Four Central Region Runners Lead the Top DIII Men’s Returners

Notes: this preview is NOT predictive, but simply an overview of the top returners.  We refer to athletes by their eligibility year for the 2014-15 school year.

NEW ORLEANS—Here’s a sentence that’s been true since the early afternoon of November 17, 2012: Grant Wintheiser was third last year at the NCAA Division III cross country championship in Indiana.

Two years ago, the St. Olaf Ole[1] ran 24:35, eight seconds shy of winner Tim Nelson in Terre Haute; last fall in Hanover, Wintheiser’s 24:34 was five seconds in arrears of Mike LeDuc’s winning time.  Wintheiser has clearly demonstrated the ability to get it done on the last Saturday before Thanksgiving; he’s the top returner, and along with Eli Horton, one of two runners head and shoulders above the rest of the rest going into the fall.

Wintheiser’s track season was a little baffling to the DIII cognoscenti. After a second-place finish in the indoor 3k, a stellar 14:14 5k at Drake, and despite dropping out of two of three 1500s that he ran all spring, Wintheiser elected to go for the 1500 over 5000 at outdoor nationals.  His puzzling sine curve of a spring ended above the x-axis with a fourth place finish at nationals.

But his track season wasn’t even the most unconventional on the St. Olaf team.  We’re going to skip ahead to the No. 5 returner and the second Ole in the top five, Jake Brown.  After two years competing year-round for Princeton, Brown transferred back to his native Minnesota for 2013-14.  Ostensibly, a large factor in the transfer was his ability to be on the Nordic skiing team[2], as Brown pulled a Ben True and skipped indoor track for competitive skiing last year.  Since he finished eighth at cross country nationals, we’ve only seen Brown race four times: two steeplechases and two 5000s.

Along with Wintheiser, the other co-favorite is Eli Horton “Hears a Who”[3] of Central (Iowa). At nationals last year, Horton set a near-maniacal pace, coming through 3k in 8:57 and four seconds ahead of second place.  His last 5k was at an undoubtedly painful 5:00 pace, though that was good enough to hang on to fourth place and make Horton your No. 2 returner.  The lifelong Iowan breaks down where his head’s at this fall and answers one extremely important question in the sidebar.

If Horton is willing to crown Dawson Miller as having the best mullet in DIII, then our next two returners are locked in two battles: one for the cross country crown, and one for the best mustache.

John Guzman of Occidental is your No. 3 returner.  The Mexico City native had a quiet track season, running four 5ks with a season best of 14:40 at Mt. SAC.  The lack of an indoor season in California makes it a little tougher to judge track résumés, as West Coast runners essentially have their sample sizes cleaved in half.

A prime field in statistical analysis of other events is identifying candidates for regression, and running should be treated no differently.  Let’s weigh the case for Bethel’s Matt Berens —seventh in 2013, and the No. 4 returner.  On the “regression” side of the scale:  before grabbing seventh at nats, Berens was just fifth in the Central region and would have only been St. Olaf’s No. 4 runner on his own home course at their conference meet.  Additionally, his track PBs are simply not commensurate with a top-ten finish in cross.

On the “whatever, you nerdy number nerds, some guys are clutch” end of the spectrum: Eric Reichert’s career happened.  The 2012 Elizabethtown alum never broke 4:00 or 14:50 on the track, and in 2010 and 2011, he never did better than sixteenth at Mideast regionals.  Both years, he finished eleventh at the national meet.  You might’ve heard this a time or two before: that’s why they run the race.

Looking past the top five returners, there’s one mystery runner we’d be remiss to omit: whoever is the No. 1 man for North Central (Ill.) From 2009 to 2014, their best harrier has finished second, third, fifth, sixth, and second, respectively.   In the entire 41-year history of DIII cross country, they’ve had an All-American every single year except for 2007[4], when, incredibly, their first finisher came in 102nd.  If you leave out 2007, the average NCC No. 1 man over the last 41 years has placed eighth.[5]

Their top two returners from a year ago are Troy Kelleher (35th in cross, 29:55 10k in track) and Ryan Root (48th in cross, steeple national qualifier in track).  Four decades of data tell us that one of those two will likely crack the top eight.

Pat Jenkins of UW-Stout was 15th last fall and alleged bread-hater Drew Padgett of Washington (Mo.) was 25th in Hanover, but both took their respective games up to a whole ‘nother level this spring.  Jenkins was sixth in both the 5000 and 10000 in May, and Padgett finished third in the 5k and fourth in the 10k.  The last decade tells us that juniors[6] who finish in the top six in the 10k outdoors have an auspicious fall in front of them.

Last bit: no one from east of Chicago made it into this article.  The last time a man from either the Atlantic, New England, or Mideast regions didn’t crack the top three was fourteen years ago.