By John Frierson
Staff Writer

A few days before the Georgia men’s team trotted onto the Cherokee Farms Cross Country Course in Knoxville, Tenn., for the SEC Championships on Friday, junior Conner Rutherford said there has been a mindset switch with the Bulldogs this season. They’re thinking bigger than they have in a long time.

“We may not be the team that goes and gets top three at (the NCAA Championships) this year, but if we get to Nationals, that will change how we can even recruit to begin with, and that will change how people flow through the program,” Rutherford said. “It’s like, being the start of that would be really cool.”

Georgia, which came in ranked No. 20 in the country, its highest ranking in 22 years, continued to do big things at the SEC meet. The Bulldogs continued their breakout season with a second-place finish on the 8-kilometer course, finishing behind only No. 8 Alabama. The Crimson Tide was the only squad to place two runners in the top 10 or three in the top 15, but Georgia was close behind with three among the first 16 finishers. 

Junior Ryan Olree led the way, placing ninth in the individual standings with a time of 23:34.43. Graduate Will Aitken finished 13th (23:40.32), graduate Matias Reynaga was right behind him in 16th (23:43.05), Rutherford came in 29th at 24:09.46, and graduate Oliver Smart was Georgia’s fifth scorer, placing 57th overall (24:39.47). Freshman Kristers Kudlis was the team’s sixth finisher, placing 73rd with a time of 25:06.47.

After placing 11th in the SEC meet last fall, Friday’s results, just like the team’s performances throughout the season, highlighted by winning the big NCAA Pre-National Invitational in Columbia, Mo., on Oct. 17, show just how big a leap the Bulldogs have made.

“The guys have done an incredible job,” Georgia cross country coach Adam Tribble said earlier this week. “They really have. And I think, like with what they did two weeks ago, they have taken things to a really exciting place.”

The Bulldogs opened the season by winning the Covered Bridge Invitational in Boone, N.C. Followed that by winning the FSU XC Invite in Tallahassee, Fla., and then won the Pre-National, which had numerous ranked teams in the field.

“The race is the easy bit. Training is the hard bit,” said Aitken, who transferred to Georgia from Division II Wingate, where he was part of a national championship team in 2023 and a runner-up squad in 2022.

Georgia’s resurgence has been powered by some key additions via the transfer portal and the continued development of some runners in their third season in the program, as well as the freshman Kudlis. Olree and Rutherford are juniors who have been at Georgia throughout their collegiate careers, while Aitken, Smart and Reynaga are in their first season with the program after coming in as grad transfers.

Olree was the team’s top finisher in all five meets last fall, while Rutherford scored four times. Olree has continued to set the pace for the Bulldogs this season as the team’s top finisher in every meet. The addition of the transfers has given Georgia more depth than it has had in recent years.

“They’ve done a really good job of coming together, and it’s been exciting to see the maturation that they’ve had this fall, in a short amount of time. It really is pretty special what they’ve been able to do,” Tribble said.

Aitken said one reason why he likes cross country more than track is the team nature of each meet.

“I think it’s because we’re like a team, a unit, and you’re competing for more than just yourself. We’re all out there competing as a whole team,” he said. “If you have a bad race, you’ve got to fight for your teammates.”

The SEC has five teams ranked among the top 30 in the country, so Georgia’s second-place finish was against a lot of quality competition. The Bulldogs were ranked No. 20 in the most recent U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll, their highest ranking since being No. 17 in 2003. The last time the men had been ranked at all was in 2013.

A year ago, the Georgia men placed 11th at the SEC Championships, with Olree (31st) and Rutherford (40th) giving the Bulldogs their only finishers in the top 40. On Friday, Georgia had three runners among the top 29. 

“It’s kind of cool to be setting a new standard,” Aitken said. “It’s the start of something that’s going to become really good.”

Up next for the Bulldogs is the NCAA South Regional in Huntsville, Ala., on Nov. 14. There, Georgia hopes to qualify for the NCAA Championships back in Missouri on Nov. 22.

 

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.