Eagles Arrive in North Carolina To Compete With The Best

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. -- By Matt Kerr's estimations, getting the Boston College men's cross country team to the ACC Championship was going to be a huge success. The 2020 season threw everything humanly possible at the Eagles, but they still stood tall. A year that started later than usual due to COVID-19 obliterated their schedule, yet after two meets, the team are set to compete at the conference championship meet in Cary, N.C. on Friday.

Regardless of anything else, that was a huge victory for Kerr and the Eagles for the 2020 season.

"It was challenging to get this team up and running (this year)," Kerr said. "We were back two to four weeks (later) than every other ACC school, and even when we got back to campus, there were delays in getting guys through the hoops of (physical) testing. We didn't have the full squad until mid-to-late September with 100 percent of everyone, and that didn't get us back together until right before the first meet."

For BC, competing in the ACC Championship is a previously-unthinkable accomplishment after the challenges posed by the pandemic. The team couldn't train as a larger group like it did in past years. The chaos took any semblance of normalcy or redundancy with it and left Kerr with a team that would essentially train in scattered surroundings. They couldn't gather as a large group, a central component to the team's typical runs around the Chestnut Hill reservoir, and the required social distancing threatened the team atmosphere at the heart of Boston College's close-knit team culture.

The Eagles turned that threat into an opportunity. They bonded together instead of fracturing and renewed their sense of purpose as a collective unit. They ran and challenged each other while separated into smaller groups and they built new layers to that team culture. They bonded over the shared struggle and turned any negative threats into positives.

"We hit Army and Syracuse with almost no preparation," Kerr said. "We used that as an opportunity to train and to get a hard effort, and that's how we looked at it. We took our lumps against a very good Syracuse team and a solid Army team, but we just wanted to get better. Seven days later, the FSU trip was a whirlwind. We were gone for 36 hours total, and our first give guys ran personal bests for 8K across the line.

"The guys understand that this fall is both a challenge and an opportunity," he said. "They just want an opportunity to compete."

It drew a clear trajectory of what would happen when the team could focus with clear intentions. Ben Ruffing finished 11th in the Battle of Beantown with a 25:39 time, but he chopped nearly a half-minute off of his finish when he placed 22nd at the Florida State Invitational. Sophomore Edward Tristine cut more than a minute off of his finish time in the two meets and crossed the line in Tallahassee with teammate John Seiberlich, who debuted into competition with a 46th place finish.

"We developed a lot of trust and leadership within the team," Kerr said. "Top to bottom, everyone has to play a role in how we develop, and we can't just run around the corner and not put out a hard effort. The expectations are that we have to train hard, with individual motivation. We've done a really good job with it, and it's helped. It will continue, too, with the leadership within the team."

It has the Eagles poised to create noise in the league meet in North Carolina. In an individual sport, the team can point to individual performances as a delimiter for the team's collective goal. A runner like Ruffing, who wasn't on the travel team two years ago, has a chance at an All-ACC finish in the top 21 spots if he can push to the finish line fast enough, and the same culture that pushed him to heights is the same one lifting his younger teammates.

"Ben ran a handful of races in two years," Kerr said, "and then, as a junior, he made a leap to become our number one runner. He scratched the surface and developed over track seasons right up until this fall. He has all kinds of potential. If he wants to risk and put himself out there, he can do very, very well. It's not out of the question to consider him as All-ACC, which is top 21, and it would be a huge leap. Any improvement to that goal would be huge, and he's willing to roll the dice to go for something big.

"He's been a great example for this team," he continued. "The rest of the team looks to him as a leader, but they see an example of what they can do either this season or in the future. We have young guys on the team and a really good sophomore class, and there's representation. It's just a big opportunity to take a big step forward."

BC hasn't registered a positive COVID test this season in a testament to its runners' dedication to each other and to safety, and they understand the protocols in place as they prepare for their largest meet of the season. The preparations are a level playing field across the conference, and it's a building block for when the runners can step on the line against the nation's best.

"The first victory before anything is that none of our guys have tested positive within cross country or the track team," Kerr said. "We've made that a challenge to the group to make sacrifices outside of training. Right now, though, they're just excited to get down (to North Carolina). They'll be able to purely focus on a competition without distractions. The other ACC schools are testing in the same manner, so we can really just get out there on the start line, take a deep breath, and focus.

"These are nationally-ranked programs, and there isn't a place to hide," he continued. "There isn't one year over another where it's more or less challenging. They're all challenging, but we want to test ourselves against the best in the country. We've made it. We've gotten this far, and we're healthy and strong. We're ready to go."

The ACC Men's Cross Country Championship will be broadcast on Friday, October 30 from Cary, N.C. The meet can be seen online via the ACC Network Extra with live results available via TheACC.com. Additionally, a recap show will be televised on ACC Network on November 8 at 7 p.m.

Eagles Arrive in North Carolina To Compete With The Best

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Players Mentioned

Ben Ruffing

Edward Tristine