Junior Gary Martin stole the show Friday morning at the ACC Cross Country Championships in Cary, N.C. Martin navigated his way through the men’s 8k to claim the ACC title in 22:17.6, becoming just the third Cavalier runner to win the event and setting a meet record in the process. Both the Cavalier men and women landed in fourth place overall.
“Obviously, a great performance by Gary Martin,” Vin Lananna, director of track and field and cross country, said. “His time and the way he ran it, and there are good people in this competition so to win is a phenomenal step up.”
Friday was uncharacteristically warm for the first day of November, with the temperature sitting around 70 degrees. Despite working through a significantly hotter climate than its last time out at the Panorama Farms Invitational, Virginia was undeterred.
With 158 runners ready to go, the men’s race kicked off at 9:30 a.m. Just after the 1k mark, Martin and junior Will Anthony were, as usual, close together in seventh and eighth place, respectively. Senior Jack Eliason was in 25th, and senior Wes Porter, junior Nathan Mountain, junior Justin Wachtel and a few other Cavalier runners were scattered from 25th to 40th.
Martin later moved up into fourth, positioning himself next to North Carolina senior Parker Wolfe a little beyond the 2k point. Wake Forest senior Luke Tewalt was in pole position at that time, but by the 5k mark, Tewalt and another Demon Deacon runner fell behind an emerging front pack of Martin, Wolfe and North Carolina senior Ethan Strand. Anthony had also moved up a couple places into sixth, just a touch behind Tewalt.
In the final stretch, it was Martin by himself. In just 22:17.6, the junior crossed the finish line far ahead of Strand and Wolfe, who came in with times of 22:25.5 and 22:29.8, respectively. Anthony and Mountain were the next two Cavalier finishers, as Anthony picked up fifth place in 22:34.2, and Mountain placed 19th in 23:00.2. Both runners, along with Martin, earned All-ACC honors for finishing in the top 21.
After Mountain came five seniors — Andrew Jones placed 31st, Eliason 38th, Porter 41st, Jacob Hunter 52nd and Scott Sikorski 57th. Wachtel claimed 60th and freshman Jimmy Wischusen finished in 107th. The men’s team finished fourth overall with 94 points, as Wake Forest took the team title with 60 points.
The women’s 6k began shortly after, with 168 runners competing. It was a slow start for Virginia, as senior Jenny Schilling was in 25th after 1.1k, and senior Margot Appleton was a few places behind in 28th.
However, by the 2k mark, the Cavaliers began to climb. Schilling moved into 17th and Appleton into 19th, while senior Sophie Atkinson was in 36th, and senior Camryn Menninger sat in 51st. Schilling and Appleton’s trajectory continued into the 3k point as Schilling moved up to 11th position and Appleton ascended to 16th. Atkinson passed eleven runners, moving into 24th place.
Towards the end of the race, a shift occurred. Appleton passed Schilling and seven other runners, advancing all the way up to seventh place. Schilling and Atkinson fell back into 14th and 33rd, respectively.
Appleton, returning for her first race of the season after working back from injury, maintained her seventh place position as she crossed the finish line in 19:44.0. Schilling finished in 14th with a time of 19:52.7, joining Appleton with All-ACC recognition. Menninger’s time was 20:22.9 with a solid 33rd place finish. Atkinson finished in 47th in 20:31.1, and sophomore Tatum David finished less than nine seconds later in 51st.
Freshmen Stella Kermes and Sarah Peer finished in 77th and 78th. Sophomore Cate DeSousa finished in 96th, freshmen Tatum Olesen in 137th and senior Luci Ilnicki-Lambert in 143rd. Notre Dame won the women’s championship, followed by Stanford, North Carolina and then Virginia in fourth. NC State, the reigning women’s champion, placed 5th.
“Our women did a really great job,” Lananna said. “In particular, Margot Appleton coming back in her first race this season and to be seventh in the ACC in a really strong competition is a great performance. She is just going to get better every week. I was excited about how the women ran.”
Although a couple of Cavaliers put together strong individual performances, highlighted by Martin’s win and Appleton’s impressive return, Virginia regressed from its performance at last year’s event, where both the men and women finished in third. The Cavaliers do not look like they will contend for the team national title this year, but Martin has put the country on notice ahead of the NCAA Cross Country Championships Nov. 23.
Before then, the next event for the Cavaliers is the NCAA Southeast Regional in Rock Hill, S.C. The races will take place Nov. 15.
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