Dylan Sorensen - Cross Country Coach - University of North Carolina Athletics

Dylan Sorensen
University of North Carolina Cross Country
Wolfpack Invite
Wake Med Cross Country Course
Cary, NC
Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

Dylan Sorensen

Title:
Assistant Coach (Distance)
Email:
coachsorensen@unc.edu

Dylan Sorensen, a two-time steeplechase All-American and professional triathlete, joined the Tar Heel staff in July of 2019 as an assistant coach focusing on distance events. In July of 2021, he was promoted to head coach of the women's cross country team.

In his first season as head coach, the Tar Heel women placed second at the 2021 ACC Championships, the highest finish since 2014 and three spots higher than the previous year. For the second year in a row a UNC runner was the ACC Freshman of the Year, with Brynn Brown winning the women’s honor. She was joined on the All-ACC Team by Paige Hofstad, Kelsey Harrington and Sasha Neglia.

The Tar Heels placed 14^th at NCAA Championships for the second year in a row. Brown led the way, placing 65^th.

Brown, Neglia and Natalie Tyner were named to the 2021 All-ACC Academic Team.

The success of 2021 followed a 2020 season in which Sorensen led the Tar Heel women to their most successful campaign in more than a decade. Carolina finished 14th at the NCAA Championship meet in the program's first team appearance since 2014. In UNC's highest finish since 2010, senior Paige Hofstad placed 29th and became the first Tar Heel since 2013 to earn All-America honors. Two UNC first-years also had outstanding performances in their first NCAA Championships, with Sasha Neglia (46th) and Kelsey Harrington (61st) both among the top four true freshmen in the field.

Neglia was the Atlantic Coast Conference Freshman of the Year, UNC's first since 2014 and third in school history, in recognition of her sixth-place finish at the conference championship meet. She led the Tar Heels to a fifth-place finish, the team's best since 2015 and just seven points out of third place.

In the spring, eight women's distance competitors qualified to run at the NCAA Outdoor Preliminaries in Jacksonville, Fla.

UNC’s distance runners have excelled academically as well, with Hofstad earning Academic All-District honors and joining Neglia, Harrington and Will Coogan on the All-ACC Academic Team.

Sorensen has proven himself to be an outstanding recruiter, bringing in a signing class in Fall 2020 that was ranked the No. 1 men’s and No. 2 women’s distance classes in the nation. Seven athletes in the class earned Gatorade Cross Country Player of the Year honors in their home states.

Prior to joining the Tar Heel family, Sorensen helped UNC Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Chris Miltenberg make Stanford's distance program one of the best in the nation.

After Sorensen’s arrival in July 2017, Stanford men's distance runners earned six individual NCAA top-four finishes on the track and a second-place finish by the 2019 distance medley relay team indoors. Sorensen coached two Cardinal runners to NCAA titles — Sean McGorty in the 5,000 meters at the 2018 NCAA Outdoor Championships and, most recently, Steven Fahy in a dramatic 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships.

In just two years with Stanford, Sorensen coached an astounding 44 student-athletes to All-American finishes — four NCAA All-American individuals in women’s cross country, six in men’s cross country, eight in women’s indoor track, 12 in men’s indoor track, seven in women’s outdoor track and six in men’s outdoor track. The success of the distance program helped Stanford to eight NCAA top-10 finishes out of the 12 team finishes between his first cross country season and his final outdoor track season.

Sorensen also helped lead the men’s cross country team to back-to-back Pac-12 team titles and coached both men’s cross country individual Pac-12 champions in 2017 and 2018. Prior to Fahy’s 2019 NCAA title, Sorensen also coached Fahy to consecutive conference titles in the steeplechase at the 2018 and 2019 Pac-12 Championships.

Stanford’s student-athletes also excelled in the classroom under Sorensen’s leadership. Nine Stanford men earned a spot on the Pac-12 All-Academic cross country team in 2018 and 11 in 2017. Fisher was the Pac-12 Men's Cross Country Scholar-Athlete of the Year in both 2017 and 2018 while Tai Dinger was named second-team CoSIDA Academic All-American in 2017.

Before coming to Stanford, Sorensen simultaneously competed in international triathlons and served as the Marketing Manager and Professional Athlete Liaison with Major League Triathlon, a pro-team organization that played a vital role in adding another medal event — the Mixed Team Relay — to triathlon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Sorensen was recruited by USA Triathlon to its Olympic Development Team with an eye toward the 2020 Olympic Games. He was ranked in the country’s top-10 professional triathletes during his time competing from 2014-2017.

Sorensen also served as a volunteer assistant triathlon coach at Queen's University in Charlotte, which has a fully-funded varsity triathlon program, during the 2016-17 academic year.

Sorensen and Miltenberg both ran at Georgetown for longtime coach Pat Henner -- Miltenberg graduated in 2003, and Sorensen graduated in 2013 and ran an additional season while earning his master's in Sports Industry Management.

Sorensen, a native of Zionsville, Ind., was the 2014 Big East Conference champion in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and captured the ECAC/IC4A title in that event. His best time was 8:47.07.