Despite a rich history of conference championships, both the men’s and women’s cross country teams finished in second place at Virginia over the weekend, failing to bring home ACC titles after both teams won last year.
The men’s team had won 10 of the previous 12 conference titles, and the women’s team had either won or shared eight of the past 12 conference titles.
On the men’s side, Virginia was the overall winner ousting N.C. State by just seven points. Wolfpack runner Chris Kollar won the race with a time of 24:02.
“I was kind of surprised, but very excited,” Kollar said. “This is a really big meet, and a lot of my teammates are very good. I haven’t really been the leader of the team this season, so this was a big surprise for me.”
His ACC individual title, the first since Andy Smith won it for the Pack in 2003, wasn’t enough for the team to edge past Virginia on the Cavaliers’ home course.
“We knew this was going to be a tough meet,” Kollar said. “Their home-course advantage and their big, young runners helped them run extremely well.”
Even though the No. 11 Cavaliers won the ACC title, No. 7 State also had several All-ACC runners. Kollar, Wesley Smith, John Crews, Stephen Furst, John Martinez and Gavin Coombs all finished in the top 13, earning All-ACC honors.
“We were disappointed that we lost,” Kollar said. “We’re going to be very hungry at nationals, and I think that our guys are all going to be more focused on running better and winning.”
On the women’s side, the Pack took second place by a narrow margin of four points ahead of Boston College. Florida State won the race and had the individual winner in Susan Kuijken.
Brittany Tinsley (5th) was the first runner across the finish line for State. Tinsley and Angelina Blackmon (14th) both gained All-ACC honors, while freshman Colleen Wetherbee (19th) was named the ACC Freshman of the Year.
“I was really happy about being ACC Freshman of the Year,” Wetherbee said. “There had been a lot of girls that had been beating me all year, so I was really surprised.”
Even though, she was joyous after her own finish, she said the team’s second-place finish was the bigger issue.
“I was more excited to find out how we did as a team at the meet, because the guys had had kind of a disappointing race,” Wetherbee said. “We would’ve liked first, but we were happy with how we finished.”
The team said it sees its results as a positive forecast for the rest of the season, which includes qualifying for nationals at the upcoming regional meet.
“A lot of the teams in our region were right behind us,” Wetherbee said. “Now we know, we all have to race a lot better when the time comes.”