2024 NCAA DIII Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll – Week 5
NEW ORLEANS – Are you ready for the biggest weekend of the regular season?
That was a trick question – of course you are.
Here is the newest edition of the 2024 NCAA DIII Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll, as released on Wednesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). Very little changed to the national rankings between Week 4 and Week 5, so we’ll treat this as a preview for the busy upcoming weekend.
NCAA Division III — Men's Cross Country
This Week's National Top Five
1
UW-La Crosse
UW-La Crosse
2
Wartburg
Wartburg
3
Pomona-Pitzer
Pomona-Pitzer
4
UW-Whitewater
UW-Whitewater
5
North Central (Ill.)
North Central (Ill.)
Cross Country Polls & Rankings
Three top-5 teams will square off on Saturday at the Augustana Interregional Invitational in Rock Island, Illinois: No. 2 Wartburg, No. 4 UW-Whitewater and No. 5 North Central (Ill.). Two of those squads raced each other at the John McNichols Invitational last month with the Knights getting the better of the Cardinals in second and third place, respectively. The Warhawks took the same course several weeks later at the NCAA DIII Twilight and finished runner-up to Pomona-Pitzer despite going 1-2-4 with Gunner Schlender and Christian Patzka leading the way.
No. 7 RPI, No. 8 SUNY Geneseo and No. 9 Carnegie Mellon headline the Mike Woods Invitational in Geneseo, New York. All three of those squads raced on the same course earlier this month at the Paul Short Run – albeit in different races: RPI and CMU finished in that order in the Men’s College Gold 8k; SUNY Geneseo romped to victory in the Men’s College White 8k. Score the meet just with athletes from those teams and it would be ridiculously close with the Engineers taking the win with 38 points, just ahead of the Tartans (39) and Knights (41).
Another meet of interest is the Connecticut College Invitational in Waterford, Connecticut. You’ll see six squads ranked between Nos. 10 through 20 in the mix: No. 11 NYU, No. 12 MIT, No. 13 Tufts, No. 14 St. Olaf, No. 17 Middlebury and No. 19 Amherst. It seems as if both the Jumbos and the Panthers are hitting their stride at the right time. Tufts and Middlebury soared six spots in the Week 4 edition of the National Coaches’ Poll after top-5 finishes at Paul Short.
This weekend is just an appetizer for the upcoming postseason, which will culminate with the running of the 2024 NCAA DIII Cross Country Championships on Saturday, November 23 in Terre Haute, Indiana.
