CARY, N.C. – The Stanford men’s and women’s cross-country teams compete in their first Atlantic Coast Conference Championships, on Friday.
The first race at Wakemed Soccer Park is the men’s 8-kilometer (4.97-mile) at 6:30 a.m. PT, followed by the women’s 6K (3.73-mile) at 7:30 a.m. PT. The races will be televised by the ACC Network.
This will mark the first time the Stanford cross country team has raced in the state of North Carolina.
The Stanford men enter as the top-ranked team. Stanford is No. 5 nationally in the USTFCCCA coaches’ poll, followed by No. 7 Wake Forest, No. 10 Notre Dame, No. 12 Syracuse, No. 13 North Carolina, and No. 16 Virginia. The field is 17 teams.
The Stanford women are No. 15 and fourth among ACC teams. Other ranked teams in the women’s field are: No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 10 North Carolina State, No. 13 Florida State, No. 19 North Carolina, No. 21 Virginia, No. 23 Syracuse, and No. 30 Boston College. The field is 18 teams.
This is the beginning of the postseason for Stanford. The NCAA West Regionals follow on Nov. 15 in Colfax, Washington, and the NCAA Championships are Saturday, Nov. 23, at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Verona, Wisconsin.
Stanford competed in the Pac-12 (and its predecessors the Pac-10, and Pac-8) since 1969 in cross country.
The Stanford men won Pac-12 team championships the past two seasons and three of the past four. Overall, the Cardinal men have won 17 conference championships.
Of Stanford's 12 individual conference titles, three have come in the past three years: Charles Hicks won in 2021 and 2022, and Ky Robinson won in 2023.
The Stanford men return six of the 10 runners that won the 2023 Pac-12 title, including five of the top seven. Of the six returnees, five are expected to compete. Cole Sprout is Stanford’s top returner from that meet, placing third the past two years.
Sprout was the ACC Cross Country Performer of the Week on October 23, and Paul Bergeron earned Freshman of the Week honors, both for their performances at the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals. Bergeron is actually a two-time ACC Freshman of the Week this season.
The Stanford women were second in the Pac-12 in 2023 to Washington. Stanford’s most recent conference title came in the spring of 2021 and the Stanford women have won 21 conference team championships overall.
Stanford has won 16 conference women’s individual titles, including a Pac-12 championship by freshman Amy Bunnage last year.
The Stanford women return six of 10 from their 2023 Pac-12 lineup, including four of their top seven, though last year’s Pac-12 champion, Amy Bunnage, has yet to race this season. Besides Bunnage, Riley Stewart is the top returner from the 2023 Pac-12 meet, placing 17th.
Sophomore Sophia Kennedy and graduate student Zofia Dudek have been Stanford’s top two runners in each of the team’s three races. Dudek was the ACC Performer of the Week on Oct. 1 after finishing second in Missouri’s Gans Creek Classic (with Kennedy third) and Kennedy earned the same honor on Sept. 3 after winning the USF Invitational in San Francisco (with Dudek second).