Duke cross country sets sights on advancing from NCAA Southeast Regional

<p>Shaun Thompson finished second at the NCAA Southeast Regional Friday to punch his ticket to the NCAA championship meet next weekend in Louisville, Ky.</p>

Shaun Thompson finished second at the NCAA Southeast Regional Friday to punch his ticket to the NCAA championship meet next weekend in Louisville, Ky.

Shaun Thompson and the Blue Devils have one more shot at earning their first national championship berth since 2012.

Duke will head to Charlottesville, Va., for the NCAA Southeast Regional championship Friday. The women will toe the line at noon, and the men at 1 p.m. The Blue Devils enter the men’s 10-kilometer race seeded seventh in the region, and the women are projected eighth for their six-kilometer race. The top two teams from each of the nine regional meets will automatically advance to the national championship in Louisville, Ky., Nov. 21, and the Southeast Regional is expected to send six teams.

“It will take a great day on our part and one of the other teams to have a bad day. But it’s a little more complicated than that,” Duke men’s head coach Norm Ogilvie said. “It really depends on the order the teams finish in. The most likely thing is that we will be the first team out, but we don’t want to accept that as our fate. We definitely have a legitimate chance, and we control our own destiny.”

The remaining 13 team spots will be filled based on which squads have accumulated the most wins against the automatic qualifiers during the season.

Team qualification will factor into Thompson’s chances of earning a spot as an individual competitor. The top four runners from each region will automatically qualify, but for each top finisher whose team also earned a trip to Louisville, another spot for an individual opens up.

Ogilvie is confident that Thompson’s season will continue beyond Friday’s race.

“We expect him to be in the top four,” Ogilvie said. “He has a chance at winning the whole thing. That’s the beautiful thing about sports—you never know how things are going to shake out. Bottom line is, we expect Shaun to have an excellent chance to qualify as an individual.”

Ogilvie also has high hopes for senior Blake Udland. By finishing in the top 25 of Friday’s field, Udland could earn his first All-Southeast Region honors to conclude his career.

The Blue Devils will need a top-30 finish from the Short Hills, N.J., native and strong performances from freshmen Nikhil Pulimood and Stephen Garrett and sophomore Jordan Burton in their first 10-kilometer races to keep their hopes of an at-large bid to the NCAA championships alive.

On the women’s side, the Blue Devils are looking forward to competing with a full, healthy roster after holding back two freshmen at last Friday’s ACC championships.

Sheridan Wilbur jumped into Duke’s top three scoring runners starting with her first collegiate race at the adidas Challenge Sept. 18—at which she finished second on the team and sixth overall—and was on track to give the Blue Devils a scoring boost in the conference race, but was forced to stay back in Durham with a high fever. Kim Hallowes also did not make the trip to Tallahassee, Fla., because of an IT band injury. But both underclassmen are back in Friday’s lineup, joining classmates Gabrielle Richichi and Liz Lansing.

“Back at the beginning of the season, I was asked which freshman could have an impactful season, and I answered all of them could. And that still rings true,” Duke women’s head coach Christine Engel said. “Certainly Sheridan has been racing at the front of the team, but Gabrielle Richichi had a great opening race in September, so she certainly has the opportunity to come back strong for us. I feel confident that all four of them will rise to the occasion on Friday.”

Captain Madison Granger ran in the conference championship race despite pain in her Achilles tendon. The redshirt junior finished 44th overall with a time of 21:30.5 but has higher goals for Friday. Granger has been in a boot for the past week as a preventative measure but is expected to be healthy and racing in Charlottesville.

“Madison will be looking for a little redemption after ACCs where she didn’t race to quite what her hopes were,” Engel said. “For her and the other two seniors [Anima Banks and Olivia Anderson], they have put so much into Duke and this team that they are really going to go out there with a little extra motivation.”

The Blue Devils finished 11th out of 15 at the ACC championships and will face many of the same teams Friday, including Clemson and Virginia Tech, teams that Engel said she believes Duke might have outscored with a healthy roster.  

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