NC State women’s cross country wins third straight national title without No. 2 runner
Time to rename N.C. State women’s cross country team to the WWWolfpack after it won a third straight national title.
The Pack (123 points) defeated Northern Arizona (124) by one point, the closest team finish in NCAA history.
N.C. State became the third program to win three consecutive women’s cross country titles. Stanford was the most recent team to earn the accomplishment, winning from 2005 to 2007. This is the only Pack program to win three straight titles.
The team did it without No. 2 runner Kelsey Chmiel, who was out of the championship due to an injury.
Despite missing Chmiel, Wolfpack head coach Laurie Henes said in a TV interview that the team never felt like it was “out,” and embraced the challenge. Every coach last year talked about preferring the underdog status, she said. Running without one of its best athletes put N.C. State into that category, even with two previous championships.
She had a clear message for the team, though: Nothing changes, even without Chmiel’s absence.
“I told them, ‘Don’t change anything,’” Henes said. “We’re not going to change the way we run, and they didn’t. Every one of them stuck to their race plan. We just said, ‘You’re gonna have to fight like hell at the end and stay tough,’ and every one of them did that.”
Senior Katelyn Tuohy fell short of a second straight individual title, but she led N.C. State with a fifth-place finish (19:23.0) and received All-America honors for the fourth time. Tuohy reportedly suffered from an illness leading up to meet, yet managed to lead her program to victory.
Junior Amaris Tyynismaa and senior Sam Bush finished in 25th and 28th, respectively, clinching All-America recognition.
Tyynismaa finished with a time of 19:55.3, while Bush crossed the finish line in 20:00.7 after pushing past 14 other runners in the final kilometer.
Last season, Bush finished just outside of the cutoff for All-America honors.
“Just like last year, I heard I was in 40th, just out of All-American, and I was like ‘I have to go. I cannot get 40th if we’re going to win,” Bush said.
Henes expressed pride in her squad and everything it did to achieve the feat. She said her younger runners performed like upperclassmen, thanks to the example of veteran runners. In fact, true freshman Leah Stephens’ time of 20:08.2 was a difference maker in the race.
“There’s just been so much adversity in the past few weeks, and we talk about it a lot, being able to manage your emotions and the stress at this time of the season. They just did it remarkably today,” Henes said. “I’m overwhelmed with the people that came out here and had amazing races today.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2023 at 12:22 PM.
