2025 D3 XC Nationals Predictions

La Crosse & Wartburg bring back everyone. NCC and Whitewater graduate a lot. Pomona always strong. Couldn't bother to look at Suny G or any east coast teams. I bet Williams and MIT are good. St. Olaf looks to bring a lot back and Stevens Point will be a team on the rise in the North. On paper Amherst could be a top ten team.

On paper it looks like Wartburg will lose more than La Crosse, but what do I know. With that said, La Crosse will be the heavy favorite with Wartburg as a heavy second place favorite. Hard to see anyone challenging those 2 squads. Can anyone give us an idea of what La Crosse and Wartburg's lineups (top 7) will look like next fall? And any other top lineups?

Emmanuel Leblond leads JHU to their first Men's XC title before getting down on one knee and proposing to #2

Will this be the year Metro finally get stripped of their DEI nationals bid and has it handed over to real the real patriots in the North?

as of now (wicked early, gonna be proven wrong a lot, also i don't know jack about recruits/transfers)

east: tufts and mit are juggernauts, could be in the top 10. bates might have an outside chance of making it. top individuals: aouchiche (tufts), brennan (tufts), reisner (tufts), cobb (mit), cummings (tufts)

mideast: only middlebury suffers big losses, rpi and williams will be good. amherst/wesleyan solid but a tier below. middlebury, roger williams and slu battling for the last spot. still waiting to see nathan tassey touch a track. top individuals: tassey (rwu), lyndaker (slu), loughery (rpi), dow (amherst), durham (rpi)

niagara: same old. genny and nyu and nobody else. top individuals: hagerty (nyu), chen (nyu), hagan (geneseo), young (geneseo), taylor (nyu)

metro: honestly who knows. rowan and moravian lose a bunch of seniors, haverford loses two amazing runners in larochelle and eshghi, honestly a crabshoot. whichever team makes it will probably get dfl. top individuals: kerchner (moravian), flear (widener), hefferan (moravian), patterson (rowan), chen (tcnj)

mid atlantic: hopkins wins the region and cmu is safely second, both make nattys and there's potential for lebanon valley to make it too. top individuals: leblond (hopkins), podnar (cmu), cassidy (hopkins), oiler (hopkins), wanlass (hopkins)

south: w&l probably returns the best squad, but not by much. emory and lynchburg have big losses but should still hold on to make nationals again. a big spoiler could be berry; they return a lot however they don't race against other ranked teams enough during the regular season. top individuals: hunt (lynchburg), wright (berry), cooper (w&l), rush (w&l), smith (berry)

great lakes: hope returns the most and is the narrow favorite to win. trine, john carroll, cwru and otterbein could contend for a nationals spot but the region might only send one or two. mount union probably won't and calvin is absolutely annihilated by graduation. the michigan schools will be better than the ohio schools. top individuals: petruska (hope), van-huis (trine), ulrich (mount union), hoopingarner (trine), houvener (adrian).

midwest: wartburg the easy favorites, north central, chicago & washU should slip in comfortably as well. loras is a big maybe. sorg and vanwestrienen the only things preventing a wartburg 15 at regionals. top individuals: hammerand (wartburg), schermerhorn (wartburg), vanwestrienen (cornell), sorg (north central), sobaski (wartburg)

north: lacrosse is an obvious. st. olaf will return a very solid squad as well. whitewater loses their two juggernauts but returns enough depth to make it to the big dance comfortably. stevens point will be very strong, good chance they get 2nd in the wiac. could also see platteville making nationals as they have a solid returning squad. stout & oshkosh are kinda on the bubble. top individuals: grant matthai (la crosse), bati (augsburg), aidan matthai (la crosse), sullivan (la crosse), turlington (st. olaf)

west: pomona will win regionals comfortably and returns a very good 1-4. colorado college i think will make it back to nationals as a team, as they return basically everyone. the last spot is a tossup between santa cruz and cms, the latter of which suffers major losses to graduation. and it looks like the george fox era ends. top individuals: shuflit (colorado), white (pomona), stein (pomona), markelz (l&c), holland (ucsc)

let outdoor commence. maybe someone falls off, maybe someone pops off. hopefully gunner schlender wins the 10k cause it's bout time he did

It's definitely way too early to make accurate predictions for the 2025 D3 XC National Championships!

Wartburg graduates Green. That's all. It's a big hit, but it seems like they always have ammunition waiting to be fired year after year. Hammerand, a silent 9th in the Nation, Schermerhorn, if healthy can run with anyone, Sobaski, another weapon, Larson, a spot out of All-American, and fill in the 5th. Jack Kinzer seems to be coming back for a 5th year of XC. Will that be the difference maker or will there be a hungry young buck scoring for the Knights? LaCrosse will be the team to beat and may find themselves playing defense come this fall.

Platteville 5k gave us a good look at Wartburg for next fall. Schermerhorn 14:09 (PR of 13:57), Sobaski 14:10, Hammerand 14:18, Larson 14:26, and Kinzer 14:29 (PR of 14:27). It was nice to see Kinzer put together a respectable 5k. He had a string of just okay races indoor season from what I presume was a build back from injury?

This lineup does not quite compare to La Crosse PR's (Matthai's 13:56 and 14:00, Loenser 14:06, Sullivan 14:14, and Zywicki 14:28), but on the right day anything could happen.

A team who was a pleasant surprise in the 5k was Whitewater. A top 4 (of those back next fall) of 14:09, 14:26, 14:32, 14:34. Find 1 more guy and they could be destined for the podium again even with the loss of their 2 headed monster in Patzka and Schlender.

three horse race: UWL, Wartburg, Pomona-Pitzer, in that order. Guarantee the podium consists of these three teams (and pre season rankings will probably reflect this when they come out)

team title is definitely a tossup between la crosse and wartburg. the former loses fairchild (#7 at ncaas) and i'm pretty sure loenser (#5 at ncaas) too (he was technically a senior but didn't do xc in 2021) while the latter loses green (#2 at ncaas) and lancial (#6 at ncaas), although jack kinzer who would've been in their top 5 last year got hurt and retains another year of xc eligiblity, and he arguably cancels out the loss of green. pomona loses hatler, villano and kobett and doesn't have as much depth to rely on, i'd take two of geneseo, rpi or whitewater on the podium over pomona. geneseo has got 3 guys in contention for all american with hagan, young and comer, rpi's got a very deep group of returners with potential for all amercians and whitewater's top 4 returners are all under 14:35, compared to pomona who only put quinn white under that mark this season.

individually i think either tassey or grant matthai wins it. leblond, white, hunt or aidan matthai less likely but definitely have a chance at winning too. anyone else is a dark horse

La Crosse is not beatable this year. They return 5 of their top 6 (maybe Loenser too I think he has eligbility but he's a senior). 4 of those returners finished in the top 20 last year, and then there's the ultra-talented sub-30 rising sophomore Chuck Vater. It's just not happening. Not Wartburg, not anywhere

G. Matthai, Tassey, Hunt or Leblond for the win. I'd really want to give it to Hunt after that dominant 5k performance, but he was much worse than a lot of those guys on grass last year.

Could the La Crosse second team or their shadow army of non-rostered athletes be a top ten team? They certainly could be top 20.

No way Hunt stays at Lynchburg, right? With Coach Reed’s departure plus the loss of his 2 outstanding training partners, I don’t see a reason for him to stay. Does anyone have any insight?

"We're hoping he stays" - is what someone at Lynchburg told me last week. So at this point no decision has been made and he's not in the portal yet

Does anyone else feel like North Central is slowly falling off?

Update, hes going to UNC

Assuming, like others, he couldn't stand working under Gunnelson. Very good coach, but Gunnelson does not have a good reputation in D3 as a likeable guy and is a bit scummy

Isn't he the D3 Track President? Why would he be elected if true?