The national polls ranked the Notre Dame men and NC State women as tops among Atlantic Coast Conference teams, and both lived up to their billing with first-place showings at the 2020 ACC Cross Country Championships.
The Fighting Irish placed three runners among the top seven on Friday at the WakeMed Soccer Park course to claim their second title in three years.
Virginia’s men’s team finished fourth overall in the meet, paced by senior Rohann Asfaw, who took fourth place with a time of 23:15.
The host NC State women also had three of the top seven finishers took home the conference championship trophy for the fifth straight year and record 26th time overall.
NC State senior Dominique Clairmonte, whose blazing 5K time during the regular season netted National Athlete of the Week honors from the USTFCCCA, followed suit on Friday with a 6K time of 19:55.1 that led the field by 11 seconds.
The UVA women finished seventh, led by senior Hannah Moran, who earned her first All-ACC cross country honor at the meet, pacing the Cavaliers with an 18th-place finish.
Note Dame senior Yared Nuguse led his team’s victory with an 8K gold medal time of 23:03.6. Nuguse, whose collegiate resume includes an outdoor track national championship and multiple All-America honors, claimed the bronze medal at the 2018 ACC Men’s Cross Country Championship and was the runner-up last year.
In addition to Nuguse’s first-place showing, Notre Dame was buoyed by a bronze medal finish from sophomore Dylan Jacobs (23:12.7) and a seventh-place showing by senior Danny Kilrea (23:27.4). Freshman Joshua Methner placed 11th at 23:30.1.
Following up on his bronze medal finish last year, NC State’s Ian Shanklin took the men’s silver medal on Friday with a time of 23:08.5.
Along with Asfaw’s fourth-place finish for UVA, the Cavaliers had grad student Randy Neish cross the finish line with a career-best time of 23:28.8 for eighth place to record his highest finish at the conference championships.
Virginia senior Harry Monroe also recorded a career-best time at the race, running a 23:33.3 to finish 13th overall.
The top 21 finishers in both the men’s and women’s field earned All-ACC honors.
“The watchword for the entire program is improvement,” said Vin Lananna, the director of track & field and cross country/associate athletics director of administration at UVA. “Three guys in the top 13, which is fantastic. Twenty-five points in the three. I think it’s a good example of a team that is on the improved mark. The women were piles ahead of last year. The women ran tough throughout the race and as we continue to improve, we’ll see next year will be a completely different story.”
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Chris Graham
