While jogging short cool-down laps in the area of their team tent, the Nittany Lions were anxiously trying to add up their individual places. The coaches told them the preliminary results were close, but waiting for the official word took 45 agonizing minutes.
After watching their fellow teammates, who made the trip to show their support, run back from the scorers table with their fists pumped in the air, the celebration began.
The No. 29 Penn State men's cross country team secured an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship after finishing second overall at Saturday's Mid-Atlantic Regional. The Lions have not appeared at the NCAA Championship since 1994, which made Saturday's race another highlight in their season.
In jubilation that senior Tyler McCandless described as a state of mayhem, the Lions jumped, hugged and embraced each other for achieving another milestone.
The Lions were led by freshmen Vince McNally and Kyle Dawson who finished sixth and eighth respectively. Seniors McCandless, John Mahoney, Dennis O'Connor and Brian Fuller rounded out the Lions' top six. With all six of their finishers placing in the top 40, the Lions edged Villanova by 11 points and finished second only to No. 10 Georgetown.
"This is huge. It's a pinnacle moment for this program," coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "It's where we want this program to be and where we want it heading and I credit both ends of the spectrum. The talented freshmen that have stepped up and run upfront for us and the hard work, dedication and commitment that the seniors have put in to see this dream all the way through."
The Lions knew heading into the race Georgetown was the clear favorite and they wanted to make their own destiny by beating out Villanova and Princeton for the No. 2 spot. From the starting gun McNally and Dawson emerged in the front and allowed their teammates to fall into positions where they could build a strong pack.
On a day where the humidity was high and parts of the course were full of ankle-deep mud, the runners used the flat two-mile loop course, which was repeated three times, as a gauge to see how they fared during the competition.
"When I was in that last loop I could see Kyle and Vince ahead," McCandless said. "I was thinking of where Villanova's guys were and where we were and how we could score points during the race. I had three guys in front of me and knew I needed to get them because that could be our trip to NCAAs or not."
McNally, who never ran a 10,000-meter race before Saturday, said after he crossed the finish line he waved Dawson through and then went aside of the course to look for his teammates.
"I was kind of getting worried when I walked back to watch the rest of the guys come through," McNally said. "To be honest, I didn't see the rest of our guys come in so I wasn't sure if we had it or not, but then someone said after we all came in that we were all around where we need to be."
McNally said the strategy entering the race was to try and put five guys in the top 25 and with O'Connor finishing 26th, the team felt it was in really good shape.
McCandless described the 45 minutes waiting for the official results as eternity. He said after completing the cool down, where they stayed close to the scorers' table, the runners didn't know how much longer they could possibly wait to find out their fate.
For their success thus far this season and the program's turnaround, McCandless said athletes from the 1994 Penn State squad as well as fans and runners from Princeton and Georgetown congratulated the team on its second-place finish and NCAA Championship qualification.
When asked to try and put Saturday's accomplishment into words, several Lions were at a loss. Words like "wow" and "historic" were stated, but McCandless put it best when he said, "It made every single mile, every 6 a.m. morning run and doing all the little things worth it. It was a remarkable day for our program."
