The men’s cross-country team won the ACC championship this weekend as it edged two-time defending champion Virginia. The event was an 8K race held at Wake Med Soccer and Cross Country Complex.
The Pack had six runners in the top 23, including senior John Martinez and sophomore Ryan Hill, who placed third and forth overall. The Pack credits its win to the fact it ran the race it wanted and executed the strategy for the race to perfection.
“We were the better team yesterday. I think we ran and executed the race strategy perfectly,” Martinez said. “We capitalized on Virginia’s errors and I think we just ran a better race.”
Martinez, Hill and redshirt-freshman Patrick Campbell, who finished eighth, all earned All-ACC honors by finishing in the top 14.
“It is great. It was one of my goals at the beginning of the year to get All-ACC,” Campbell said. “I also set goals for my entire career here and one of the things I wanted to achieve was multiple times being All-Conference in cross country. So it was great to start off my freshman year running well.”
The race went exactly as the Pack planned with Virginia taking an early lead at the beginning of the race. But with just half of a mile left, it was a four-man race with two Virginia runners and two Pack runners, Martinez and Hill.
“The race started pretty much how we expected it to start. Virginia took off and that was what we were anticipating,” Martinez said. “We ended up catching the leader with about a half of a mile to go and from there it was a battle between four people and but the two Virginia kids had a little more left than we did, and they were able to pull away at the end.”
With the win, the Pack reclaims the ACC title and wins the ACC championship for the 14th time, and its 11th in the last 15 years.
“It feels great. We haven’t won a championship in three years,” Martinez said. “This is my first championship, and was something we were working towards all year.”
With the race being held at Wake Med, which is the team’s home course, the Pack had a big advantage, due to its familiarity with the course.
“That is our home course. It’s very hilly and the 8K course goes up the hill three times, so it is pretty challenging,” Campbell said. “We worked out a decent amount throughout the year on the course and it was defiantly an advantage having it in Raleigh.”
Even with the Pack winning the ACC championship, it feels as if they still have a lot of room for improvement going into the rest of the season.
“We are happy with our performance. Any time you can win conference championship it is really exciting and satisfying,” Martinez said. “We are really happy that we won but I still think our team has room for improvement and I think we could have ran better as a team.”