By the time Saturday morning came around, the Yale and Duke cross country teams were ready to race.
As part of an unusual intercollegiate athletic concept, the Yale men and women had stayed in the dorm rooms of their competitors from Duke the night before. And though all the athletes were more than happy to co-exist off the racecourse, once they donned their jerseys and laced their shoes, it was time to get down to the business at hand.
When the Yale and Duke men began their race at the Duke cross country course, there was much at stake. In last year's first race of the Yale-Duke series, the Elis had edged the Blue Devils 26-29.
The Duke men got their payback by defeating Yale, 26-31.
The women got a 1-2 finish from Jeanne McFeely and Liz Hanly, but Yale placed six of the next eight runners to take the win 27-42 over the Blue Devils. The Duke women easily outdistanced third-place Emory by 20 points.
Senior Kevin Hilton was the first Blue Devil to finish the 8K trail in the men's race. Hilton finished five seconds behind Yale's Alex Converse in the race for individual honors.
Freshman Darin Mellinger was third overall, and Conrad Hall, Pat Kelly and Matt Haywood finished 6-7-8 to put five Duke runners in the top eight.
Coupled with last weekend's team win at the Pembroke Invitational, this weekend left the Blue Devils feeling good so far this season.
"We haven't won two meets in a row in a long time," men's assistant coach Norm Ogilvie said. "We definitely saw improvement this week."
A key development in the men's race occurred shortly after the turn-around at the 2.5-mile mark. Eric Hawkins, Yale's No. 1 runner and last year's winner of the Duke-Yale meet in New Haven, Conn., began to slow his pace. Hawkins eventually had to drop out of the race due to physical problems.
"He started to fade," Mellinger said. "Instead of trying to fight, he gave up and started falling back."
After Hawkins dropped out, Converse, who was relatively unknown to Duke because he hadn't run in last year's race, took over the race when he made a breakaway that Hilton could never quite overcome.
"It threw my game plan [when Hawkins dropped out]," said Hilton, who had his eyes on another title after winning last week's Pembroke meet. "When [Converse] took off in the middle of the race, I thought he was out there as a rabbit. He made a big move and I didn't cover it."
In the women's race, it appeared as though Duke had the race well in hand when McFeely and Hanly finished first. But by the time Duke's next runner, Amy Gravitt, crossed the line one minute after Hanly, six Yale runners had finished.
Women's coach Mike Forbes said that the one-minute spread between Duke's second and third runners was the difference between winning and losing.
"We were hoping to have a 35-40 second spread," Forbes said. "We knew Yale would have a 50-second spread between their first and sixth [runners].
"The third and fourth runners are going to have to step up and that's what the next few weeks are for."
"It's just a matter of time until they get stronger and move up," McFeely said.
Forbes was particularly pleased with Hanly's race, since it was the sophomore's first meet on the difficult Duke course.
"It's a tough course and it was great that Liz was able to hold off [Yale's Jennifer Marien, who was 16 seconds behind Hanly in third place]," McFeely said.
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