Sept. 9, 2017
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech men’s and women’s cross country ran their first 8K and 6K, respectively, of the 2017 regular season and had an impressive team performance to place second in both division at the UGA Golf Course on Saturday morning.
“Overall we feel really good about both teams today, their efforts were outstanding on a very challenging course against some really good programs,” head cross country coach Alan Drosky said. “For the men, Nahom [Solomon] is giving us the front runner that we’ve been needing and our strength and depth behind him is impressive. We’re disappointed though to come up just short for the win, but we got a little complacent in the middle and left ourselves with too much ground to make up. The guys will learn from that and make adjustments next time out.”
Drosky continued, “The women competed hard and looked great, particularly our top six. Mary [Prouty] showed that along with Nicole [Fegan] and Amy [Ruiz], we’re going to have a strong front three. Right behind them, we’re very solid with our next three. Georgia ran great today and dominated the race, so congrats to them. Our women will work to close the gap. It was also nice to get some good wins over the rest of the field.”
The men’s team (56 points) was led by Nahom Solomon, who finished as the lone top-10 finisher in the 8K –third overall with a 25:25.8 time.
Where the Yellow Jackets really piled up the finishes was between 11th and 30th, having 10 place in those spots. Alex Grady led the group with a 25:45.8 time (11th), while Tanner Shaw (25:50.1), Matthew Munns (25.50.4), and Mitchell Sanders (25:51.1) finished 13th through 15th, respectively.
Patrick Fleming (25:06.5) and Frank Pittman (26:07.8) placed 21st and 22nd, respectively while Christian Bowles (26.10.0), freshman Andrew Matson (26:13.9), Andrew Kent (26:17.1) and Ryan Peck (26:19.1) rounded out the top 30.
On the women’s side (49 points), Mary Prouty led all runners with a seventh-place 22:08.3 while freshman Nicole Fegans continues to perform well, finishing 10th with a 22:18.2 time.
Amy Ruiz (22:24.6) and Hailey Gollnick (22:36.5) finished 11th and 12th, respectively, before Mary Claire Solomon (22:42.5) and Haley Anderson (22:46.8), placing 14th and 18th.
Tech had one more runner finish in the top 30 as Rebecca Dow finished 25th with 23:03.3.
The cross country returns in 20 days when they travel to the Paul Short Invitational on Friday, Sept. 29 in Bethlehem, Pa. The women are slated to begin at 11 a.m. and the men are scheduled to begin at 11:45 a.m.
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