Syracuse Wins Its First ACC Championship (In Men's Cross Country)

While the Syracuse football team hasn't looked overly impressive in #TheDamnACC just yet, the Orange men's cross country squad went and won a conference championship in Kernersville, N.C. this morning.

Ranked No. 14 in the nation, SU went into the 8k race as the prohibitive favorite, and did not disappoint, beating out second-place North Carolina by a 20-point margin. This is Syracuse second consecutive conference championship in men's cross country, having taken home the Big East title last season as well.

TO THE SU ATHLETICS NEWS BRIEF:

"This has been our goal all season," said Syracuse head coach Chris Fox. "We wanted to be the first Syracuse team to be an ACC champion, and we are. Being the favorite, we had a little pressure on us coming in here, but the guys responded well. I'm really proud of them. This was a great field to compete against. So many of these teams here could advance to the nationals."

SU's top performers on the day was sophomore Martin Hehir, who ran the race is just over 24 minutes (dying just thinking about that). Last year, he was the Big East's top runner. Seems like the ACC's a step-up in competition in every sport. Somehow (again, my body hurts thinking about this), NC State's Andrew Colley ran the whole thing is around 23 and a half minutes (per the ACC release), taking home the individual title.

Congrats to the Orange men's cross country team for doing Syracuse proud and winning our first ACC Championship! Here's to many more, folks!