Syracuse’s Brien Bell, NC State’s Laurie Henes voted league Coaches of the Year
 
GREENSBORO, N.C. (theACC.com) – Virginia Tech senior Peter Seufer is the repeat selection as the Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Cross Country Runner of the Year, and NC State senior Elly Henes has earned ACC Women’s Cross Country Runner of the Year honors.
 
Both Seufer and Henes were individual ACC and Southeast Regional champions, and each placed among the top 10 of the NCAA Division I Championships held Nov. 23 at Terre Haute, Indiana.
 
In addition, Syracuse’s Brien Bell has been voted the ACC Men’s Cross Country Coach of the Year, while NC State’s Laurie Henes was tabbed as the ACC Women’s Coach of the Year for the fourth year in a row and the fifth time overall.
 
The ACC season honors were determined by a vote of the league’s cross country head coaches.
 
Seufer, who hails from Lynchburg, Virginia, delivered a stellar performance at the NCAA Championships, leading the men’s 10K field as late as the 8K split and eventually placing fourth at 30:40.1 – just one-tenth of a second shy of the bronze medal. Seufer’s fourth-place finish was the highest in Virginia Tech program history.
 
Seufer earlier posted a first-place time of 29:20.7 to lead the men’s 10K at the NCAA Southeast Regional in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Nov. 15. He repeated as the gold medalist as the ACC Championships at Blacksburg, Virginia, on Nov. 1, navigating the 8k course in a time of 23:42.7 that placed nearly 39 seconds ahead of the next-closest runner.
 
Elly Henes, of Cary, North Carolina, entered the 2019 NCAA Cross Country Championships as the 13th multi-year cross country All-American in NC State program history and delivered a career-best 10^th-place finish of 20:20.7 on the 6K course.
 
Earlier, Henes had claimed 2019 ACC and Southeast Regional gold medals with respective winning times of 20:37.4 and 19:48.9. Henes is just the fifth runner in NC State women’s cross country history to earn All-America honors three or more times.
 
Seufer and Henes were also named the men’s and women’s cross country Southeast Region Athletes of the Year by the USTFCCCA.

Bell, in his second season as Syracuse head coach, guided the Orange men to their sixth ACC team title in seven seasons. Syracuse placed six runners among the top 19 at the ACC Championships to finish with a team score of 68, five points ahead of second-place Notre Dame.
 
Under Bell’s guidance, Syracuse went on to place second in the NCAA Northeast Region and qualified as a team for the NCAA Championships for the 11th consecutive year. The Orange’s impressive finishes came despite missing several key runners for most of the season due to injuries.
 
Laurie Henes, in her 14th year as the Wolfpack women’s cross country head coach, led NC State to its fourth consecutive ACC championship and 25th overall. Henes’ Wolfpack placed fifth at this year’s NCAA Championships, marking the program’s fifth consecutive top-15 finish and the highest since 2016. In addition to her daughter Elly, Henes coached freshman Kelsey Chmiel to an All-America finish at the NCAA finals (22nd place).  
 
Henes, a former NC State All-American who ran on four ACC championship teams and was the conference’s gold medalist in 1991, was also recognized as the USTFCCCA Southeast Region Coach of the Year for the fourth consecutive season and the fifth time overall.