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Inside Hokie Sports
cross country last fall. She
recorded two top-20 finishes
and her 41st-place finish at
the NCAA Southeast Regional
marked the best on the squad.
Green, a four-time All-American
in track, came in a team-best eighth at the
Virginia Tech Alumni meet and a team-best
21st at the Princeton Invite early in the fall.
But a foot injury hampered her later in the
season and Tech’s coaching staff held her out
the remainder of the year following her 70th-
place finish at the ACC Championship. The
coaches wanted to preserve her for the track
season.
Lauren Berman figures to push those
seniors as she heads into her sophomore
season. She had the best fall of the freshmen
in 2015, recording four top-45 finishes,
including a 10th-place finish at the Virginia
Tech Alumni Invite. She came in a team-best
45th at the NCAA Southeast regional to cap a
great season.
“Abby gives us some experience,” Thomas
said. “She’s had a good summer and she wants
to be a factor. Shannon has been all-region
for us in cross country before, and if she puts
it together, she could be a high finisher for
us. Hanna hopefully will come back a little
stronger in cross country this year. She ran
late into the summer because of the Olympic
Trials, but I think by the end of October, she’ll
be ready to hopefully be an all-region runner.
“Lauren Berman has had a good summer.
She was ultra consistent last year as a
freshman, which is hard to do. She moved up
in distance from high school and did a good
job and she’s had a good summer.”
Those four figure to be in Tech’s lineup on
a regular basis along with Katie Kennedy, a
rising junior who had a top-10 finish at the
Virginia Tech Alumni Invite and was a strong
49th at the ACC Championship. She stayed
in Blacksburg this summer and that allowed
Thomas to keep tabs on her training—which
went very well. Another freshman last fall,
Amanda Swaak, ran just as consistently. She
recorded top-20 finishes at the Hokie Invite
and the Virginia Tech Alumni Invite and was
49th at the ACC Championship.
Thomas expects to see more of his younger
runners emerge. Last year’s roster consisted
of 12 freshmen and most of them returned
for the 2016-17 year. Someone like Jennifer
Fleming, who battled injuries last fall, could
develop into a member of the lineup, or
Rachel Pocratsky, who ran well during the
track season in the spring and could carry
that over to the course this fall.
Also, Thomas didn’t rule out SarahEdwards,
an incoming freshman from Bellingham,
Massachusetts, as an option. She possesses the
versatility to run anything from the 800 to the
longer distances of cross country.
“We have the girls with the potential to do
it, but I won’t know until we hit the roads here
in a couple of weeks,” Thomas said.
Now in his 16th season, Thomas likes the
direction of both programs. Both possess
more quality, talent and depth than in
seasons past.
His goals for this fall are lofty—he wants
both teams to receive bids to the NCAA
Championships. That means doing well at the
ACC Championship, along with a few other
meets in which his squads will take on terrific
competition.
“Those are our goals,” he said. “Two things
need to happen. We need to be consistent
throughout the fall, which means staying
healthy and getting a lot of good work in.
Also, our leaders are going to have to lead and
our experienced people are going to have to
be very good.
“We don’t have a lot of room for error.
But if it all comes together –and we expect
it to because we’ve been good about doing
that—we hope to be at nationals.”
He and the rest of Hokie Nation will find
out just how far along this construction job is
on Sept. 2 when the Hokies open the season
at home in the annual Hokie Invite. That
marks the first of three home meets this fall.
The ACC Championship will be held on Oct.
28 in Cary, North Carolina.
CROSS COUNTRY
2016
Continued from page 43