The women's cross country team traveled to Virginia this weekend in hopes of catching its Atlantic Coast Conference rival. But the young Blue Devils realized they still have some work to do before the teams' October rematch.
The Blue Devils finished fifth out of 11 teams in the University of Virginia Invitational, three spots behind their host. Sophomore Kim Folk was the top Duke finisher, placing 22nd out of 117 runners.
But the Blue Devils realized that this type of match is one which they can build on, considering that three of their runners are freshmen.
"We were hoping to beat Virginia, but we didn't," junior Erin Fleming said. "But most of our top runners are freshmen and it's the beginning of the season. So we did what we were supposed to do in September-get our freshmen experience and run consistently, but not as fast as we hopefully will in October or November."
Fleming, the veteran of the squad, finished 45th, the lowest of the Duke scorers. Three freshmen clumped together between Folk and Fleming-Kourtney Gallo at 34th, Becky Price at 36th and Camille Wilson 38th, with their three times separated by only nine seconds.
Virginia has become a target for the Blue Devils as they attempt to climb into the upper echelons of the ACC. They feel that the Cavaliers stand between themselves and third place in the conference.
But the Cavaliers would not denied on their home course, as they finished second behind William and Mary. All of the Cavaliers finished within the top 20 runners.
"We had a pretty far way to catch them in this meet," Fleming said. "But it's their home course, and that helped them. But we have the potential to do a lot better. We need to improve on average about 50 seconds per runner. That's a pretty far way, but if we keep working hard, hopefully we'll catch them by October."
Duke will next meet its conference rival on October 19 in an ACC meet at North Carolina before the conference championships take place during the first weekend of November.
The Duke runners have been improving their times on schedule so far, as every runner topped their time from their previous meet.
"The entire team ran real well, much better than last week," Gallo said. "This meet gives us a nice starting point. So now we know what we have to do and what we need to build off of."
Duke's next chance to improve on its times will be in two weeks at Yale in a tri-meet that also includes Dartmouth.
"We're looking to win the Yale-Dartmouth meet," Fleming said. "Dartmouth's got a good team, but we think we can beat them."
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