Friday, November 15
Charlottesville, Va.

Wake Forest University

vs

NCAA Southeast Regional

Elise Wright
Elise Wright
Photo by: Sara D. Davis, the ACC

Cross Country Teams in Charlottesville for NCAA Regional

11/14/2019 11:41:00 PM | Cross Country

Wake Forest's men's and women's cross country teams will be in Charlottesville, Va. Friday morning preparing for the NCAA Southeast Regional meet to be run at the University of Virginia.

The women's regional race will commence at 10:30 a.m. with the men's race beginning at 11:30 a.m. ET. 

The top two finishers of each regional automatically qualify for the national championships, equating to 18 immediate team qualifiers. Four of the top individuals who do not finish on a qualifying team will also advance to the national championships. The remaining 13 at-large teams and two additional individuals will be selected by the NCAA Division I Cross Country Subcommittee. A total of 255 participants will be at the national championships.

Last year, both Wake Forest teams just missed out on advancing to the national championship.  The women's fourth place finish was the program's best at the meet since a fourth-place finish in 2005. The men's fifth place finish was the best for the program since a third-place finish in 2001.

Heading into this year's regional, the women's team is ranked fourth and the men are fifth.

Head coach John Hayes and assistant coach Ashley Botham are both excited about Wake Forest's prospects in the Regional.

"There's no team that we feel is better than everybody else, so we can finish first or we could finish back in fifth or sixth," said Hayes. "I'd be very surprised if we finish fifth or sixth. I just think the guys have prepared very well. They're really coming around nicely. The only thing we have going against us is our youth."

Throughout the regular season, Hayes and Botham have carefully to manage the team's workload.  The Deacons did not run a full line-up early in the year but as the team grew together, the performances improved, leading to what Hayes expects to be an outstanding performance in the regional.

"The course is great," said Hayes. "It's a beautiful, hilly course. Tough course but good.  It's a very fair course. It's wide enough that it allows the ability to pass. It's not a narrow course like some we've been on."

After racing an 8K during the ACC Championship last month in Blacksburg, Va., the men will transition to a 10K course for the NCAA Regional.

"I think it helps us," said Hayes. "We have geared everything towards this day. My anticipation is that we're going to have our best race. When you look at the conference meet, I think that day was the best day for Wake Forest cross country in at least a decade, close to two decades. I'm hoping we follow through the same way this weekend. Two years ago, the women finished fifth and the guys finished sixth but that was a huge jump for the men and a little jump for the women. But who we beat and how we did it, I just think it was really a good day."

The men's line-up will feature first team All-ACC selection Zach Facioni and second team All-ACC honoree Jack Tiernan along with Carter Coughlin, Brent Bailey, Aaron Las Heras, John LePino, Joaquin Martinez De Pinillos and Jonathan Velasco.

On the women's side, Wake Forest is coming off a sixth place finish in the ACC Championship.

"The goal is to finish in the top three," said Botham.  "If we finish third, we have a good shot at making the NCAAs.  Obviously, the ultimate goal is to finish in the top two because that's an automatic spot."

The women's line-up will feature Elise Wright who led the Deacons with a 14th place finish at the ACC Championship and earned second team All-ACC honors.  She will be joined by third team All-ACC pick Samantha Halvorsen along with Hannah Brookover, Johanna Schulz, Madeline Rehm, Amy Harding-Delooze, and Meredith Helton
 
 
 
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