On Friday afternoon as the dark clouds loomed overhead, the men’s and women’s cross-country teams lined up to start off the 5K run. Within two minutes, strong winds and rain were wreaking havoc on the 84 runners in the men’s race.
N.C. State, however, felt the weather was not a key factor in determining its win.
“It was coming down hard,” redshirt senior Wesley Smith said. “You prepare for that all year long. You’re still running, and everybody is dealing with it, so you just run through it.”
The Wolfpack men took all five of the top spots, gathering a perfect score — all without top starters Stephen Furst, Gavin Coombs and Tibor Vegh. Race winner John Martinez finished the 3.1-mile course with a time of 15 minutes and eight seconds.
“Our strategy worked out well,” Martinez said. “We used each other to get the times we needed to motivate ourselves during the race to continue to keep moving forward.”
According to coach Rollie Geiger, the team’s approach to the meet was to win the race as a group.
“We wanted to run up front. We wanted to run together. We did that, but it was difficult with the conditions,” Geiger said.
On the women’s side, State ran with several winners unattached, including All-ACC runners Brittany Tinsley, Bona Jones and unofficial race-winner Angelina Blackmon. Nonetheless, the Pack secured a sound 30-point victory in the eight-team field.
“I thought it was a good opener,” coach Laurie Henes said. “Obviously we had people out of uniform, but I thought it was nice to get Anne Wheatly, Jenn Ennis and Magin Kebert up near the front.”
Coach Henes had planned on using this meet to gauge where the team stands; however, she felt that several factors interfered with the results.
“The times were slower than last year,” Henes said. “But the course is longer, and due to the conditions, it’s kind of hard to evaluate the results.”
In two weeks, State travels to Indiana to take on Notre Dame.
“We ran pretty well together,” Henes said. “I think this success will carry over to the Notre Dame meet.”
