With N.C. State coming off dual first-place finishes at the NCAA regional qualifier meet, both teams had their focus on top-ten finishes at the national meet.
The Wolfpack, however, had a “bitter” end to its season, as both teams finished well below its national rankings.
“We were all pretty disappointed with our finish,” Colleen Wetherbee said. “No one really expected this.”
Wetherbee, who is a freshman on the women’s squad completed the 6K course Terre Haute, Ind., course in 22:05.6. Senior Angelina Blackmon (21:16.2) led the way for State with a 63rd-place finish.
“No one felt really into it at the start of the race,” Wetherbee said. “We didn’t come together as the race went on, and in the end no one was really happy with how they performed.”
The women’s team had shown steady improvement throughout the season, bouncing back from a shaky 7th-place performance at the Notre Dame Invitational earlier in the year to come back and win the NCAA Southeast Regional.
“We’ve been improving all season, and we thought maybe this would be our big meet, but it wasn’t,” Wetherbee said. “We weren’t too happy about it.”
The No. 10 men said they weren’t particularly pleased with their results either.
“We didn’t have a good day as a team,” redshirt senior Tibor Vegh said. “The coaches are going to go back and look at what went wrong to figure out what needs to be done in the future.”
Vegh paced the Pack with a 78th place finish and ran the 10k course in a time 30:59.1. By comparison, Liberty’s Josh McDougal won the race with a time of 29:22.4.
“I think I had an OK race, but not that great by any means,” Vegh said. “The first eight kilometers went pretty well, but then on the last two kilometers I kind of started to tighten up. After that, I found myself getting passed by a couple of guys.”
Redshirt graduate student Stephen Furst (93rd, 31:04.7) and redshirt junior Gavin Coombs (115th, 31:15.1) were the next two State runners across the line, helping the team finish with 439 overall points. A mere seven points separated the team from a 15th-place finish.
“We should’ve placed higher than that – top 10 or top five,” Vegh said. “Just being in the national championship race is a big thing in itself, though. Not many teams make it. Also, winning the regionals this year was a huge accomplishment. I guess being the 17th or 18th best team in the nation is not too bad.”
