Members of UNC’s non-travel team competed Saturday at the Adidas Three Stripe Invitational at the WakeMed Cross Country Course in Cary. The varsity squads took the weekend off to prepare for the NCAA regional, which begins Friday.
Neither team raced enough runners to tally a team score — there need to be five runners for each team to have a score — but Coach Mark VanAlstyne said he was happy with the individual results.
“We really wanted to get a look at some of our athletes that were both redshirting and running here unattached, as well as athletes that didn’t make the travel squad for the ACC meet,” he said. “I thought they acquitted themselves really well.”
Redshirt sophomore Mitch McLeod led the men’s team with a second-place finish overall. Seniors Braedon Koerwitz and Dan Mykityshyn both placed in the top 10, and senior Bryan Noreen finished 16th.
McLeod was the only member of the men’s team that raced Saturday who had also raced at the ACC Championship, where he finished 71st in the 8K.
McLeod said he thought the meet was a good opportunity for those who had redshirted to get a chance to compete.
“I guess as a team we did alright. This unit that ran today is kind of focused on track now, just because we’re done,” he said.
On the women’s side, sophomore Jill Hardies led the way with an eighth-place finish. Hardies redshirted last season and hadn’t raced a cross country meet since the state meet of her senior year of high school.
