Cross Country Concludes Fall Season at ACC Championships

Friday, October 30

Cary, NC

10:00 AM

Pitt

ACC Cross Country Championships

Men's 8K Results Women's 6K Results

10/30/2020 2:56:00 PM | Cross Country

Men's 8K Results Women's 6K Results

CARY, N.C. – The University of Pittsburgh men's and women's cross country teams concluded their 2020 campaign on Friday morning at the ACC Championships at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C. Seniors Ally Brunton and Zach Lefever were the highest Pitt finishers in their respective races.

The Pitt men were able to improve one spot from a season ago as they collected a 10^th place finish with a team score of 282 while the Notre Dame men were able to claim the title in the 8K race with a team score of 40. On the women's side, the Pitt women finished in 14^th place for the second straight season with a team total of 406 while the NC State women collected their fifth straight ACC title with a team score of 47.

MEN'S 8K RECAP
The Panthers had a strong start to the race on Friday as Zach Lefever and Marc Migliozzi were able to head into the 1.1k split in first and third place overall while Evan Addison and Josh Higgins also positioned themselves inside the top-30.
At the next split, Migliozzi and Lefever fell back to seventh and 15^th place, respectively while Higgins and Addison were able to secure top-40 position in the talented field.

After the 5K mark, the Panthers began to slip back into the pack as Lefever was able to cross the finish line with the best finish on the squad for the second straight season as he posted the 39^th place finish in 24:10.2. Freshman Luke Henseler had a very consistent race in his first ACC Championship appearance as he crossed the finish line in 44^th place with an 8K personal record time of 24:12.7. Henseler became the highest Pitt freshman finisher in program history as the previous freshman best was 50^th place.

Migliozzi posted an 8K personal record time of 24:19.3 as he finished in 53^rd place overall while Higgins and Addison each finished inside the top-100, finishing in 88^th and 91^st place respectively. The freshmen duo of Sam Otis and Ethan Maher finished off their first championship meet in 106^th and 109^th place, respectively.

"On the men's side, the expectations were high and Luke Henseler ran a solid race to become our highest placing freshman at the ACC Championships," said cross country coach Brad Herbster. "We put ourselves in contention early in one of the deepest ACC meets on the men's side in a long time but we slid during the 5^th K and we never recovered. This was a season with a lot of lessons learned for the men's team."

WOMEN'S 6K RECAP
Brunton capped her strong senior season with a career-best showing at the ACC Championships as she crossed the finish line in 54^th place in a season-best 21:23.2. She improved by over 60 spots from last season while also pacing the Panthers for the third time in three meets this season.

Freshman Sadie Carey-Tharp was the second Panther to cross the line as she posted an 88^th place finish with a 6K personal record time of 22:07.6. Sophomore Lily Robertson was next for Pitt as she finished in 105^th place in 22:42.4 while the freshman trio of Olivia Zambrio, Reagan Flannery and Veronica Sanchez made their championship debut with top-125 finishes, respectively.

"This was a learning curve meet for the women's team as I knew we would have some challenges with so much youth in our lineup," stated Herbster. "Ally Brunton hung in there but we needed to make sure she had a lot of company and our gap from one to five was too much time to overcome."

This marked the Panthers' final race of the shortened 2020 campaign with the NCAA Cross Country Championships set to take place in March of 2021.

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