Last week was a big one for NC State athletics, including a national championship and a few other key wins across different sports.
Women’s cross country repeats as national champions
It was an incredibly successful trip to Oklahoma for the NC State women’s cross country team, as it grabbed the national championship for the second year in a row, led by junior Katelyn Tuohy’s individual title.
Despite being behind Florida’s Parker Valby for most of the race, Tuohy overcame a 10-second deficit to finish with a time of 19:27.7 and a new course record.
Tuohy, along with senior Kelsey Chimel, senior Sam Bush and graduate Nevada Mareno were all named 2022 All-Americans and three of the four finished in the top 15 overall.
Graduate Ian Shanklin was the highest finisher on the men’s side of the action, coming in 38th place as the team finished 11th overall.
Read the recap of the national championship meet here.
Men’s basketball picks up two more home wins, continues undefeated season
Over the past week, the Pack men’s basketball team picked up two more nonconference wins over FIU and Elon to bring its record to 4-0.
NC State outscored the FIU Panthers 107-74, largely in part thanks to a 26-point performance from both graduate guard Jarkel Joiner and senior guard Casey Morsell.
Elon kept the score closer in Saturday’s game, but graduate guard Jack Clark totaled 21 points in the matchup — his most of his short career in Raleigh so far — to help the Wolfpack pull out the 74-63 victory.
While there are a lot of new faces on the team this year, it seems as if everyone is growing comfortable playing with one another, at least through the first four games of this young season.
Read the recap of the win over FIU here.
Read the recap of the win over Elon here.
Women’s basketball defeats UNC-Charlotte but struggles in Elite Eight rematch
A 96-48 win over UNC-Charlotte marked the beginning of a big week for the Wolfpack women’s basketball team, but it unfortunately picked up its first loss of the season on the road in Connecticut in a rematch against UConn.
Junior guard Madison Hayes and senior forward Jada Boyd led the team in scoring with 15 points each against UNC-C, while graduate center River Baldwin picked up 10 of her own while leading the team in rebounds with nine. NC State was dominant the entire matchup, allowing the 49ers to score just eight points in the final quarter.
For its first road game, the Pack’s matchup against UConn was a completely different story — NC State fell 91-69 to the Huskies.
Read the recap of the win over Charlotte here.
Read the recap of the loss to UConn here.
Football falls to Louisville with injury-ridden roster
The biggest storyline of the past week coming out of the Pack football camp has been the numerous injuries the team has been dealing with.
NC State was held to just 10 points on the road in Louisville, led by redshirt freshman quarterback Ben Finley, who went 16-of-35 for 205 yards with one touchdown and an interception.
For just a bit of context on how injury-riddled this Wolfpack football squad is, Finley was listed as the third-string quarterback on the original depth chart released before the Louisville matchup.
Defensively, the Pack held off the Cardinals throughout most of the game, allowing only the first offensive touchdown from Louisville to score with 10:05 left in the action, but it wasn’t enough with NC State’s lack of offense and communication.
Read the recap of the game here.
Wrestling dominant against Central Michigan and Illinois
Continuing its undefeated season as well, the Wolfpack wrestling team was quite successful in a quick trip to Albany, New York last week, taking on both Central Michigan and Illinois.
Redshirt junior Trent Hidlay and sophomore Isaac Trumble continued their undefeated starts to the new year while freshman Jackson Arrington grabbed a huge win over No. 14 Johnny Lovett of Central Michigan in overtime.
No. 6 sophomore Ed Scott suffered a big loss in the first half of the day against No. 33 Corbyn Munson, but he came back with a big win over Anthony Federico of Illinois later that afternoon.
Read the full recap of both meets here.
Swimming and diving teams successful in Greensboro
No. 4 NC State women’s swimming and diving defeated Stanford, Arizona State, Penn State, Duke, Army, George-Washington and UNC-Asheville to take first place in the NC State invite last week, totaling 2,189.50 points.
There’s plenty to highlight throughout the event, including graduate Emma Muzzy’s performance in the 200-yard backstroke. Muzzy finished with a time of 1:52.22 for third place and the seventh-fastest time in program history.
The men’s team, ranked No. 3 nationally, finished in second place, losing only to Arizona State.
Read the full recap of the meet here.
Volleyball sweeps Notre Dame
Celebrating senior day last week, the Wolfpack volleyball team pulled off the sweep against Notre Dame in its second-to-last home match of this regular season.
The Pack started strong with a big victory in the first set of the match but had to overcome an early Irish lead in the final two sets for the win.
Sophomore outside hitter Martyna Leoniak led the way with 13 kills, 15 digs and a block for her sixth career double-double.
Rifle loses on the road against No. 5 West Virginia
In its final matchup of the fall schedule, the NC State rifle team fell on the road 4,751-4,687 to the Mountaineers of West Virginia.
While the team has only continued to improve its aggregate score throughout the season, and recording totals in air rifle and smallbore that rank sixth in program history, it wasn’t enough to overcome the No. 5 Mountaineers.
