Hayes, Facioni Garner USTFCCCA Southeast Region Honors
3/18/2021 5:39:00 PM | Cross Country
Wake Forest director of track & field John Hayes was named the USTFCCCA Southeast Region Men's Coach of the Year and junior Zach Facioni garnered the region’s Athlete of the Year accolade.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- After an outstanding 2020-21 cross country season by the nationally-ranked men's team that culminated in a 15th place finish at Monday's NCAA Cross Country Championship, director of track & field John Hayes was named the USTFCCCA Southeast Region Men's Coach of the Year for the fourth time in his career. Additionally, junior Zach Facioni captured the Southeast Region's Men's Athlete of the Year honor after he earned All-America accolades at the national meet with his 27th place finish in a time of 30:30.9.
This marked the Demon Deacons' best finish as a program since 1996 and Facioni is just the fourth student-athlete to capture All-America accolades. Wake Forest, who entered the meet ranked No. 2 in the southeast region and No. 21 in the national coaches' poll, qualified for the national meet for the first time since 2001.
The Deacons had the second-highest finish in the ACC behind Notre Dame, who was the runner-up to Northern Arizona. Overall, there were 250 runners who competed on Monday afternoon.
Last fall the men's program recorded a third-place finish at the 2020 ACC Championships. That was the Demon Deacons' best finish at the conference meet since 2001 and four Wake Forest student-athletes earned All-ACC honors with top-20 finishes.
Wake Forest All-Americans:
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John Hume, 1989
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Ben Schoonover, 1989
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Jon Russell, 1996
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Nolan Swanson, 1997
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Zach Facioni, 2020-21
Wake Forest NCAA Championship Finishes:
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1988 -- 14th
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1989 -- 3rd
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1990 -- 18th
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1992 -- 9th
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1993 -- 20th
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1995 -- 20th
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1996 -- 11th
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2000 -- 18th
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2001 -- 19th
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2021 -- 15th
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