TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Vanderbilt women’s cross country team placed ninth at the NCAA South Region Cross Country Championships Friday, and the men’s team earned 16th place on the course at Apalachee Regional Park.
“This year, the athletes stepped it up a notch, understanding the standard and working to meet the standard,” director of cross country and track and field Althea Thomas said. “It was evident in how the ladies performed with our seniors Ellie [Wolski] and Julia [Rosenberg] running collectively to be the front runners, and as a team, finishing ninth, an improvement from last year’s 12th. It was a culmination of putting it all together and sustaining the length of the season and going after it.”
The Commodores were paced by Rosenberg on the women’s side and Michael Skora on the men’s.
Rosenberg came in 38th, clocking 20:44.0. Wolski was less than a second behind, finishing 39th with a time of 20:44.7. The third Commodore finisher, Claire Petersen placed 51st overall and ninth among freshmen with a time of 21:01.8. Ella Lambert (67th) and Gigi Clifford (76th) were the Dores fourth and fifth finishers turning in respective times of 21:19.4 and 21:35.8.
On the men’s side, Skora placed 68th overall and top 15 among freshmen with a time of 31:47.6 in his first-ever 10k. Following him was Brady Bliven who finished 74th with a career-best time of 31:54.7. Mitchel Drees and Patrick Ford crossed the line next for the Dores in 90th and 96th place with personal-best times of 32:17.6 and 32:32.0, respectively. David Song rounded out the Vandy men’s scoring with an 111th place finish and a time of 32:53.5.
“The hardest job in any college realm of cross country and track is the guys’ cross country meets going from 5k in high school to 10k at a championship like this,” Thomas stated. “Our guys are actively going after it, not backing away from the discomfort of pushing themselves, and it’s only going to show up down the line. They say it takes a while to become an overnight success, and Vanderbilt is definitely en route to become an overnight success.”
Fans can follow Vanderbilt’s men’s and women’s cross country on Instagram and X/Twitter at @VandyXCTrack.
