The Ohio State men's cross country team finished 11th at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind., Nov. 21, giving the team its best finish in history.
OSU finished with a team score of 406 in the 10-kilometer meet. Wisconsin won the event in dominating fashion with a team score of 37. Arkansas finished second with 105 points and Notre Dame came in third with 178 points.
"We could have run a little better," coach Robert Gary said. "But at the beginning of the year an 11th place finish would have sounded great."
The Buckeyes were once again led by senior Brian Olinger, who finished 11th overall with a career-best time of 20:55.00 and for the second consecutive year earned All-American status.
Gary said he was pleased with the effort of his senior captain.
"Brian was the third American to finish overall and I thought he ran really well," Gary said.
Olinger also said he was satisfied with his finish.
"My goal was to finish in the top 15 and I was very pleased with how I ran," Olinger said. "I gave up a couple positions in the last 400 meters, but I was pretty pleased overall."
OSU sophomore John Ealy turned in a sound performance, finishing 71st overall with a time of 30:57. Freshman Jeff See finished strong in 93rd place with a time of 31:12. The other scorers for the Buckeyes were junior Glenn Collins and sophomore Braden Martinez, finishing 115th and 116th respectively, both with times of 31:25.
See agrees with Olinger that the finish was satisfying.
"Our goal was a top-10 finish and during the race it didn't seem like we were going to finish that high," See said. "But, we ended up finishing 11th and we were pretty happy with that."
"I thought the whole pack ran well," Gary said. "We had some freshmen and sophomores running who did a great job."
Olinger said that the Buckeyes will not complain about the finish.
"It was the best finish in program history," Olinger said. "You can always look back and say 'We could have squeezed out a few more points here or there,' but it was a great race for us."
Although Olinger will be a significant loss for OSU when next fall comes around, the Buckeyes will get everyone else back and will look to improve on this season.
"This year was a step in the right direction," Olinger said. "This team has a bright future and will have a lot of success in the years to come. The groundwork has been laid and with all the freshmen and sophomores, this team will be great next year and especially in 2007."
See, who will be one of the top returning runners next year, believes that the team can equal the results of this year.
"It is tough to tell how good we will be next year and some of it depends on the freshman coming in and how good they can be," See said. "I think we can be as good as this year and it just depends on how things work out."
Gary agrees that there is a lot of potential on next year's team.
"A top-10 finish next year is definitely our goal," Gary said. "We want to break into that top echelon."
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