The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1476803
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 ■ 43 2021 Cross Country The sustained excellence of the NC State women's cross country program includes the six most recent ACC championships and 27 league titles overall. Ranked No. 1 in the nation going into the final col- legiate meet of the 2021 season, the Wolfpack won the school's first national team title in any sport since 1983 by taking first place at the NCAA Championships in Tal- lahassee, Fla. 2020-21 Swimming And Diving After years of putting together successful men's and women's swimming and diving teams, with individual successes here and there, head coach Braden Holloway's women's team broke through in a big way en route to a program-best No. 2 overall finish at the 2021 NCAA Championships in Greensboro, N.C. Junior Sophie Hansson swept the two breaststroke events, winning the first individual titles in school history, and was the second leg in two national championship medley relay teams, the first relay championships in school history. In all, the 2021 team brought home five national titles, thanks to Katharine Berkoff's win in the 100-yard backstroke. 2021 Tennis For the first time in school history, the Wolfpack women's tennis team reached the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament, recording a 4-2 win over No. 3 Georgia to advance to the semifinals. No. 2 seed and eventual national champion Texas ended NC State's run with a 4-0 victory. The Wolfpack was listed No. 6 nationally in the final ITA Division I team rankings, a program best, and four players earned All-America honors, also a program best. — Tim Peeler Class-A state championship, as did the softball team that spring. The basketball team, however, finished second. For two years, Yow coached all three sports, but it quickly became obvious the women's athletics program needed to be expanded even more. Against Casey's wishes, Yow hired Finch to be her top basketball assistant and the vol- leyball coach. Finch went on to become the first full-time women's athletics adminis- trator at an ACC institution. She later became the league's senior associate commissioner for women's sports. The transition to a coed varsity pro- gram wasn't completely smooth, espe- cially for the Olympic sports — men's and women's — that were always scratching for a bigger piece of the ath- letics budget. Pat Hielscher, the full-time volleyball coach hired to follow Yow and Finch, resigned in protest in 1982 following her fourth season when volleyball scholar- ships were cut from 6.5 to 4. Because of that and other perceived slights, she accused Casey of not sup- porting women's sports. Others, however, felt he had managed the transition in the first decade fol- lowing Title IX as well as any leader in the country. The women's cross coun- try team won back-to-back AIAW na- tional championships in 1979 and '80. Julie Shea and her younger sister Mary were stars of those teams, along with future gold medal-winning Olympic marathoner Joan Benoit. Julie Shea won seven individual national champion- ships in her career. When the NCAA became the govern- ing body for women's athletics in 1981, long-distance runner Betty Springs won the first women's NCAA cross country championship ever contested and added another national title in 1983. For 31 years, Finch represented NC The Wolfpack outpaced BYU to claim last year's cross country crown. It was the school's first team national championship in a women's sport since the NCAA took over as the governing body for collegiate women's athletics in 1981. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS