After a stellar season opener at the Adidas Wolfpack Invitational Friday in Cary, the NC State men’s and women’s cross country teams are hopeful 2016 will be a season of success.
Despite only running a fraction of their A squad, the men’s team placed second, while the women’s team brought home first.
The women were led by the duo of redshirt junior Erika Kemp and redshirt sophomore Rachel Koon who placed fourth and fifth respectively.
Redshirt senior Megan Moye, junior Bianca Bishop, and redshirt freshman Megan Vaughn rounded out the Pack’s top five scoring group.
“We didn’t run our full team today,” women’s head coach Laurie Henes said. “It was a good solid opening effort. We had some freshmen [running unattached that did] really well. They’d been training well. But before we put them in uniform, we wanted to see how that would translate to racing.”
Unlike past seasons, this year’s Wolfpack Invitational featured a far more competitive field of teams. Virginia, Florida State and other top-notch ACC opponents joined the race.
This early season exposure is likely to pay off for a women’s team that currently sits at fifth in the most recent USTFCCCA National rankings.
“UVa, UNC and FSU are always competitive teams at the ACC Championships,” redshirt junior Erika Kemp said. “Even though they didn’t have all of their A squad and we didn’t have necessarily all of our A squad, it was nice to…get a feel for what the conference might look like in a month…and see where we need to improve.”
Hosting the ACC Championships at home this season is something the Pack look forward to.
“This is our home course so we train here quite a bit,” Henes said. “We are thankful to be able to keep ACC’s here and host it at home. We are happy to be doing that.”
Between now and competition season, the team is heavily focused on the process.
“We talk about the process a little bit more than the outcome,” Henes said. “So we’re focused on the process right now and making sure people do all the little things right [so they] are ready to go at the end of the season.”
Another key ingredient for team success is team depth and group running.
“In practice we work on packing up and staying together so that’s huge,” redshirt senior Megan Moye said. “If you can do it at practice, it will carry over to your races.”
With the addition of a driven freshmen class, the team is hopeful this will drive further improvement.
“[Sometimes], freshmen come in putting [themselves] in a box,” Moye said. “With our freshmen class it’s different. They’ve all come in with a fire…and want to be in the top seven. That pushes all of us to work…harder…and should set us up for a great season.”
With a fifth-place finish at nationals last year, the team is ultimately eager to place even higher this year.
“Every year, you want to do better than the year before,” Kemp said. “Fifth is a really hard place to finish at nationals. Not just because it’s really high, but because top four come home with a trophy. It’s hard to be so close to bringing home some hardware and still just a little far away. This year, we want to go to nationals, we want some All Americans, and we want to bring home some hardware for NC State.”
On the men’s side, the team was led by a ninth-place finish from redshirt senior Aubrey Myjer.
The duo of redshirt freshmen Ben Barrett and redshirt Sophomore Patrick Sheehan provided a nice one-two punch, while redshirt sophomore’s Aaron Thomas and Wyatt Maxey completed the top-five group.
Team support and camaraderie played a large role in its second place finish.
“It was cool the amount of support we had; especially through our alumni system.,” Ivy League transfer Aubrey Myjer said. “Throughout the course I heard people yelling [for the Wolfpack]
While many key runners weren’t featured in the team’s Friday line up, the experience still proved valuable.
“Today was a good way to see where we are at in the season so far,” Barrett said. “It helps decide who’s going to be racing together and who’s going to be training together, so from here on out we’ll have work out groups set and gear more into racing season.”
While there was a heavy emphasis on group running, the more competitive field presented on Friday, should further benefit the Pack later on this season.
“It’s good to get in a race with some other teams,” Myjer said. “Even though the focus was to Pack up and run as a group, it’s good to have other bodies around and get acclimated to racing again. When there’s more competition, it’s just that much more advantageous.”
Now, the team looks to use its schedule as a ladder to build on last seasons 28th place NCAA National meet finish.
“It’s a long season so we’re taking it one race at time,” Myjer said. “We usually have two weeks between each race. We just try to stay focused. As they gradually get more competitive, we become more fine tuned, and peak at the end.”
Up next, both the men’s and women’s teams will travel to the Notre Dame invitational Sept. 30.
