Wolfe Leads Bounce-Back Effort For Tar Heels After Disappointing Nuttycombe Result

By Ricky Quintana for DyeStat

Photo by David Hicks

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - North Carolina’s Parker Wolfe took individual honors and led the Tar Heels to the men's team title Friday morning at the Atlantic Coast Conference Cross Country Championships at Apalachee Regional Park in moderate 67 degree temperatures and high humidity conditions (99%).

Wolfe, second here last year, waited patiently as no one put any daylight on the field in the early stages of the race. A 4:26 first mile didn’t phase anyone as a group of 58 were still together at the 2.2k mark. By 5k, North Carolina’s Alex Phillip, a John Carroll University transfer, was at the helm leading the pack through 14:35.2 as the pack dwindled to 16. 

For Phillip, he was just following the plan that Tar Heel head coach Chris Miltenberg had mapped out for them.

“Milt wanted us to go to the front. He wanted us to make it honest,” Phillip said. “We knew we had the strength and the training to do it. He instills a large amount of confidence in us every day in training, practice and the way we talk to each other, ourselves and our teammates. We just executed perfectly.”

Phillip was joined at the front by junior teammates Wolfe and Ethan Strand who gave the Tar Heels the lead over Syracuse 53-79 at the 5k mark. It was a far cry from what they experienced at Nuttycombe Invitational two weeks ago where they finished 10th, 148 points behind Syracuse, third in that national field.

“We had a rough Nuttycombe a couple weeks ago, and we just used that as a really good learning point. We had a couple guys really struggle and came back and bounced back really well here,” Wolfe said.  

Senior Jake Gebhardt, an Indiana transfer, and freshman Gitch Hayes had the two biggest turnarounds in the two weeks since Nuttycombe. The two shadowed the top three the entire way and lowered the1-through-5 spread to 56 seconds from the 1:35 spread they had at Nuttycombe.

“Jake had a great race, ” Wolfe continued. “So I mean, it's just learning from our mistakes over and over. And, you know, when we take what we learn and use it in a race like this, it's only gonna get better.”

Wolfe looked the best of the group heading into the final loop and with the final hill looming. He kept pressing the pace before he made a big surge up the final hill to give him a substantial lead over Syracuse’s Paul O'Donnell.

“We thrive on tough courses,” said Wolfe. “This wasn’t the toughest course, but the one hill we had, we took advantage of it and hammered up the top and over the top. We’ve been practicing this all year and it came to fruition.”

Wolfe’s move was decisive and gave him a huge cushion over O’Donnell as they finished in 23:03.1 and 23:08.2. It took away the sting from last year where Wolfe was just 0.2 seconds from the title. Their times were the ninth and eleventh fastest times on the 8k ARP course.

“This course is eerily similar to the one last year where you know, you got the hill right at the end. It turned out that practice pays off.”

It was the first men’s individual title for a Tar Heel since John Cline won in 1997. 

The Tar Heels’ 56-second spread and four in the top 10 was too much for Syracuse. From 4k on, the Tar Heels maintained their lead for the final margin of 49-65. It was their first team title since 1985.

“It was another big step forward for our guys today,” said Miltenberg, in his fifth year as head coach. “It was a total team effort. There were four guys in the top nine, which was great, and our fifth man was really coming in at the end and our sixth man was really good. That’s how we knew we had a good deep team. The big thing we talked to the guys about was run the heck out of the second half of the race. They were really in charge that second half of the race.”

For Syracuse, it was a bittersweet second place. The Orangemen had some bad luck with Assafa Harari suffering a hamstring injury and Alex Comerford falling. Harari was able to finish in 26th, but Comerford wasn’t able to finish.

“We fought hard out there, but had a little bit of bad luck,” said O’Donnell of their team’s second-place finish. “I’m really proud of all the guys. We ran well and we ran hard, but it wasn’t enough on the day. It’s a little disappointing.”

O’Donnell had a great showing, improving on his 22nd place showing from last year. Two weeks ago, he was 19 seconds behind Wolfe and five seconds behind David Mullarkey, who finished third in 23:11.5. He hung with the group and withstood Wolfe’s surge over the final 2k, but in the end came up a bit short.

“He made a few moves. I was expecting the hill was going to be where he made his final one. I tried to hang in and I held on a little, but he got the gap. Parker is an unbelievable athlete so just to be within a few seconds of him is a big step forward for me so I’m happy with that," O'Donnell said.  

The meet marked the final ACC Championship before California, Stanford and SMU are added in 2024. The Tar Heel men became the second team from the original school members to claim the ACC men’s team title in the past 13 years.