The ASU cross country team concluded its season at the NCAA West Regionals in Springfield, Ore., a few weeks ago, with both teams failing to garner an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships.
The meet marked an abrupt end to a disappointing season for the Sun Devil harriers. The men fell just short of sneaking into the national tournament as one of the last at-large bids, while the women saw their streak of 12 straight NCAA Championship meet appearances snapped.
“You can't flick the switch and rely solely on talent,” ASU coach Louie Quintana said. “This is also a coaching thing. We should never have to be in this position of not making the NCAAs. It’s recruiting, but it’s also having 100 percent buy in. That's got to change.”
Both the men and women found a front runner to lead them this year in redshirt senior Ben Engelhardt and junior Lindsay Prescott, but ultimately ASU couldn’t close the gap between its lead harriers and the rest of the pack.
“We were kind of disappointed,” Prescott said of the women’s finish at Regionals. “We were hoping to go out with a bang.”
Lack of mental focus also hindered the Sun Devils all season long, as time and time again the results from competition did not add up to the tough training that ASU was putting in at practice.
Prescott said that accountability was also a problem for the women, who were brimming with talent yet never able to put it all together during an actual race.
“Everyone says that they’re going to run on their own [time], but they never do,” Prescott said. “We definitely know what we need to work on as a team.”
Quintana agreed with Prescott’s sentiments and added that although ASU had many of the right pieces in place, the final product was not a good indication of the team’s true talent.
“Right now, we have just enough women who are not putting forth the effort and it’s taking away from the group,” Quintana said.
Quintana was slightly more optimistic about the results of the men’s season.
“The men ran fifth in a tough region with five walk-ons,” Quintana said. “This is the most talented women’s roster we have ever assembled, and it turned out to be the most underachieving team in 15 years.”
The men had their best showing of the year in a regional meet stacked with many of the nation’s top programs, but ultimately fell short in their goal of making it back to nationals.
“We thought we did about everything we could, and it was really impressive to have a team performance we were actually proud of,” Engelhardt said. “Obviously, it was real frustrating.”
Engelhardt, who ran well enough in Oregon to gain all-region honors and qualify for the NCAA Championship meet as an individual, remained humble in light of his personal success this season.
“I felt quite lucky,” Engelhardt said. “It gives me a lot of confidence heading into track season.”
Engelhardt finished 51st overall at the Championship meet Monday with a time of 30:37.1.
Quintana said that Engelhardt exemplified the hard-nosed mentality of the men, something he will enjoy being around again next season.
“I love the culture we have created within the men’s group, where the value is on dedicated lifestyle, hard work and competitive grit,” Quintana said.
As for the women, ASU must re-evaluate and learn from the failures of this year.
“I think we can build off this season,” said Prescott. “There were some good things to take away from it, and some bad.”
Reach the reporter at kyle.j.newman@asu.edu
