The Virginia men’s and women’s cross country teams opened their seasons Friday at the Virginia Tech Alumni Invitational with an opportunity to preview the course that will be used for the ACC Championships Oct. 27. Team scores were not recorded for the season-opening showcase, but both squads came away with some encouraging individual performances.
The No. 18 women put a strong squad on the starting line and showed off their depth by running in a tight pack. Coach Todd Morgan instructed his athletes to run a controlled race, since the team is not ready to peak so early in the season, and his runners came through.
The top five Cavaliers — junior Katherine Walker, graduate student Catherine White, sophomore Kathleen Stevens, senior Vicky Fouhy and freshman Audrey Batzel — all finished within 1.31 seconds of each other to take places 10 through 14. Of the nine runners in front of the Virginia group, seven were from Duke, while two ran unattached.
In the men’s race, coach Pete Watson kept out most of the top Virginia runners. He instead gave some of his middle distance specialists and emerging young talents an opportunity to display their abilities.
Sophomore Ed Schrom capitalized on this opportunity with a runner-up performance in a time of 18:30.33. The next four Cavaliers finished between 43rd and 51st places, including sophomores Jack St. Marie and Philip Todd and juniors T.J. Hobart and Anthony Kostelac. The men ran Virginia Tech’s six-kilometer course, unusual given the standard men’s distance of eight kilometers.
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