North Carolina State University Athletics
Cross Country Runs Pre-Nationals Saturday
10/16/2009 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
RALEIGH, N.C. — The preliminaries are now officially over for NC State’s men’s and women’s cross country teams. The Wolfpack travels this weekend to Terre Haute, Ind., and the campus of Indiana State University for the NCAA Pre-Nationals.
Held annually at the site of the NCAA Championships, the Pre-Nationals traditionally starts the stretch run for the cross country season and is the last regular-season race for most teams. The men’s and women’s fields for Pre-Nationals are split into two races, blue and white, and the fields for all four races are loaded.
The gap from Tinsley and Pritt to freshmen Jordan Jenkins and Erin Mercer was a little too wide for women’s head coach Laurie Henes’s satisfaction. McKenna could bridge that gap nicely. McKenna turned in strong times in cross country and track a year ago in what proved to be a breakout season, but missed the first two races this fall while nursing a back problem. Henes doesn’t expect McKenna to be in peak form for Pre-Nationals, but believes that the experience will prove beneficial down the road.
“She’s probably not 100 percent ready as far as her conditioning, but she’s close and she’s healthy enough to run,” Henes said. “She’s been training for several weeks now. Having her run this week should help her when we line up for the conference meet in two weeks. If she gets back to where she was last year, then our lineup is definitely stronger.”
Henes will round out her young lineup with sophomores Lauren Bishop and Tiayonna Blackmon, and freshmen Julia Kick and Leah Vaughn.
The Women’s Blue Race includes No. 4 Oregon, No. 6 Stanford, No. 7 Iowa State, No. 11 Florida State, No. 13 Georgetown, No. 19 Colorado, No. 24 Michigan State and No. 29 Iowa.
“We’ve run well the last two weeks in workouts,” Henes said. “We’re getting better, and getting Kara back is a plus. We have some young athletes who’ve run really well in workouts but haven’t done it in the races yet. We’re waiting for the light to go on for them. They’ve shown that they’re capable.”
The men’s field includes 18 teams ranked in the latest U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association national polls, including NC State at No. 21. Eight teams in the top 10 are in the field. The women’s races include 19 ranked teams and seven teams in the top 10.
NC State’s men and women both were assigned to the blue races. The Wolfpack men will line up for the Men’s Blue Race at 11 a.m., and will face competition from No. 2 Northern Arizona, No. 3 Alabama, No. 7 Oregon, No. 9 William & Mary, No. 14 Washington, No. 19 Butler, No. 27 Tulsa and No. 29 Cal Poly.
Wolfpack head coach Rollie Geiger’s lineup will include his two anchors, sophomore Ryan Hill and senior John Martinez. Hill was the individual winner for both the Wolfpack Invite and the Paul Short Run. Martinez finished third at the Wolfpack Invite and 11th at the Paul Short. Both were All-ACC runners a year ago. Martinez earned All-NCAA Southeast Regional honors for the second year in a row. Hill was ACC Rookie of the Year.
Rounding out the Wolfpack’s lineup will be sophomores Bobby Moldovan, Greg Dame, Brian Himelright, Geoff King, Andrew North and Thomas Peterson, and redshirt-freshman Patrick Campbell.
“This is a really tough field we’re facing,” Geiger said. “Northern Arizona, Alabama and Oregon are really strong, and William & Mary is a top 10 team that’s in our region. We need to finish first or second in the region to qualify for nationals, and William & Mary and Virginia are both really strong teams in our region. If we don’t finish first or second at regionals, we can still make it to nationals with criteria points. That makes this race especially important.”
Hill’s performances to date have been excellent, and the veteran Martinez is close to postseason form. Geiger would like to see the rest of his lineup slice their times so that the entire team runs as a tight group near the front of the pack.
“I was looking at the results of our first two races,” Geiger said. “We had a 35-second gap from one to five in the race at [the Paul Short Run]. If those guys are three through seven could average about three seconds less per mile over the five miles, then we’d be right there. That sounds easy, but it’s not easy. Still, that’s what we need to have happen.”
