On Friday, the men’s and women’s cross country teams opened their seasons with first and second place finishes at the Wolfpack Invite. Fifth-year senior Sandy Roberts finished first for the men’s team, followed by a pack of five N.C. State runners.
Roberts, with a time of 15:11.4, was followed by sophomore Brian Himelright (15:11.7), freshman Andrew Colley (12.12), sophomore Matt Sonnenfeldt (15:12.3), junior Ryan Hill (15:12.7), and sophomore Lewis McPherson (15:21.2). Sonnenfeldt and Hill ran unattached, which allowed East Carolina’s Zack Montijo to ruin the Pack’s chance at a perfect score. State finished with 16 points, followed by East Carolina with 47 points, Virginia Wesleyan with 97 points, and Winston-Salem State with 109 points.
“We were a little tired from the training we are doing but this is the first good start for us as a team,” Roberts said. “Winning wasn’t important, it was that we had to group together, work the whole 5k, and that is going to set us up for the rest of the season really nicely.”
With temperatures in the 90’s, times were slower this year than last year.
“I told the guys to be real conservative,” men’s coach Rollie Geiger said. “It is a miserable day out here. It is just awful hot. They were out 15 seconds slower at the mile than last year, and we knew that was going to happen.”
Despite the heat, 15 of the top 20 men’s finishers were from N.C. State.
The men were not the only ones to have top performances. True freshman Laura Hoer blew the competition out of the water with a 29.5-second lead, setting a record time of 17:00.8 and winning the women’s race.
“We were pretty sure from workouts that she was really fit and we really controlled the first half of this race too,” women’s coach Laurie Henes said. “So for her to run that fast after focusing on tempo the first half of the course is really impressive. She has been doing everything we have asked her to do and she has had a great preseason, but that is still really impressive.”
Surprised by her margin of victory, Hoer said she is proud of her finish, but that doesn’t mean that she is going to slow down.
“We came into this race prepared, but you can never expect anything from a race,” Hoer said. “You always have stuff to work on so I definitely have to keep training hard.”
Even with Hoer’s record-breaking performance, Richmond took first in the women’s with 27 points. N.C. State followed with 33 points, and East Carolina finished third with 68 points.
Henes said times for the Wolfpack women were still pretty good even without 2009 All-American Emily Pritt and Jordan Jenkin.
“If you look at times in history this is actually pretty good,” Henes said. “We held quite a few people out today. We need to have Emily Pritt back in, we need to have Jordan Jenkins, and I actually think Davis, another freshman will probably go in next week. But the people who ran ran much faster here than they usually start on a hot day, so I think we are in a pretty good position going forward.”
Following Hoer, the next three finishers were from Richmond. Wolfpack senior Kara McKenna was fifth with a time of 17:37.6, followed by sophomore Erin Mercer (17:37.8) and junior Andie Cozzarelli (17:42.6).
The Wolfpack returns to action September 25 at the Roy Griak Invitation in Minneapolis, Minn.
