North Carolina State University Athletics
Cross Country Begins 2009 Season Friday
9/17/2009 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
RALEIGH, N.C. — The college cross country season opens Friday for NC State. The Wolfpack Invite kicks off at 4 p.m. at the Wake Med cross country course in Cary. The college men’s race starts at 4 p.m., followed by the women’s college race at 4:30. Both races will be 5k races.
Through the years, NC State cross country has been synonymous with excellence. The Wolfpack men’s and women’s cross country teams have combined to win 35 ACC championships, including 12 by the men since 1991 and 18 by the women since 1983. The women have had 10 indivudal ACC champions and three NC State women runners have combined to win five individual national championships. The men have had 10 individual conference champions. The program has produced 63 All-Ameircans since 1977, 24 men and 39 women. Both programs will look to continue that tradition on 2009.
The Women
Women’s head coach Laurie Henes had a potentially standout team a year ago. Unfortunately, most of the top performers on that team were in street clothes and redshirting for various reasons.
The return to the lineup of several key athletes, especially fifth-year senior and two-time all-conference performer Brittany Tinsley, should give the Wolfpack a signficant boost.
Looking ahead to the heart of the schedule, especially the Paul Short Invitational, the NCAA Pre-Nationals and the ACC Championships, Henes anticipates a lineup led by the threesome of Tinsley, redshirt-junior Kara McKenna and sophomore Emily Pritt, who began to blossom last fall as a true freshman, then ran for the USA Junior team at the World Cross Country Championships last winter.
“Brittany and Emily are both running really well, and Kara should run at that level when she gets back in the lineup,” Henes says. “That gives us a really strong front three. We have a number of athletes after that who are competing for the remaining spots in the lineup. There’s a pretty significant gap between those three and the next group, though, and a big key for us is going to be finding a way to close that gap.”
Tinsley returns as a legitimate All-America candidate. Two years ago, she was the Wolfpack’s top runner in two of four races. She earned All-ACC with a fifth-place finish at the conference meet, and all-regional with a ninth-place finish at the NCAA Southeast Regional. In 2006, she ran ninth at the ACC meet and 10th Southeast Regional.
Pritt was the Wolfpack’s leading runner in four of five races a year ago, then ran for the USA Junior Cross Country team in the Cross Country World Championships. McKenna had a strong 2008 season, but it was as an unattached runner while she redshirted. She won the Wolfpack Invite by nine seconds, then ran a strong third at both the Pirate Invitational and the Pack Invitational.
For the Wolfpack Invite, Henes will take advantage of Tinsley and Pritt’s experience to help bring the younger runners along.
“We’re trying to keep our younger athletes in a pack running together,” Henes says. “We want to use this race to help them understand the pacing and timing necessary to do that. Brittany and Emily will run up front and set a pace that our freshmen and sophomores hopefully can maintain.”
The group behind Tinsley, Pritt and McKenna goes about seven deep. They will vie for four remaining spots in the lineup come postseason. Three from that group lined up at various times last year. Lauren Bishop and Andie Cozzarelli ran in all five of the Wolfpack’s main races last season. Erika Alpeter ran at the NCAA Pre-Nationals. All three were true freshmen in 2008.
A fourth freshman from a year ago, Leah Vaughn, is a redhsirt-freshman now and has been impressive in preseason workouts. Three true freshmen — Jordan Jenkins, Julia Kick and Erin Mercer — also have caught the eye of the coaching staff with strong preseason workouts.
“All of our freshmen from last year have looked better than they did a year ago,” Henes said. “And Leah Vaughn has taken a huge leap forward. We have several freshmen who look good, and I expect that we’ll run them in races in uniform them this season.”
NC State cross country has long-established season goals, which do not change: 1.) Win the conference championship; 2.) Finish first or second at the NCAA regionals to qualify for the NCAA Championships; and 3.) Finish in the national top 10.
No team in the ACC can boast of the tradition and history in cross country that NC State has, but as the conference improves each year, the competition gets better and better. On the women’s side, 10 ACC programs are ranked in their respective regions by the USTFCCCA. The Wolfpack is ranked No. 4 in the Southeast Region, behind three ACC opponents.
“The conference just keeps getting stronger and stronger,” Henes said. “Florida State finished in the top four nationally the last two years, and Virginia is really strong, as are several other teams.”
The Men
A casual fan might take a look at the NC State men’s cross country roster and conclude that head coach Rollie Geiger has a very young team on his hands.
That’s not a difficult conclusion to draw. After all, the Wolfpack has just one senior — two-time All-ACC performer John Martinez — and no juniors. That leaves seven sophomores and 10 freshmen. That generally qualifies as young.
Geiger, however, doesn’t share that view. The venerable Wolfpack coach, now in the 28th year of what has been a Hall of Fame career, points out that six of his seven sophomores and four of his freshmen have redshirted a year. Between cross country and indoor and outdoor track, they have more experience than a typical freshman or sophomore.
“There’s more experience there than first appears,” Geiger says. “Third-year individuals are really juniors, but we usually redshirt them for development purposes. And between cross country and the two track seasons, there’s lots of time to develop athletes. So there’s more experience here than it appears. It’s a group of young men that I’ve really enjoyed working with over these first four weeks. At this date, I see some really positive signs.”
Clearly, Martinez will be the leader of this year’s team. Now in his fifth year in the program, Martinez easily could be a three-time all-conference runner, but was caught in a numbers game with the Wolfpack’s 2006 ACC championship team, a team so deep that Martinez was unable to crack the starting lineup.
The last two years, Martinez has been a rock. He finished fifth at the ACC Championships a year ago, and his 49th-place finish at the NCAA Championships was not that many seconds away from earning All-America status.
“John’s a special kid, a gifted athlete,” Geiger says. “We were so deep when he was a freshman that he didn’t have an opportunity to get into the lineup, but he was a national champion in the steeplechase in high school and a Foot Locker All-American in cross country. He was all-conference and all-regional the last two years. He’s running at a very high level.”
Two years ago, Bobby Moldovan redshirted as a true freshman, then ran that winter for the USA Junior team at the World Cross Country Championships.
This past season, Ryan Hill ran as a true freshman for the Wolfpack, earned All-ACC honors and was the conference’s Rookie of the Year. Hill followed in Moldovan’s footsteps in running for the USA Junior team this past winter. Also a true freshman a year ago, Patrick Campbell redshirted and was invited to the USA Junior Trials.
Those three — Moldovan, Hill and Campbell — will join Martinez to form a four-man nucleus for the Wolfpack this season.
“When you put those three out there with John, you have a nice front four,” Geiger says. “They’ve got experience and talent, and it’s a nice nucleus to start with.”
The remaining three spots in Geiger’s lineup should come from a talented group that includes redshirt-sophomores Greg Dame, Geoff King and Andrew North, along with true freshmen Robert Andrews, Andrew Colley and Zakariya Roshdy.
Geiger set the goals for the NC State cross country program many years ago, and the goals never change: Win the conference championship; finish in the top two at regionals and qualify for the NCAA Championships; and finish in the top 10 at the NCAA meet.
The Wolfpack has dominated the conference for nearly two decades, but the competition gets stronger every year. This year, Florida State begins the year ranked in the national top 25, and Virginia, Duke, Virginia Tech, Clemson and North Carolina all join the Wolfpack in the Southeast regional rankings.
“To win the conference, you need three guys to finish in the top 10, maybe four, and you need five contending for all-conference, which is the top 14,” Geiger says. “Two years ago we had three guys in the top 10 and six of the top 13, and we still lost. We scored 39 points, which is good enough to win the conference easily almost any year. So you never know what it’s going to take.
“I like our team, but the conference keeps getting stronger. Virginia won last year and they have all but one guy back. Duke is very strong, and Florida State is really good. So it won’t be easy.”
Through the years, NC State cross country has been synonymous with excellence. The Wolfpack men’s and women’s cross country teams have combined to win 35 ACC championships, including 12 by the men since 1991 and 18 by the women since 1983. The women have had 10 indivudal ACC champions and three NC State women runners have combined to win five individual national championships. The men have had 10 individual conference champions. The program has produced 63 All-Ameircans since 1977, 24 men and 39 women. Both programs will look to continue that tradition on 2009.
The Women
Women’s head coach Laurie Henes had a potentially standout team a year ago. Unfortunately, most of the top performers on that team were in street clothes and redshirting for various reasons.
The return to the lineup of several key athletes, especially fifth-year senior and two-time all-conference performer Brittany Tinsley, should give the Wolfpack a signficant boost.
Looking ahead to the heart of the schedule, especially the Paul Short Invitational, the NCAA Pre-Nationals and the ACC Championships, Henes anticipates a lineup led by the threesome of Tinsley, redshirt-junior Kara McKenna and sophomore Emily Pritt, who began to blossom last fall as a true freshman, then ran for the USA Junior team at the World Cross Country Championships last winter.
“Brittany and Emily are both running really well, and Kara should run at that level when she gets back in the lineup,” Henes says. “That gives us a really strong front three. We have a number of athletes after that who are competing for the remaining spots in the lineup. There’s a pretty significant gap between those three and the next group, though, and a big key for us is going to be finding a way to close that gap.”
Tinsley returns as a legitimate All-America candidate. Two years ago, she was the Wolfpack’s top runner in two of four races. She earned All-ACC with a fifth-place finish at the conference meet, and all-regional with a ninth-place finish at the NCAA Southeast Regional. In 2006, she ran ninth at the ACC meet and 10th Southeast Regional.
Pritt was the Wolfpack’s leading runner in four of five races a year ago, then ran for the USA Junior Cross Country team in the Cross Country World Championships. McKenna had a strong 2008 season, but it was as an unattached runner while she redshirted. She won the Wolfpack Invite by nine seconds, then ran a strong third at both the Pirate Invitational and the Pack Invitational.
For the Wolfpack Invite, Henes will take advantage of Tinsley and Pritt’s experience to help bring the younger runners along.
“We’re trying to keep our younger athletes in a pack running together,” Henes says. “We want to use this race to help them understand the pacing and timing necessary to do that. Brittany and Emily will run up front and set a pace that our freshmen and sophomores hopefully can maintain.”
The group behind Tinsley, Pritt and McKenna goes about seven deep. They will vie for four remaining spots in the lineup come postseason. Three from that group lined up at various times last year. Lauren Bishop and Andie Cozzarelli ran in all five of the Wolfpack’s main races last season. Erika Alpeter ran at the NCAA Pre-Nationals. All three were true freshmen in 2008.
A fourth freshman from a year ago, Leah Vaughn, is a redhsirt-freshman now and has been impressive in preseason workouts. Three true freshmen — Jordan Jenkins, Julia Kick and Erin Mercer — also have caught the eye of the coaching staff with strong preseason workouts.
“All of our freshmen from last year have looked better than they did a year ago,” Henes said. “And Leah Vaughn has taken a huge leap forward. We have several freshmen who look good, and I expect that we’ll run them in races in uniform them this season.”
NC State cross country has long-established season goals, which do not change: 1.) Win the conference championship; 2.) Finish first or second at the NCAA regionals to qualify for the NCAA Championships; and 3.) Finish in the national top 10.
No team in the ACC can boast of the tradition and history in cross country that NC State has, but as the conference improves each year, the competition gets better and better. On the women’s side, 10 ACC programs are ranked in their respective regions by the USTFCCCA. The Wolfpack is ranked No. 4 in the Southeast Region, behind three ACC opponents.
“The conference just keeps getting stronger and stronger,” Henes said. “Florida State finished in the top four nationally the last two years, and Virginia is really strong, as are several other teams.”
The Men
A casual fan might take a look at the NC State men’s cross country roster and conclude that head coach Rollie Geiger has a very young team on his hands.
That’s not a difficult conclusion to draw. After all, the Wolfpack has just one senior — two-time All-ACC performer John Martinez — and no juniors. That leaves seven sophomores and 10 freshmen. That generally qualifies as young.
Geiger, however, doesn’t share that view. The venerable Wolfpack coach, now in the 28th year of what has been a Hall of Fame career, points out that six of his seven sophomores and four of his freshmen have redshirted a year. Between cross country and indoor and outdoor track, they have more experience than a typical freshman or sophomore.
“There’s more experience there than first appears,” Geiger says. “Third-year individuals are really juniors, but we usually redshirt them for development purposes. And between cross country and the two track seasons, there’s lots of time to develop athletes. So there’s more experience here than it appears. It’s a group of young men that I’ve really enjoyed working with over these first four weeks. At this date, I see some really positive signs.”
Clearly, Martinez will be the leader of this year’s team. Now in his fifth year in the program, Martinez easily could be a three-time all-conference runner, but was caught in a numbers game with the Wolfpack’s 2006 ACC championship team, a team so deep that Martinez was unable to crack the starting lineup.
The last two years, Martinez has been a rock. He finished fifth at the ACC Championships a year ago, and his 49th-place finish at the NCAA Championships was not that many seconds away from earning All-America status.
“John’s a special kid, a gifted athlete,” Geiger says. “We were so deep when he was a freshman that he didn’t have an opportunity to get into the lineup, but he was a national champion in the steeplechase in high school and a Foot Locker All-American in cross country. He was all-conference and all-regional the last two years. He’s running at a very high level.”
Two years ago, Bobby Moldovan redshirted as a true freshman, then ran that winter for the USA Junior team at the World Cross Country Championships.
This past season, Ryan Hill ran as a true freshman for the Wolfpack, earned All-ACC honors and was the conference’s Rookie of the Year. Hill followed in Moldovan’s footsteps in running for the USA Junior team this past winter. Also a true freshman a year ago, Patrick Campbell redshirted and was invited to the USA Junior Trials.
Those three — Moldovan, Hill and Campbell — will join Martinez to form a four-man nucleus for the Wolfpack this season.
“When you put those three out there with John, you have a nice front four,” Geiger says. “They’ve got experience and talent, and it’s a nice nucleus to start with.”
The remaining three spots in Geiger’s lineup should come from a talented group that includes redshirt-sophomores Greg Dame, Geoff King and Andrew North, along with true freshmen Robert Andrews, Andrew Colley and Zakariya Roshdy.
Geiger set the goals for the NC State cross country program many years ago, and the goals never change: Win the conference championship; finish in the top two at regionals and qualify for the NCAA Championships; and finish in the top 10 at the NCAA meet.
The Wolfpack has dominated the conference for nearly two decades, but the competition gets stronger every year. This year, Florida State begins the year ranked in the national top 25, and Virginia, Duke, Virginia Tech, Clemson and North Carolina all join the Wolfpack in the Southeast regional rankings.
“To win the conference, you need three guys to finish in the top 10, maybe four, and you need five contending for all-conference, which is the top 14,” Geiger says. “Two years ago we had three guys in the top 10 and six of the top 13, and we still lost. We scored 39 points, which is good enough to win the conference easily almost any year. So you never know what it’s going to take.
“I like our team, but the conference keeps getting stronger. Virginia won last year and they have all but one guy back. Duke is very strong, and Florida State is really good. So it won’t be easy.”
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