For North Carolina cross country runner Mariana Lucena, Saturday’s course was a familiar one.
Lucena, a native of the Sunshine State, raced on the University of Florida’s Mark Bostick Golf Course in high school.
With a fourth-place finish out of 208 runners in the 5K, Lucena led the Tar Heel women to a second-place finish in front of her friends and family at the Mountain Dew Invitational in Gainesville, Fla.
Headed by sophomore Jake Hurysz’s time of 24:54 in the 8K course, the UNC men settled for a hard-fought third-place finish, just one point behind Florida and five shy of first-place Michigan.
While neither team managed to take home a win, assistant coach Ryan Vanhoy said unfortunate circumstances made victory more troublesome than anticipated.
“Pat Schellberg didn’t run because of a foot injury that came up a couple days ago,” Vanhoy said. “Missing one of our top guys up front, we didn’t have enough firepower to take the top spot.”
UNC’s women were no less burdened.
A stomach cramp about a mile into the course forced senior All-American Kendra Schaaf out of the race.
“I was pleased with our performance,” Lucena said. “But I just know if we’d had Kendra, we would have won.”