Junior Kelsey Chmiel and sophomore Katelyn Tuohy finished first and second individually, paving the way for the Pack women to take first place in the NCAA Southeast Regional in Louisville, Kentucky.
The women finished with a team score of 34, a full 39 points lower than second-place UNC-Chapel Hill. The men’s team combined for fourth place with a 138 score.
Chmiel won gold with a time of 19:58.4, improving her time from the ACC Championships by over four seconds. Chmiel was closely followed by Tuohy, who finished with a time of 20:06.2, a three-second improvement from the ACC championships. The duo finished in the same places in the ACC Championships but with a few seconds shaved off their time, showing their improvement this late in the season.
Graduate Allie Hays finished sixth with a time of 20:14.2, an impressive eight-second improvement, and junior Sam Bush finished eighth with a time of 20:19.4. The Wolfpack’s last athlete to count for the team total was senior Heather Holt, who finished 17th.
The men finished in the top five out of 30 teams, placing fourth in the 10000-meter race. The team was led by graduate J.P. Flavin, who finished sixth with a time of 29:24.7. The ACC Championship had an 8000-meter race for the men, so times are less comparable than the women’s, but Flavin finished 20th in that race, so the 14-person jump was impressive.
Second to finish for the Wolfpack was junior Nate Kawalec, finishing 19th in 29:52.3. Kawalec was much farther in the back in the ACC finals, where he finished 43rd.
The next man to finish for the Pack was graduate Robinson Snider, who finished 24th with a 29:59.0 time. The top three Pack athletes combined for a score of 46. The remaining two athletes who scored were graduate Gavin Gaynor, who finished 27th, and sophomore Zach Hughes, who finished 67th.
With its first place finish, the women automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships on Nov. 20 in Tallahassee, Florida. Flavin’s finish for the men was good enough to qualify him as an individual.
