It was a tale of two teams Saturday at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana. The 17th-ranked Virginia women battled through adversity one final time to claim 15th place while the 13th-ranked men were bogged down by a slow start and finished 21st.
The women finished with 433 points and were only 18 behind 14th-place Stanford. No. 1 Michigan State won the race with 85 points.
Graduate student Morgan Kelly was the top finisher for the Cavaliers. She was 41st, and only one spot away from nabbing All-American honors. Fellow graduate students Iona Lake and Kathleen Stevens followed in 102nd and 109th, respectively. Sophomores Cleo Boyd and Sara Sargent completed the scoring five.
A subpar start to the men’s race negated Virginia’s advantage in longer distances, and the results showed — the team scored 502 points. First-ranked Colorado captured its second of back-to-back team titles with 65.
Junior Zach Herriott led the Cavaliers with an 81st-place finish. Sophomore Connor Rog came in 84th place, and 2013 All-American Kyle King crossed the finish line in 88th place. Sophomore Thomas Madden and freshman Chase Weaverling rounded out the scoring five.
Both teams now prepare for the indoor track and field season.