The women's cross country team had a last minute change of plans in its race schedule this past weekend. The Blue Devils had planned on participating in a race at Wilmington-a meet the team has run as their opening meet for the past ten years. But after weather reports showed that the hurricane was headed straight toward Wilmington, race directors cancelled the meet and Duke had to find somewhere new to race.
Luckily for the Blue Devils, the team was able to run in the Appalachain State Invitational, despite its last minute entry. Also, because of the storm's effects in Durham, the team was unable to leave until Saturday morning for the 1:00 p.m. race. The Blue Devils handled the setbacks well, however, placing third out of seven teams at the meet. Conference foe Wake Forest won the meet, scoring 20 points, and host Appalachain State was second with 69 points. Duke was not far behind with 90 points.
The first Blue Devil runner through was sophomore Kim Folk who finshed in 19:03. Duke's next three runners-junior Erin Fleming and freshmen Becky Price and Kourtney Gallo-finished nearly together with their respective times of 19:23, 19:25 and 19:27. The final scorer for Duke was senior Kirsten Black who came through in 19:54.
"Kim ran well and the freshmen ran great," head coach Mike Forbes said. "There was only 24 seconds separating the top four runners and 35 seconds separating the fifth through tenth runners."
"It was a good race for everyone, and the freshmen ran especially well," Fleming said. "It was also a good race to see what we need to improve on-it was a 'getting our feet wet' type of meet."
And most of the members of the team did get their feet wet considering the amount of inexperience on the team. Five freshmen and two sophomores were in the top ten, and the meet was Black's first collegiate cross country race.
The coaches usually run the team at Wilmington because of the course's flatter terrain in order to break in the younger runners, but the course at Appalachain State was much hillier.
"There was a lot of rain, but it didn't affect us because it was a gravel course. It was a tough course though and I think our times reflect that," Fleming said.
"I was very encouraged by the results," Forbes said. "Everyone has been running well in practice, but what you do in practice and what you do in a meet are two completely different things. We know we are capable of running better."
The Blue Devils will get a chance to prove that when they face a deeper field of fifteen teams at the UVa Invitational next weekend.
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