Friday did not yield the ideal result for the Cavaliers out at Panorama Farms for the NCAA Southeast Regional. Despite coming into the race ranked first in the region, the men failed to automatically qualify for NCAA Championships as a team –– finishing in third as a whole. The women, too, did not automatically qualify as a team, coming in at fourth.
While they did end up punching a ticket in the secondary selection process, for both teams it was a clear regression from last year’s performance, when the men won the Southeast Regional and the women placed second. The setback is especially notable given that this year’s race was on Virginia’s home course.
With regards to the men’s race, the shift from the 8k to the 10k has not tended to favor Virginia runners –– senior Gary Martin, in particular, who tends to be stronger at the 8k –– but this is still in contrast to last year’s team, which was largely made up of the same runners.
Martin still placed well, coming in at fifth with a time of 29:37.5. Two places behind him was graduate student Brett Gardener at 29:43.8. Crossing the line in 13th was senior Justin Wachtel in 29:55.8. The three of them earned All-Region honors for placing in the top 25. Behind them, graduate student Nicholas Bendtsen placed 32nd, while sophomore Adam Balewicz placed 38th.
The largest issue for the men was how spread out their top five runners were compared to last year. At NCAA meets, the top seven runners from a team technically score, but the main score is derived from the placement of the first five of those runners. The other two can be used as a tiebreaker and also to offset the score of other teams.
At Regionals last year, the top five men were in places from eighth to 26th in a 8-9-18-19-26, but this year it was from fifth to 38th, placing 5-7-13-32-38.
The women’s team’s placement was not overwhelmingly surprising since it was fairly consistent with their fifth-place finish at ACCs this year. Last year, their top two runners, who are now alumni –– Margot Appleton and Jenny Schilling –– were incredibly important to their score, nabbing fifth and sixth place spots.
Junior Gillian Bushée had a strong finish, taking tenth place in the 6k with a time of 19:42.2, and junior Tatum David clocked in at 19:47.3. Wrapping up the All-Region honors winners for the Cavalier women was sophomore Stella Kermes in 19th in 19:58.0.
Junior Cate DeSousa and sophomore Tatum Olesen rounded out Virginia’s main scorers, respectively placing in 44th and 51st.
Overall, the women placed about as well as they were expected to, and David and Kermes both claimed their first All-Region honors.
The men, on the other hand, seemed unable to run as cohesively as they had two weeks ago at ACCs. They did have to deal with an increase in mileage, unlike the women, but that same shift last year with a largely similar team did not create a worse performance, in fact, last year they placed fourth at ACCs, only to win Regionals.
Saturday, the women’s and men’s teams were chosen in the secondary selection process for Championships, where 14 additional teams were selected outside of the 18 automatic qualifiers from the various NCAA regions. It was particularly likely that the men’s team would nab a spot, but it certainly would have been preferable to have automatically qualified like last year.
This was also the fourth consecutive year both teams have qualified for NCAA Championships. The men’s team had been ranked 4th in the NCAA prior to Regionals, but they now will have to work to pull off a more coordinated response if they want to translate that into placing as well as or close to that at Championships.
Capping off the 2025 cross country season, the Cavaliers will head to NCAA Championships which will take place Saturday in Columbia, Mo.
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