Blue Devils race hard, fall short in ACC finals meet

Despite a strong performance from the women's cross country team, the Blue Devils finished in seventh place out of nine teams at the Atlantic Coast Conference meet held in College Park, Md. this weekend.

Although the team had its top five runners finish the hilly five-kilometer race in under 19:00, the strength of the ACC was too much for Duke. Winner Karen Godlock of UNC completed the course in 16:23, while N.C. State took home the team trophy by scoring 38 points. As an indication of the strength of the conference, the Blue Devils totaled 199 points and the team's top runner, junior Erin Fleming, came through the finish in a personal best time of 18:06, nearly two minutes behind Godlock.

"Most other schools had a runner in the top ten," head coach Mike Forbes said. "Without a frontrunner, it is hard to place high in the conference."

But the coaches were not disappointed with the finish. They acknowledged the fact that to finish in sixth place, which Georgia Tech secured by scoring 133 points, each member of the team would have had to run 30-40 seconds faster. Instead, they focused on the improvement that each Blue Devil made at the meet.

"Erin ran another solid race," Forbes said. "She is only one surge away from really moving up with the runners ahead of her."

Flemming finished 27th at the meet.

The Blue Devils' second runner was freshman Camile Wilson, who was 39th in 18:36. The next three runners to finish for Duke were within 16 seconds of Wilson-freshman Liz Kane was 42nd in 18:42, sophomore Kim Folk was 45th in 18:46 and freshman Kourtney Gallo was 46th in 18:52. The coaches would now like to see a narrowing of this gap to five seconds as the runners work together during the race.

Although the Blue Devils had run against quality teams at an earlier meet at Auburn, the competition at the conference meet was something the team could not be ready for.