Sorry if Tallahassee sounds a bit strange as the host site for this year's Atlantic Coast Conference Cross Country Championships. After all, in recent years, the meet has more resembled the North Carolina State Invitational.
N.C. State's dominance at these championships has been nothing short of remarkable. The Wolfpack program has claimed four of the last six men's titles, and 12 of the last 14 women's titles. Today it will look to continue that trend at this year's edition of the ACC championships held at the Seminole Golf Course in Tallahassee, Fla.
The N.C. State men return four All-ACC (top 10 at the ACC championship) members from last season, headlined by the Pons brothers, Chan and Corby, who finished second and third last year, respectively. Laura Rhoads, who has already won three races this season, leads the heavily-favored Wolfpack women into the meet. A mention of a possible sweep of both team titles and individual titles, however, still brings N.C. State coach Rollie Geiger to a chuckle.
"It's an interesting goal," he said. "First and foremost of importance to us is the team titles, and secondly would be individual titles. The emphasis of this program is for everyone to run at their potential, and having said that, we will certainly be in the hunt for the individual titles."
With returning All-ACC runner Tom Becker pacing a strong contingent, the Duke men are one of several teams who could conceivably offer N.C. State a stiff challenge. Freshman Brendan Fitzgibbon's strong performance at the IC4A meet two weeks ago and senior Mike Park's wealth of ACC experience offer the Blue Devils much reason for optimism as they look to make good on their preseason goal of placing third at the ACCs.
"One of our focuses in practice this week has been if we put the pressure on N.C. State, they may fold," men's assistant coach Norm Ogilvie said. "There's a tendency when a team is a big favorite like N.C. State, they think it's going to be easy, but running five miles is not easy.
"We need to try to get three guys in the top 12; we feel that's do-able. If we do that, we can achieve our team goal [of finishing third]. We had two in the top 14 last year, and we're a better team, we really are. There's no question in my mind that we can get Becker and Fitzgibbon in the top 12. I think Tom Becker's personal goal is to be in the top five. He can run with anybody in this conference."
If there was ever an awe-inspiring warm-up act for the championships, N.C State gave it. The Wolfpack swept the top eight spots at the North Carolina Intercollegiates two weeks ago against three other ACC schools, albeit Wake Forest and Duke sent their B teams and North Carolina withheld their top runner John Cline.
"That race wasn't an indicator at all of the conference situation," Geiger said. "Carolina had ran extremely well at the NCAA preview meet, and Wake certainly showed signs of running at a high level. So I really think Carolina and Wake could win, and challenge our program."
No one has consistently challenged the Wolfpack women in the ACC since the meet's conception in 1978. In the 16 times that N.C. State has sent a team to the meet, it has won 15 times and finished second once.
N.C. State prepared for the ACCs by handily defeating both Wake Forest's and UNC's A teams at the North Carolina Intercollegiates. In that meet, State placed five runners in the top 10 despite returning only one All-ACC runner from last season-Rhoads.
"[N.C. State] has always been a very dominant distance squad," Duke women's coach Jan Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "They have a whole crop of distance runners that have really led their team and have been the dominant force since the conception of their program, and they have continued to do that, and have continued to be outstanding."
Boasting a pair of talented freshman in Beth O'Donnell and Megan Sullivan, Duke will look to improve on its seventh place showing a year ago. However, experience is not on the team's side, as five members of their eight-runner squad have never run in the ACCs.
"We really feel as though we are a much better team," Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "[Our improvement] has been shown consistently week after week, we're even stronger now than we were two weeks ago."
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