The Emory cross country teams closed out the 2019 season Saturday at the NCAA DIII National Championships. The meet was held at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Kentucky.
The 19th-ranked men's team finished in 17th-place out of 32 teams with a total of 400 points. No.-3 ranked Pomona-Pitzer claimed first-place by registering 164 points as a team, while second-ranked North Central (Ill.) finished as the runner-up after accruing 182 points. Williams, the top-ranked team in the country entering the competition, found itself in third-place as it came up just a single point shy of tying North Central for second. Washington University (193 pts.) and Johns Hopkins (208 pts.) rounded out the top five teams.
Junior Jack Whetstone, recognized by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association as the NCAA South/Southeast Regional Male Athlete of the Year earlier in the week, raced to a 14th-place finish out of 279 participants, clocking a time of 24:44. His performance in the 8K allowed him to earn All-America honors, just the seventh Eagle to ever to earn that distinction and the first to do it since 2009 when Charlie Meade produced a 12th-place effort.
Behind Whetstone, junior John Cox turned in a time of 25:22, which was good enough for 86th-place. The next Eagle to cross the finish was sophomore Brett Lucas, who used a 25:25 to take 94th-place. Junior Matt Dillon covered the course in 25:49 and found himself in 158th-place. Junior Egan Kattenberg (25:50, 160th-place) and sophomore Jon Marcus (26:38, 255th-place) wrapped up the scoring for Emory. Patrick Watson, a senior out of Stevenson, won the men's individual title in Louisville by recording a time of 24:13.
The women's team came into the competition ranked as the 26th-best squad in the nation and ended its season with a 22nd-place performance out of 32 squads. Johns Hopkins and Washington University finished first and second. Hopkins ended the day with 125 points, which was 13 points better than Washington's final total. Williams took third-place and totaled 168 points. The University of Chicago (208 pts.) and Carleton (210 pts.) concluded in fourth and fifth-place, respectively.
The Eagles were paced by junior Carrie McIntyre for the first time this season, as she came up with a final 6K time of 22:54 to take 102nd-place. Junior Susie Martin ended up in 135th-place after she clocked a time of 23:05. Freshman Leah Clark was the 158th runner to cross the finish and did it in 23:15. A pair of juniors rounded out the scoring for Emory as Abby Durfee and Anna Morris turned in times of 23:26 and 23:38. Durfee earned 189th-place, while Morris came in 205th. Freshmen Shana Fitzmaurice (24:30) and Annika Urban (24:40) also competed for Emory. Sophomore Parley Hannan took home the individual title in the women's race with a blistering time of 20:53.