Tim O'Brien
The men’s and women’s cross country teams started off the season strong on Friday, with both teams scoring victories in the 16-team field consisting of in-state competitors ECU, Barton, High Point, and various other teams. The season-opener for cross country took place on the 3.1 mile course in Cary at the WakeMed Soccer Park.
Redshirt senior Fredy Torres led the way for the Wolfpack, finishing the 5K race in 15:21.00. State’s men were able to take all five of the top scoring positions in the race. On the women’s side, junior Kara McKenna, running unattached, finished first with a time of 18:07.00, 9 seconds ahead of the teammate Lauren Bishop (18:16.00).
Often teams will run players unattached in order to protect their redshirt eligibility for future seasons.
“Today I was just trying to feel relaxed until the two-mile mark and then just race it in,” McKenna said. “I wanted to break the 18-minute mark, but unfortunately didn’t.”
Although McKenna’s score didn’t count for State’s final tally, the women had no trouble securing the perfect 15-point victory with Bishop and four other freshmen posting the top officially scored times of the meet.
“I thought our freshmen did a great job starting off the season,” coach Laurie Henes said. “Overall, we had a lot of people run pretty fast today in some very warm conditions.”
The women ran the race without All-ACC senior Brittany Tinsley who was out with a stress reaction. Also missing from the team’s lineup were 2006 All-American junior Bona Jones and ACC rookie of the year Colleen Wetherbee.
“Having them would’ve made us much stronger up front,” McKenna said. “But, I think it’s good for the freshmen to not have so many upperclassmen because it makes them push themselves that much harder under the pressure.”
On the men’s side, many of the team’s freshmen also looked very promising. Coming in behind Torres was freshman Ryan Hill (15:21.00), redshirt junior John Martinez (15:21.00), and redshirt senior Gavin Coombs (15:21.00).
“Our younger guys ran tough and hung in there,” Martinez said. “It was good for them to have this experience and for them to be up there with us.”
After his victory, Torres joked that one of his main motivations for the meet was to finish ahead of his teammate, John Martinez, who won the meet last year.
“It was exciting to win in front of the hometown crowd and to beat out John [Martinez] after last year,” Torres said. “I was out a lot last season, so it was a good confidence booster [to win].”
Typically State uses this lower-caliber meet as a tool to gauge where the team stands for the upcoming season. It might also answer some questions regarding who can secure the final starting slots for the season and who will redshirt.
“We’re trying to figure out who we want to put in uniform that doesn’t have a redshirt year [already],” coach Rollie Geiger said. “In fact, if you’re not in the top seven and you have a year to redshirt then it’s probably a good idea.”
On September 27, the Pack will travel to Greenville for the ECU Invitational.