The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1545830
JULY/AUGUST 2026 ■ 43 BY MATT HERB F or the past few years, coach Lau- rie Henes has been inspiring her NC State women's cross country team with a phrase borrowed from NASA. Before races, she'll tell her athletes to be "responsible to the element and ac- countable to the mission." In other words, perform your part of the job to the best of your ability, and never lose sight of the ultimate objective. "You have to control what you can control individually for the team to ac- complish its mission," Henes explained. "That's always our message. Run with your teammates when you can, support each other, but take care of what you need to take care of and be accountable for that, so that the team can have the success we want." Leave it to NASA to engineer a state- of-the-art motivational slogan. Not only is it useful for putting rockets into orbit, it also helped Henes' Wolfpack get focused ahead of the team's biggest race of the year. Last November, NC State secured the program's fourth NCAA crown in the past five years, finishing with 114 points at the Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo., to edge BYU (130) and Oregon (153). On the heels of its latest title-winning performance, Henes' squad is The Wolf- packer's Female Team of the Year. And a large part of its success is because every- one was entirely mission-focused. The Pack wasn't in the mix for the individual title in 2025 like it had been in previous years, but it boasted a pair of top-six fin- ishers in seniors Hannah Gapes and Grace Hartman, and it got gritty efforts from all seven of its runners at nationals. Gapes was NC State's top finisher, placing fifth overall with a time of 18:51.3, while Hartman was close behind in 18:52.6. Sophomore Bethany Michalak placed 29th in 19:14.9, junior Angelina Napoleon was 40th in 19:22.7, and true freshman Sadie Engelhardt was the team's final point-scorer, placing 51st in 19:32.4. Gapes exemplified the Pack's deter- mination. She was in 27th place after the first 2 kilometers but had moved up to 17th at the halfway point. By the final ki- lometer, she was running alongside Hart- man and ultimately finished a little over a second ahead of her teammate. "We all do this for each other," Gapes said amid a joyful scene in the post-race media tent. "We train together every day, and we have so much fun doing it. Today, we just grinded, and that's how we came out on top." For Napoleon, the race was a strug- gle. The steeplechase standout was ap- proaching the end of a long competitive year, including a summer spent on the international circuit, and she had to dig deep at cross country nationals. She had been in 16th place at the 4K mark but was fading in the race's final stages, falling 21 spots in the last kilometer. Still, the NCAA title was what mattered most. "At the end of the day, it's about getting the job done as a team," Napoleon said. "I'm glad I could be a part of that scoring group to win this title. I'm really proud of that." Track and field can be a solitary sport, but cross country is its most team-ori- ented incarnation, and NC State has reaped the benefits of Henes' all-for-one culture. In addition to its athletic success, the squad was named the 2025 NCAA Di- vision I National Scholar Team of the Year, posting a 3.60 GPA. Graduate Brooke Rauber has been part of that culture since the program's cham- pionship run started, arriving in 2021, the year NC State claimed its first title. She was the Wolfpack's sixth finisher in the 2025 race, placing 117th overall with a time of 20:02.3, and was thrilled to see the team's camaraderie yield another title. "It means so much," Rauber said. "I've seen all the championships here, and this team is definitely something special. Every single year, it's a different group, but this one really worked for each other. We've come a long way, and I'm just so proud of everyone here." ■ 2025-26 YEAR IN REVIEW TEAMS OF THE YEAR FEMALE TEAM OF THE YEAR MISSION ACCOMPLISHED NC State Returns To The Top Of The NCAA Cross Country Podium Coach Laurie Henes (second from right) guided NC State to its fourth national championship in the past five years. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS