OSU women finished seventh at the NCAA Championships behind fifth-place North Carolina State and sixth-place MI.
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The story of the regional meet, however, was CSU sophomore Darby Gilfillan’s continued emergence as one of the team’s best runners.
Redshirt senior Shaun Thompson is set to represent Duke Saturday, November 21 at this year’s running of the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, held on the E.P. “Tom” Sawyer State Park course in Louisville, Ky. That comes on the heels of earning All-America honors during the indoor and outdoor track seasons this past academic year.
“We’d have probably been pretty happy finishing second to [Coach Mark] Wetmore and Colorado, because they’re awesome”, Fox said.
Following Tiernan’s lead was the two-man finish of seniors Rob Denault (Aurora, Ont.) in 77th place (30:46.1) and Jordy Williamasz (Melbourne, Australia) in 214th place (32:17.1), respectively. “Interesting fact: Five years ago Cali, Karis and I all qualified for Nike Nationals as individuals together”.
Meanwhile, New Mexico is the overwhelming favourite to lift the women’s title, despite suffering a rare defeat to No. 2 Colorado at the NCAA Cross Country Mountain Regional in the last outing.
For starters, the entire team is headed to Wisconsin on Saturday (11/21) for the NCAA D3 Championship. “But with this year’s team, we’ve got a good mix of youth and experience to hopefully get top 20”.
The women’s team did not qualify for the national meet, but freshman star Carolina Johnson received an individual invitation after placing 11th at the NCAA West Regional. “She ran with a lot of guts and a lot of confidence”, said CSU head coach Art Siemers following Friday’s meet.
“I would say it’s fair that we are the (men’s) favorites, but I don’t think we are the prohibitive favorites”, Wetmore said.
The men’s and women’s cross country teams were both victorious at today’s IC4A/ECAC Championships in the Bronx, while Tait Rutherford competed at the NCAA Championships today in Louisville.
“She’s got to stay within herself… but you don’t want to see her back of the pack of the first 40 girls”, Harbour said, “when she knows she could be up there a little higher”.
And now, she seems to be peaking at the right time. It is something quite special when a school sends both its men’s and women’s teams to the biggest stage in DIII cross country.
Jack Boyle led the way, coming through as the top finisher in the meet.
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“I thought our teams ran very tough under very miserable conditions”.
