan Colaizzi did PR in the 15 this year and get another All American Finish. There 6th and 7th guys were both on study abroad programs this spring, and Will McGovern bombed at nationals but was there 3rd man for much of the season. I'm not saying they're for sure going to podium, but throw in Nick Gannon, who didn't run cross last season and Ken Marshall who ran a 9:20 steeple as a sophomore but spent the year in England, and I think they have a shot.

What makes Carleton the most dangerous going forward is those five 5k times listed are all going to be there for the next 2 years. One might doubt them this season but in 2 years time, they could have 2 in the top 5 at nationals with Wilkinson and Mueller.

Confirmed: Franklin Riley will be abroad in the fall. Williams will go home DEVASTATED

Give them a year wrote:

What makes Carleton the most dangerous going forward is those five 5k times listed are all going to be there for the next 2 years. One might doubt them this season but in 2 years time, they could have 2 in the top 5 at nationals with Wilkinson and Mueller.

Carleton has definitely peaked, believe it or not. Mueller and Wilkinson may go 1-2 but they will not get anyone else in the top 300. They just graduated their region champion and will be replacing him with some unproven runners. They are 2 runners deep and will not be competitive as a team

Any predictions on the womens side?

flyingsaucer wrote:

Any predictions on the womens side?

Yes. They will train hard and party hard.

Re: Carleton-

I agree podium may be a stretch, but to say that nobody besides Mueller and Wilkinson will break the top 300 is utterly foolish (especially considering only 280 men run at Nationals). Here are the places and years of their 3, 5, 6, 7 runners from last year’s Nationals race:

94th- junior

218th- freshman

241st- freshman

258th- freshman

I will venture to guess that although the 200+ finishers aren’t extremely impressive, they were freshman and bound to improve significantly for next year.

[3.1]Miles Davis wrote:

Mueller will win the title, unless NCC creates another stud in the lab between now and December.

They don't need to make one when the weed man himself Borowski comes back from prison because everyone deserves a "second chance".

I think the most interesting part of the D3 cross country is the talent coming in this year. One pitfall of making lists this early is that a lot can happen over the summer including injuries.