In the past, N.C. State cross country has been able to accomplish a feat on an annual basis that separates them from other teams – winning ACC Championships. This year, however, the men’s cross country team failed to capture the school’s first title of the 2008-2009 year, claiming runner-up honors behind the University of Virginia.
“We were predicted to finish fourth, so we did better than expected, but it was disappointing that we didn’t win,” redshirt junior John Martinez, who finished 5th with a time of 24:33.8, said. “Winning is always the goal no matter what the situation is or who we have lining up.”
Déjà vu overcame the Wolfpack men as they finished behind Virginia for the second consecutive year.
“I take my hat off to the University of Virginia,” coach Rollie Geiger said. “We weren’t that far behind them, but our goal is not to finish second in this race.”
Although the team didn’t accomplish its traditional goal of winning the ACC Championships, the team had four runners earn All-ACC honors, including ACC Freshman of the Year Ryan Hill (24:47.2).
“Ryan’s race was amazing,” Martinez said. “Every time he goes out there he tends to impress me and everyone on the team a little bit more. We couldn’t have asked for anything more from him.”
State was aided by the return of redshirt senior Gavin Coombs (12th, 24:47.0) from injury along with redshirt graduate student Bobby Mack, who was only recently granted another year of eligibility by the NCAA.
Mack led all Pack runners with a time of 24:30.9, good for fourth place and just four seconds shy of the overall race winner, Virginia’s Ryan Foster.
“With about half of a mile to go, Bobby and I both were one-two, but we were still in a group of about five or six other people,” Martinez said. “When it came down to it, we just couldn’t hold off the kick of Ryan Foster.”
The women’s team, comprised entirely of freshmen, finished 10th overall. Many of the upperclassmen women are either redshirting this season or were sidelined for the race due to injury.
“We have two weeks until regionals, so we’re just going to use this as a building block to improve,” freshman Emily Pritt said. “It wasn’t our best finish, but it was a learning lesson for us.”
The 10th place finish was the lowest for the women in the program’s 30-year history. Prior to Saturday’s meet, the lowest ACC championship finish was in 1982. That year, former State runner Connie Jo Robinson paced the team to a 3rd place finish.
“We aren’t trying to compare ourselves to other teams,” Pritt said. “The teams before us have just been incredible, and at the same time none of them have ever had a group of six inexperienced freshmen.”
Pritt finished the 6K race in a time of 21:31.4, good for 24th place. Caroline Kirby (52nd, 22:17.1), Andie Cozzarelli (61st, 22:41.2), Lauren Bishop (75th, 23:03.6) and Amanda Burger (80th, 23:14.5) rounded out the scoring for the Pack.
“We’re trying really hard to give it our best effort,” Pritt said. “The coaches are doing an amazing job and we’re only going to improve from here. We’ve just got to keep moving forward.”
Florida State’s women, ranked third in the most recent national poll, took five of the top nine spots to win the conference title.
“They have the potential to take it all the way at nationals, which would obviously make the ACC look good,” Pritt said. “They have such an incredible team led by Susan Kuijken.”
Despite the team’s poor finish, the young women remain optimistic they can eventually challenge Florida State for conference supremacy.
“Right now they are unstoppable,” Pritt said. “They ran an incredible race and ran very well together as a team, but…we’ll be back up there with them soon enough.”
