The NC State women’s cross country team recorded its highest finish at the NCAA Championships since 2001, Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky, finishing in fifth place.
The men’s team took 28th, after failing to make it to the national meet last year.
On the women’s side, junior Erika Kemp (57th) and redshirt freshman Rachel Koon (59th) were front runners for the Pack. Senior Samantha George (71st), redshirt junior Megan Moye (94th) and freshman Ryen Frazier (108th) rounded out the top five Wolfpack finishers.
Although none of the Pack runners broke away individually, the narrow time spread between the first five runners was critical.
“[Our] time spread from one to five was very close,” said Laurie Henes, the women’s team’s head coach. “It was only 20 seconds. So whenever you can keep that one to five spread very close like that, you have a chance to be successful, and that’s what they did today.”
The Wolfpack’s top-five finish concluded a massively successful season that saw the women’s team take second at the Notre Dame Invitational, fourth at the Wisconsin Invitational and second at the ACC Championship.
In Louisville, the Pack outpaced the University of Virginia team that beat out NC State for first at the ACC Championship and the NCAA Southeast Regional meet earlier in the season.
“Some people have off days at nationals and we never try to focus too much on any one team for sure,” Henes said. “It’s still disappointing to have lost the ACC title, but I think placing fifth in the country helps make up for that some.”
The depth of the team proved decisive, especially in the absence of a phenomenal individual performance.
“We’ve got a lot of depth and that really helped us out today,” Henes said. “We didn’t have every individual having the kind of race they wanted to have, but we were able to make up for that with the depth and it’s the same kind of depth we’ve had all season.”
The Pack featured in the USTFCCCA National College Cross Country ranking every week en route to its fifth-place finish, an improvement of more than ten spots from a year ago, when NC State took 16th at the NCAAs.
This season’s top seven runners featured only two seniors, so the young Wolfpack women’s team will look to challenge for even greater honors next year.
On the men’s side, redshirt junior Sam Parsons (63rd) and redshirt sophomore Bakri Abushouk (71st) were the first NC State runners to complete the 10 km course. Redshirt senior Meron Simon (130th), freshman Tanis Baldwin (229th) and redshirt junior Sam Roberson (232nd) completed the scoring for the team.
Throughout much of the season, the men placed highly at numerous elite invitationals, including a second-place result at the Notre Dame Invitational and a seventh-place finish at the prestigious Wisconsin Invitational.
The Pack also earned a second place result at the ACC Championship meet, finishing behind the eventual national champions: Syracuse.
After starting the season unranked in the preseason polls, NC State consistently appeared in the USTFCCCA’s weekly National College Cross Country rankings as well, reaching a ranking of 10th.
The season ultimately culminated with an appearance in the NCAA Championship meet, a feat the team was unable to accomplish last season, but the 28th-place finish could be seen as bittersweet given the team’s excellent finishes elsewhere this year.
With the season concluded, runners from both the men’s and women’s teams will begin to transition from cross country season into track season.
“We take a small break here and then get ready to go into indoors,” Henes said. “A lot of our top athletes right now are very good track athletes as well. We were All American in the distance medley relay indoors last year. We’d love to do that and I think we have a lot of options on who will be running that.”
The addition of a few transfer runners should also help continue this trend of success on both the track and the course.
“We have some transfers that actually get to start running indoors,” Henes said. “[Redshirt sophomore] Wesley Frazier will be back in uniform and [redshirt junior] Bethany Neeley.”
