In dominating fashion, the men’s and women’s cross country teams raced to the ACC Championship on Saturday morning in Charlottesville, Va.

The men’s team took positions 4-7, 9, 13, 18 and 19 — with only the first five counting toward the team’s 31-point score. All eight runners placed in the top 20 and six earned a spot on the All-ACC team. The next closest team, Florida State, finished more than double behind N.C. State with 79 points.

Juniors Wesley Smith, Tibor Vegh, John Crews and Stephen Furst, who were the first four finishers for the Wolfpack, all crossed the line within 30 seconds of each other. Sophomore Gavin Coombs, who took ninth place, was the final runner to place for the Wolfpack.

“We’ve talked for a while about running as a group, and we’ve done that all year,” coach Rollie Geiger said. “This last two weeks, we’ve talked about running as a group up front, and today we did that. And that was the difference today.”

It was a bounce-back season for the Pack after it finished in third place last season. But Geiger said the return of two redshirt runners and the emergence of the runners from the last season made the difference.

“Last year, our top runner in this race came in 13th. This year, our sixth runner was 13th, and our eighth runner was 19th. And the players are pretty much the same,” Geiger said.

“Wes and Gavin are back, and they ran great and made a difference. But you take the improvement that other group has made and then put Wes and Gavin back in there, that’s what makes this a championship team.”

The second place team, Florida State, was a team that defeated State during the NCAA Pre-Nationals. But the No. 9-ranked Pack took the race Saturday.

Winning the ACC Championship is nothing new for Geiger. It was the men’s 10th title in 12 years while it was the women’s 21st in 29 years.

It was Geiger’s 13th men’s title and 17th women’s title. Not to mention, the coach already has 24 combined ACC Coach of the Year awards.

But this was the first time his teams had won both races since 1991 — a feat only State has conquered in ACC history.

The women, who are ranked No. 2 in the country, had the ACC Champion in senior Julia Lucas and had the ACC Freshman of Year Bona Jones, who finished fourth.

Lucas, who finished 15 seconds in front of all other runners in the race, said even though the team hadn’t seen the course before, the team had prepared for the course all year.

“We had never run this course,” Lucas said. “But all of our conditioning all year, all the runs we made to this point, were with this race in mind. The coaches had us ready for this. It speaks well of how well we’re running as a group right now.

After Lucas and Jones, the three runners who placed for the Pack were sophomore Brittany Tinsley, who took ninth, junior Angelina Blackmon, who took 13th and junior Anne Wheatly, who took 32nd.

Jones said the Freshman of the Year award was one she knew she could get if she ran to her ability.

“I wasn’t expecting it, but I wasn’t shocked,” Jones said. “I knew if I just ran a good race, then there was a good possibility that I could get it.”

Associate head coach Laurie Henes, who leads the women’s cross country team, said she was extremely pleased with the performance of her squad.

“It’s been a long time since we won both the team championship and the individual championship outright, and we got Freshman of the Year too, so it was a really good day,” Henes said.

“It was great to see Julia finally win the individual championship. Michelle Sikes is a really outstanding runner, and Julia won easily. She beat a really competitive individual field.”

Lucas, who ran in her last ACC Championship on Saturday, said the race really meant a lot for the women’s team, who had not won a title since 2002.

“Our intention heading into this race was to win,” Lucas said. “Running with the N.C. State logo on our chests means something to us. We’re well aware how long it’s been since we’ve won the ACC, and we really felt an obligation to run to the best of our abilities.”

Both teams have the NCAA Southeast Regional in Louisville, Ky., on Nov. 11 followed by the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind., just more than a week later on Nov. 20.

Jones said the women’s team has already set a goal for where they want to finish.

We definitely want to be in the top 4,” Jones said.

“I guess it really depends on what kind of day everyone on our team has compared to the people on the other teams. I mean Stanford and Arkansas have both been running amazing, but then again we’ve been running really well too.”

N.C. State media relations contributed quotes from Rollie Geiger, Laurie Henes and Julia Lucas