At Tom Sawyer Park in Louisville, Ky. Saturday N.C. State cross-country competed and both the men’s and women’s teams placed at the NCAA Southeast Cross Country Regional. The women placed third, behind Duke and Virginia, with William & Mary in fourth and North Carolina in fifth. The men placed second behind William & Mary, automatically qualifying them for the NCAA Championships, to be held in Terre Haute, Ind, November 23.
“This is one of the three goals we have each year for the program,” senior John Martinez said. “The first one is to win conference, second to qualify for nationals, and third is to finish top ten at nationals.”
In the men’s race, sophomore Ryan Hill led the Pack with a third place finish, with Martinez finishing 10th, sophomore Bobby Moldovan 15th, and redshirt freshman Patrick Campbell 19th. The Pack finished with a total of 99 points, behind William & Mary’s 49.
“Four athletes finished in the top 19 and four athletes made all regions out of only 20 athletes and 35 programs and we have four of the 20,” coach Rollie Geiger said. ” I don’t think anyone else had more than two, except William & Mary, who had five, so two teams had almost half [of the total athletes that finished in the top 20].”
For the women’s team, a lack of experience in the race hurt them. Just shy of a guaranteed qualification, the women’s third place finish left it up to their season whether or not they got a bid. Based on their competition and performance, the women did not meet the qualifications.
“Two true freshman were in the top six, so hopefully that won’t be the case next year,” Coach Laurie Henes said. “I think it’s always hard on true freshmen to get in there and run well. We had some upperclassmen not run at the level they should be at, so we had to put [freshmen] in there, and we don’t like to do that.”
Although the women’s team did not qualify for nationals as a team, sophomore Emily Pritt and senior Brittany Tinsley qualified individually to participate in the NCAA championships.
“I am really excited,” Tinsley said. “It’s my last year. Going into it I knew the pressure was on. I hadn’t performed as good as I had wanted to the last couple of races, so I knew I had to go in there and get it done.”
With the race in less than a week, for all those that qualify, training will be rather relaxed up until the event.
“All the hard work, high intensity, high mileage, high volume work is behind us, so now we are trying to stay fresh and sharp,” Martinez said. “What we will do is shorter, quicker things. Just keeping fitness up, but nothing too tiring. We just ran a 10K and nationals is a 10K in less than 10 days.”
For the participants, physical training is not the only aspect of preparation. Mental focus on the race is also important to performing well. As one of two qualifiers from the girl’s team, Pritt says the main goal is to remain focused and calm and not let the fact that it is nationals get to her head.
When it comes time for the race, all the training and mental preparation is going to be key to the athlete‘s performance.
“These athletes have committed themselves to this sport for the past several months,” Geiger said. “And from that they now have the opportunity to run in the national championships. If they are going to compete at such a high level of competition, they are expected to perform at a high level.”