E.C. Glass alumni and Virginia Tech senior Peter Seufer came within just a few meters of winning the 2019 XC NCAA Division I national championship Saturday. Ultimately he crossed the line in 4th in 30:40.1. He was 0.1 seconds off of 3rd place and 7.4 seconds off of the win.
His finish is Virginia Tech's highest finish at NCAA XC Nationals in school history and just the second top 10 finish by a Hokie. The only other to crack the top 10 in XC was Steve Taylor (1987) when he finished 9th. Taylor is currently the head coach of the University of Richmond.
According to the MileSplit database, he is also fifth VA college runner to finish inside the top five at NCAA nationals and now owns the third highest finish at NCAA's by a Virginia college athlete too.
What is most impressive about his performance today though is the gritty way in which he ran. Here he led almost the entire race.
At the 3K he led in 8:53. At the 5K he remained in the lead at 15:06 and at the 8K mark it was still Seufer leading the way in 24:30.
His superb finish helped Virginia Tech finish 17th overall. They were the highest finishing team from the state of Virginia.
Other top Virginia finishers were: Waleed Suliman (20th-31:09), Alex Corbett (57th-31:34), Fitsum Seyoum (58th-31:34), Peter Morris (64th-31:36), Price Owens (157th-32:24), Mathias Cannon (188th-32:50), Bashir Masavel-Lo (209th-33:21), Matthew Novak (228th-33:47), Jack Joyce (236th-34:15), and Yared Mekonnen (242nd-34:51).
