The Virginia men's cross country team is running out of chances to make good on its lofty preseason expectations. And tomorrow's ACC championship meet in College Park, Md., is its last chance before the postseason begins.
The squad has stumbled through the regular season thus far. In the Great American Cross Country meet, they finished eighth, more than 100 points behind regional rivals William & Mary and N.C. State. At the Pre-National meet, no individual finished in the top 60, and the squad placed 22nd in a field of 35 teams.
To some extent, this slow start was expected, even self-imposed, because of what happened last year when the team raced well early in the season only to fade as it entered the latter stretches. Yet, it has been exacerbated by a rash of injuries and unforeseeable events -- such as junior transfer Soeren Lindner's visa being denied, forcing him to leave the country days before a meet.
But now it's time to race, and after entering the season with hopes of winning the conference championship, coach Jason Dunn has said the goal tomorrow is to finish among the top three.
N.C. State is the perennial conference power, as well as the defending champion. But this year the favorite is Florida State, who "could run away with it," according to Dunn. FSU's Andrew Lemoncello, who was the national champion in his native Scotland, and N.C. State's duo of Bobby Mack and defending conference champion Andy Smith all figure to vie for the individual title.
Virginia's Will Christian, though, will also be in the hunt. He finished second to Smith in last year's conference meet and has beaten him once this year.
"There are plenty of good guys," Dunn said of the men's race. "I don't expect [Christian] to win. I expect him to put himself in position where he has a good chance to win. There's a handful of guys who have a legitimate shot to win, and Will is one of those guys."
Christian's race strategy -- which he describes as "going out conservative, pushing it in the middle of the race" -- should serve him well in a race with only 90 or so runners and many hills and tight turns that figure to slow the race down.
"It should be close, but my chances are pretty good," he said.
The women's team, as opposed to the men's squad that has struggled to find a rhythm, has shown steady, if modest, improvement throughout the year. The women are looking to respond to last year's disappointing sixth place finish at the ACC championship meet.
Freshman Emily Harrison has been a consistent number one runner for the squad all year, and Dunn said he expects the same kind of performance from her this Saturday, which would put her among the top 15. Likewise, seniors Cheryl Carr and Shannon Hawrylo have been running well in practice and should, according to Dunn, place highly in the meet.
Their work will be cut out for them, however. Four conference teams -- Duke (No. 5), North Carolina (No. 7), N.C. State (No. 10) and Wake Forest (No. 16) -- are ranked, and another, Florida State, very well could be.
"Those are going to be the first six teams," Dunn said of the four ranked teams, FSU and his squad. "Our goal is to not be sixth."
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