The Virginia cross country team got its first taste of competition this season on Saturday when it ran in the annual Lou Onesty Invitational at Panorama Farms. After changing sites from Darden Towe Park to Panorama, the Invitational was the first outing on the new course for the men's and women's teams, which both finished second in the meet and had individual winners.
Leading the way for the men was freshman Will Christian, who completed the course in 25 minutes, 26 seconds to win by slightly more than a second over Aaron Rich of William & Mary. The Tribe also captured the next five spots in the men's competition to secure the victory. Cavalier junior Pat English gave a strong performance, finishing ninth in 26:28.
"I was very happy with our first meet, my first race," Christian said. "It's early in the season and hard to tell where I'll be, but I hope to be a top three runner on the team."
"It was awesome for [Christian] to win his first college meet," Virginia coach Jason Dunn said. "I had mostly freshmen and sophomores running, but our top five were fairly close."
Dunn, who is in his second season as head coach, held out top runners for both the men's and women's teams in order to break in some of the younger runners and rest several experienced competitors for upcoming races.
Virginia junior Sharon O'Connor led the women's race, capturing the victory in 18:45 in her first cross country meet ever. She participated in track in high school and in her first two years at Virginia but has red-shirted in cross country until this season because of injury.
After the race, O'Connor admitted that running longer distances was new territory for her.
"I got a good summer of training in, and I actually surprised myself," O'Connor said. "My strategy was to go out and run with the front group."
Throughout the race, O'Connor traded positions with her chief rivals and managed to pull ahead of Christopher Newport's Aimee Gibbs by two seconds at the end. The next three runners were all from William & Mary, and finished within eight seconds of Gibbs. Virginia freshmen Jessica Ellis and Ashley Seaton finished not far behind - seventh and eighth, respectively.
As a sign of optimism for the Cavaliers, Dunn said, "The girls that followed [O'Connor] up were three freshmen, two sophomores, and William & Mary ran most of their good kids."
Though she never ran on the old course at Darden Towe Park, O'Connor added that many of the other runners agreed that the new site at Panorama Farms was a tougher course.
Dunn, Christian and O'Connor all emphasized the lofty team goals Virginia hopes to achieve in the upcoming season.
"We're aiming for top three in the ACC for both the men and women, and we want to get them to the NCAA nationals," Dunn said.
The teams almost accomplished those goals last year when both finished just three points away from qualifying for the national meet.
In retrospect, Dunn is positive and said he is very excited to have the bulk of the season in front of him.
"For the first couple of weeks we're all pretty much together," he said. "I really feel like we are all on the same page"
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