NC State men’s and women’s cross country teams made a pair of road trips to the Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison, Wisconsin and the ECU Pirate Invitational in Greenville, North Carolina to round out their regular season. With the ACC Championships just two weeks away, these meets provided one final tune-up for the Wolfpack heading into the postseason.
Nuttycombe Invitational
The No. 1 women’s team secured the top spot out of 36 teams in Madison. The Pack’s one-two punch of junior Katelyn Tuohy and senior Kelsey Chmiel took first and second place, respectively, in the women’s 6k championship.
Tuohy led the field with a stellar performance, as her time of 19:44.3 lagged just 1.2 seconds shy of her collegiate personal best. Chmiel secured silver for the Wolfpack, clocking in at 19:49.4.
Senior Sam Bush and graduates Sydney Seymour and Nevada Mareno were the other runners that scored for NC State, finishing 18th, 23rd and 36th, respectively. Mareno also came extremely close to her personal best, missing by just 2.2 seconds with a 20:25.3.
Bush came up agonizingly short in a three-way dash for 16th place behind Stanford’s Zofia Dudek and Notre Dame’s Olivia Markezich, respectively, as less than one-tenth of a second separated the three runners. On the flip side, Seymour eked out 23rd with a time of 20:17.8 while three runners trailed within 0.6 seconds of her, including two for New Mexico.
Redshirt senior Mariah Howlett, junior Gionna Quarzo and sophomore Brooke Rauber rounded out the action of the Wolfpack in the championship race. Howlett clocked in at 20:29.4 for 45th place, just 2.3 seconds short of her personal-best time, but Quarzo actually reached her personal-best mark, finishing 48th with a time of 20:31.8. Rauber finished at 21:02.0 for 124th place.
The men’s team finished 10th out of 33 teams at the 8k championship race. Juniors Brett Gardner and Ian Harrison were the Pack’s top two performers, finishing 48th and 53th, respectively. Also scoring for the men were graduate Robinson Snider in 72nd, graduate Ian Shanklin in 79th and junior Dan McGoey in 115th.
Four of the Wolfpack’s top five finishers set personal bests in the race. Only Shanklin and juniors Travis Koekemoer and Kevin Antczak, who finished 203rd and 208th, respectively, missed out on the party.
ECU Pirate Invitational
While the Pack didn’t field enough runners to place in the men’s or women’s team standings at the ECU Pirate Invitational, the event featured first-place finishes from NC State runners competing unattached. Freshman Grace Hartman took the top spot in the women’s 6k with a time of 20:53.59 while graduate Gavin Gaynor earned first in the men’s 8k with a 24:15.04.
The Wolfpack sent three total runners for the women’s race, each of them finishing in the top 10. Freshman Briley Bickerstaff also ran unattached, finishing fourth at 21:33.60. Redshirt junior Lulu Black was the runner officially representing NC State; she clocked a 22:14.08 to finish 10th.
Six total men’s runners made the trip from Raleigh to Greenville, all finishing in the top 25. Junior Zach Hughes, senior Ben Verchick and redshirt junior Kyle Durham officially represented the Pack, finishing sixth, ninth and 14th, respectively. Other than Gaynor, freshmen Ryan Motondo and Patrick Gibbons ran unattached, with the latter two finishing 10th and 25th, respectively.
