Blue Devils improve nine places in year, finish third

The men's cross country team surpassed its own expectations at the Notre Dame Invitational on Friday, running what was perhaps its best meet in 15 years.

Demonstrating a remarkable improvement over its 12th place performance at this invitational last year, Duke finished in third place out of 19 teams with 96 points. No. 13 Michigan won the meet with 61 points, and No. 9 Notre Dame finished second with 69 points. North Central College, the defending NCAA Division III champion, finished fourth with 117 points. Since the top three teams were in close contention throughout the meet and Duke had not finished ahead of North Central recently, the Blue Devils feel that their performance Friday proved that they are capable of running with the top schools in the country.

"The meet was a super job by everybody on the team," assistant coach Norm Ogilvie said. "Duke showed it can run with the national powerhouses....We were right on [Michigan and Notre Dame]. We put the heat on both of those two teams."

Duke's top five runners displayed both speed and cohesiveness, crossing the finish line within 23 seconds of each other and all finishing under 25 minutes. Sophomore Tom Becker led the way for the Blue Devils, finishing in 13th place with a time of 24:35. Becker was followed by freshman Charlie Kelly in 16th place (24:41), senior Darin Mellinger in 18th place (24:45), senior Matt Haywood in 20th place (24:47) and freshman Tim Schaefer in 29th place (24:58). Kelly and Schaefer were the first and second freshmen overall.

"Friday was a big breakthrough for us," Duke coach Al Buehler said. "These guys were able to run... so fast. Individually and collectively we showed a lot of improvement."

In addition to their impressive performance at Notre Dame, the Blue Devils also sent several of their runners to the N. C. Central Eagle Classic Invitational on Saturday, where they placed first with 20 points. Freshmen Brian McCulley and Kyle Leonard finished second (26:17) and fourth (26:42) overall. Since Duke could only send seven runners to Notre Dame, this meet gave the rest of the squad a chance to compete this weekend and to be selected to go to the state meet, where Duke hopes to defend its championship.

Duke entered the season with goals of finishing in the top three in the Atlantic Coast Conference and qualify for the NCAA championship. After this weekend, the Blue Devils believe that they can achieve these goals.

"We were pleased with [the Blue Devils'] effort and performance," Buehler said. "Now they need to grow. The whole idea is to add on this. We have not arrived. This is not the end of the journey."