College of William & Mary Men's Cross Country

Hall enters her third season as William & Mary's head women's cross country coach in 2016-17, having already led the team to new heights in her first two years.  Hall also coaches the women's distance runners during the winter and spring track seasons, and serves as the recruiting coordinator for all six of the Tribe's nationally-recognized teams (both men and women). In her first season in 2014-15, Hall's charges won W&M's first-ever NCAA Regional cross country title, scoring 74 points to upset four more highly ranked teams and earn a third-straight bid to the NCAA Championships.  All five scoring runners finished in the top-25, led by senior Carolyn Hennessey's second-place showing.  That earned Hall honors as the USTFCCCA Southeast Regional Coach of the Year.  At the national meet, junior Emily Stites surged to All-American status after missing every race but regionals and NCAAs.  Hennessey took home dual honors as both the CAA individual champion and the Athlete of the Year, while Regan Rome was the Rookie of the Year and Hall won her first CAA Coach of the Year award.  Stites went on to qualify for the NCAA indoor championships at 5,000m, earning second-team All-America honors, and outdoors, she finished third in the NCAA 10,000m championships.  Stites was also named the CAA Athlete of the Year in track and field, and the CAA Scholar-Athlete of the Year as well. In 2015-16, Hall's efforts led to the breakout season for Regan Rome, who became the youngest women's athlete in track team history to earn All-American honors in all three seasons.  A surprise finish in the South Central region knocked the Tribe out of the NCAA cross country team championships, but Rome still advanced and finished 25th in the nation for her first All-American honor.  Indoors, she became the first W&M women's runner to ever qualify in the 3,000m after a school-record 9:09.74, and finished 12th overall for second-team All-American.  Outdoors, Rome qualified for the NCAA Championships at 5,000m, and finished seventh with a strong kick to earn first-team All-American honors.  She was named the CAA Athlete of the Year in both track and cross country (sharing the latter award with Stites, who won the CAA individual title in meet-record time) and was also the CAA Scholar-Athlete of the Year for cross country.  Hall repeated as the CAA Coach of the Year for women's cross country as well. Hall came to W&M after spending the previous 10 years in Blacksburg at Virginia Tech, first as an All-American athlete and later as an assistant coach.  Her mentorship with the Hokies included helping coach the middle-distance and distance athletes from 2012-14, when VT produced six individual All-Americans and two All-American relays.  In addition to helping develop the team training programs, Hall also helped coordinate travel, equipment, and recruiting. Hall also spent the past four years (2010-14) helping to lead the women's side of Virginia Tech's Athletes in Action (AIA) ministry.  In 2013, she volunteered on a trip to the Togolese Republic with (AIA), serving as co-leader for a team of U.S. coaches conducting track and field clinics in the West African country.   A Virginia Beach native, Hall was an All-American runner and record-setter for the Hokies, competing from 2004 to 2009.  Originally a middle-distance athlete, she ran at every distance up to the 10,000m, setting three school records and still ranking in the all-time top-five in eight events.  In the winter of 2009, Hall finished 10th in the mile at the NCAA Championships to earn All-American accolades, the first in the event for either men or women in school history.  At the ACC Championships, Hall was a four-time champion, winning the 2005 DMR and 2009 5,000m indoors as well as repeating as the 10,000m champion outdoors in 2008 and 2009.  Hall also ranks top-four at 1,000m, the mile, 3,000m, and 5,000m indoors; as well as the 3,000m and 10,000m outdoors.  She earned her undergraduate degree in marketing management in 2008, and a Master's in Health Education and Health Promotion in 2009. Hall and her husband, former All-American pole-vaulter Hunter Hall, moved to Williamsburg in the summer of 2014.  He works in the Office of University of Advancement, in addition to volunteering with coaching the Tribe vaulters.  They welcomed a son, Holden, in the fall of 2015.

Forest Braden is in his seventh season at William & Mary, serving as the head distance coach for the Tribe.  Braden is responsible for all coaching, recruiting, and administrative aspects for leading W&M's nationally-renowned cross country teams in the fall, and for the distance and middle-distance athletes during the indoor and outdoor track & field seasons.  He is the 22nd head coach of the Tribe men's team since 1924-25, and the ninth to lead the W&M women since 1977-78.   In his first year, 2017-18, Braden led the W&M men to the CAA cross country championship, sweeping the year-end awards including his first Coach of the Year award.  JP Trojan was the individual conference champion and also earned CAA Athlete of the Year honors, while Zach Skolnekovich was named the conference Rookie of the Year as seven runners were named to the All-CAA team.  During the track campaigns, Trojan was an NCAA Semifinals qualifier outdoors in both the 5,000m and the 10,000m, becoming the first Tribe men's athlete to attempt that double at the same NCAA meet, and earned CAA Track Athlete of the Year to become the first to sweep the Athlete of the Year honors since 2014.  W&M took the top four spots in the 800m at the CAA Championships behind individual champion Raul Chavez-Gutierrez, with Trojan also winning the 5,000m and Faris Sakallah completing his career with the championship at 10,000m.  In addition to Trojan, the Tribe also had Dawson Connell and Ryan McGorty both qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 1,500m.   Heading into the 2018-19 season, Braden was given charge of the Tribe's highly successful women's program as well.  His athletes swept the CAA cross country championships, and Braden became the first person in CAA history to win Coach of the Year for both men's and women's cross country in a career, much less the same season.  The Tribe had a combined eight athletes earn All-CAA honors, led by a runner-up finish for Ryan McGorty and third-place showing for Lauren Finikiotis.  On the track, Miles Owens and Ryan McGorty both earned honorable-mention All-America honors outdoors, after advancing to the national semifinals in the 800m and the 1,500m, respectively.  Both men also won CAA titles in their respective events, and Evan Goodell swept the 5,000m and 10,000m titles at the conference meet.  Owens would go on to be named the CAA Track Athlete of the Year, while Goodell earned CAA Rookie of the Year honors.  Chris Short, after finishing second in the IC4A indoor 800m in 2018, won the IC4A Championship at 1,000m during the winter indoor campaign in 2019.   The 2019 cross country season saw Braden win his fourth CAA Coach of the Year honor, after leading the W&M men to their 20th-consecutive CAA Championship.  That's the second-longest active streak in the nation, and one of just four winning streaks in NCAA Division I history that reached 20+ years.  The Tribe men had five athletes named All-CAA, and the W&M women also had a conference-best four women named All-CAA as well.   Braden came to Williamsburg after a very successful eight-year run on the other end of Route 60, at UCLA.  During his time in Westwood, the Bruins reached the NCAA Cross Country Championships six times, with the men finishing in the top-20 four times in the last five years, and the women finishing 27th in 2014 and 28th in 2016.  The 2012 men's team, his first to make NCAAs, finished 13th overall for UCLA's best finish since 1985.   Across all seasons, Braden's athletes earned a total of 16 All-America honors in his final six years, including three in cross country, nine in outdoor track and field, and the men's distance medley relay that finished seventh in the nation at the 2016 NCAA Indoor Championships.  During the 2016-17 school year, three athletes earned second-team All-America honors during the outdoor championships, including Julia Rizk in the 800m as well as Daniel de la Torre in the 5,000m and Austin O'Neil in the 3,000m steeplechase, while Ferdinand Edman took 14th nationally in cross country.   Braden has also been active in the national and international coaching ranks, serving as the men's and women's distance coach during the 2015 World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea.  He helped both select and coach the U.S. team in the middle and distance events at the international championships, including helping guide Shaquille Walker to the gold medal in the 800m run.  Braden was also the coach for elite marathoner Katja Goldring, who was ninth at the 2016 women's marathon Olympic Trials, as well as for Nick Hartle, who made three-straight USAT&F Championships in the 800m.   Before going to UCLA, Braden was an assistant at Gonzaga for the 2008-09 school year, helping begin the turnaround for the Gonzaga program.  Braden was a standout runner during his college days at Boise State, earning three All-American honors and seven WAC championships as a Bronco.  He helped lead Boise State to five WAC team championships during his career, including sweeping the indoor and outdoor conference championships his final two years.  After graduating with his degree in history in 2007, Braden ran professionally for a year with Team Indiana Elite, recording five top-10 finishes on the USAT&F championship circuit.   Braden and his wife, Shelly, reside in Williamsburg with their three cats.  

Gutridge begins his sixth year with the Tribe cross country and track and field programs in 2016-17, and has been responsible for a renaissance of the long sprint and middle distance groups.  In addition to helping coach the cross country teams and handle travel arrangements for all teams, Gutridge is also primarily responsible for coaching athletes between the distances of 400m (including hurdles) and 1,000m. Over the last six years, W&M has seen significant progress in both the hurdles and the relays, corresponding to a rise in the team's fortunes at CAA and IC4A/ECAC Championships.  In 2016, Dylan Anderson was the surprise winner in the CAA 400m hurdles, a first for the Tribe men since 2000, and earlier in the year he also became the first hurdler since 1999 to break 15 seconds in the 110m hurdles.  As a freshman in 2015, Anderson also broke W&M's freshman record in the 60m hurdles indoors.  The men's 4x400m relay, which included Troy Sevachko and Jomar Aryee, ran 3:21.87 in 2016, the fastest performance since 2003. On the women's side, in 2015 the Tribe won its first-ever ECAC relay, taking the indoor DMR with a school-record time of 11:38.50.  That's been matched by a chipping-away at the 4x400m records, which saw two of the three fastest times ever at successive CAA Championships in 2015 and 2016.  Individually, Breanna Brukalo and Ashley Woodards have both tied for the school record in the 400m hurdles at 1:01.11, with Woodards adding a CAA title in the event in 2014 and a runner-up finish in 2015.  Claire Tito followed up a spectacular 500m dash indoors in 2014 with consecutive all-conference finishes outdoors at 800m in 2014 and 2015, and Kacey Wheeler has gotten her career off to a strong start, and already ranks as the third-fastest woman in school history in the 400m dash. Before coming to W&M, Gutridge spent three years coaching cross country and track and field and teaching English at Grafton High School in nearby Yorktown, Virginia, leading the Clippers to the VHSL Boys AA State Championship in 2011, the first state title in any boys sport for the school.  Gutridge directly trained the distance, middle-distance, and hurdling athletes, and his charges responding by earning four individual and one relay state title during his tenure.  In 2010, Grafton's distance medley relay ran 10:09.40 to take seventh at the Nike Indoor Nationals, and 10:15.38 that spring to finish fourth at the world-renowned Penn Relays. Gutridge graduated from Virginia in 2007 with a degree in English, and also completed his Masters of Teaching degree that same year from UVA's Curry School of Education.  With the Cavaliers, he ran under former W&M great Jason Dunn '96 and helped UVA to a pair of ACC Championships in cross country and three NCAA Championships appearances.  On the track, Gutridge was a regular on Virginia's ACC meet squad in the distance races, and qualified for the IC4A Championships as well.  Gutridge lives in Williamsburg with his wife, Melissa, and son, Henry.

Solinsky is entering his third year on the William & Mary staff in 2016-17, after helping begin a climb back to the top of the national ranks.  Solinsky works primarily with the distance and middle-distance athletes while also helping with all training and administrative aspects of the Tribe's nationally-competitive program. In his two years with the Green and Gold, Solinsky has helped his runners regain the ranks of NCAA qualifiers and IC4A title-contenders, while retaining supremacy in the CAA.  Ryan Gousse won two-straight conference titles in the 3,000m steeplechase, and ranked 31st in the country in 2016 with his lifetime-best time of 8:47.76.  Faris Sakallah was the CAA Champion at 10,000m as a sophomore in 2015, and came within steps of winning the conference title in cross country last fall.  Freshman Riley Covert ran the team's fastest 5,000m of the year in 2016 and qualified for the USAT&F Junior Championships, where he finished 10th in the nation. In his final conference meet, Nathaniel Hermsmeier swept the 5,000m and 10,000m CAA titles in 2016, leading his teammates to five of the six scoring places in both events.  The middle-distance events saw a breakout campaign in 2016 as well.  Sophomore Dawson Connell, who was runner-up in the CAA 1,500m as a freshman to teammate Kurtis Steck, ran a 4:03.41 mile indoors and went on to third at the IC4A Championships indoors.  He carried that over to the spring, running 3:46.40 and winning the CAA crown, as well as taking second in the 800m at 1:53.  Freshman Ryan McGorty was third in the 1,500m at the conference meet, and ran bests of 1:55 and 3:51 in his first season of collegiate training. Solinsky came to W&M after seven years as a professional athlete in the highest ranks, and with three years of Division I coaching experience.  He served as a volunteer coach at the University of Portland from 2012-14, helping the Pilots men's team to a 12th place finish at the NCAA Championships in 2012 and improving to seventh in 2013.  He also spent one year as a student assistant while finishing his degree at Wisconsin. Solinsky's professional running career was the envy of most, including eight years sponsored by Nike.  He was a member of Team USA at the 2009 World Outdoor Championships, finishing 12th in the 5,000m, and was runner-up in the event at the 2009 U.S. Championships.  In 2010, Solinsky ran 26:59.60 in the 10,000m, breaking the American record by more than 14 seconds and becoming the first man not born in Africa to ever break 27 minutes in the event.  He has also broken major barriers in the 5,000m (12:55.53) and the mile (3:54.1), and ranks second all-time in U.S. history in both the 5,000m and 10,000m. Solinsky ran for the Wisconsin Badgers as an undergraduate, helping the team win the NCAA Cross Country Championships in 2005 and the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2007.  He was a 14-time All-American and a five-time NCAA Champion, winning each of his last three years indoors (2005 and 2006 3,000m; 2007 5,000m) and his last two outdoors (2006 and 2007 5,000m).  Solinsky won four individual Big Ten titles, and helped Wisconsin sweep the Big Ten team championships in every season all four years. He graduated from Wisconsin in 2007, with a degree in history.  Solinsky and his wife, former Badgers pole vaulter Amy Dahlin, live in Williamsburg with their daughter, Ayla, and two dogs.