The men’s and women’s cross country teams lined up just one runner apiece in the race against the B-teams from UNC and Duke, this past Saturday morning.
The men’s only official runner, redshirt freshman Jason Morgan, struggled to finish the race, falling down and then being knocked back over by a rival runner.
“Today, I was running and I was doing pretty good coming around the two-mile mark,” Morgan said. “I was going down the hill and you know, when you get in these races that are close you bump a lot. This one guy came by and I moved and my foot went wide and kind of caught a branch that was sticking out. When I started to get back up and going again, somebody just hit me from the side and I fell right back down.”
Morgan said the collision was an accident, partly attributing the fall to the close quarters of the course.
“I don’t think it was intentional,” Morgan said. “These things happen. People bump shoulders. You’re thinking about running at the moment and sometimes you just don’t look for things, especially people on the ground.”
Morgan said he has struggled with the course throughout the year. He also experienced problems at N.C. State’s home course earlier in the year during the Raleigh Invitational.
“The first time I ran here, it was raining pretty badly,” Morgan said. “My contacts got filled with water and I fell then too and went off the course.”
The difference today, was that Morgan went on to fully finish the race — eventually finishing 21st out of 22 runners.
“After I fell, I wasn’t just going to not finish, so I got back up and sprinted to the finish as fast as I could,” Morgan said.
The Wolfpack however, did excel, in several other aspects. Unattached runners Bobby Moldovan (15:30) and Andrew North (15:36) finished first and second, respectively. These runners are considered unattached so they can keep their redshirt.
“I was happy with my run, but I was hoping to run a little faster,” Moldovan said. “It was pretty windy, so it was kind of tough, but I was basically by myself the last two miles.”
Assistant coach John Henderson said he was pleased with Moldovan for his strong performance.
“The young runners don’t get a lot of opportunities to race, especially because of their redshirt status, but it looks good for Bobby to step up like he did,” Henderson said. “This was a great race for Andrew as well.”
On the women’s side, redshirt freshman Krista Moss (19:42) turned in an 11th place finish out of the 17 runner field.
“I wasn’t happy with my performance at all,” Moss said. “Coming into this meet, I wanted to run my best time of the year. This is the last race of my season, so I wanted to end on a high note, but I’ve just been so tired lately.”
Women’s coach Laurie Henes complimented Moss on her early-season times, but noted that she has been lacking in the more recent races.
“Krista has just been struggling a little bit,” Henes said. “She was doing really well at the beginning of the year. We’re going to try to figure out why and hopefully get her back up to her full potential.”
Both teams are overlooking this race, placing more of an emphasis on the rest of the season and the team’s future.
“The team is really focused on regionals,” Henes said. “We just wanted to give some of our younger runners an opportunity to race.”
The runners also view this meet as a promising sign for the seasons ahead.
“It’s going to be a big hurt losing six seniors, all who have a lot of talent and experience,” Moldovan said. “But I think we’ve got a really great future, because we’ve got six impressive freshmen this year. We’ve also got some good older guys returning, as well as some recruits that hopefully we can pull in and use to build this team back up and stay as a national power.”
