After impressive showings in the Pembroke Invitational, the Yale meet and a two-week preparation period, the men's cross country team thought it was ready to take off this weekend in South Bend, Ind. Instead, the Blue Devils were handed a reality check at the Notre Dame Invitational, dropping three places from last year's third-place finish and winding up sixth with 190 points.
Eastern Michigan edged out host Notre Dame, 89-94, to win the title, followed by Ohio State, Cincinnati, Connecticut and Duke. Junior Tom Becker led Duke with a 10th-place finish in 25:03.
"I really wasn't [disappointed]," Duke assistant coach Norm Ogilvie said. "I think the competition was a little tougher this year. We ran very similar times as did the year before. Tom Becker really established himself as one of the top runners around. Mike Park came through with his best cross country meet ever, and Mike Caiazzo had his best race ever."
Although Ogilvie was thrilled with Becker's top-10 performance, Becker felt he still had ample room to improve.
"The entire race, I was really chasing the lead pack," Becker said. "I was in seventh, and the lead pack was the top six. They were 20 meters away, and I was leading the second pack, and that made it pretty tough. So in the next race, I'm focusing on ensuring that I'm in that lead pack, where it's easier to respond when others pick up the pace."
Park, the lone senior on the squad, crossed the line 29 seconds after Becker to place 24th. Freshman Terry Brennan posted Duke's third-highest finish with a 25:48 time, good for 41st overall. While Ogilvie pointed to the 85-degree heat for the runners' slipping back in the final mile, Brennan blamed it on fatigue.
"We just killed ourselves in the first couple of miles. I didn't think we held on very well," Brennan said. "I didn't quite provide the team with support I felt I should have. This meet didn't deflate us, but I think it set us back a little bit from where we wanted to go."
The most unexpected boost for Duke came from Caiazzo, a junior. A virtual unknown his first two seasons with cross country, the junior turned in his best effort at Duke with a 53rd place finish in 26:06.
"When we recruited him out of Maine, he was the state champion in the mile and two-mile," Ogilvie said. "He was overlooked by Division I schools; we didn't feel like he could be good. He had a nice running style, but he's had some injury problems the last couple of years. Because of that, he lacked confidence, but finally got it going now. I expect him to move up another notch before the year's over."
Freshman Brendan Fitzgibbon rounded out Duke's scoring by placing 62nd with a time of 26:14. While the runners themselves seemed very disappointed with the results, Ogilvie put a more positive spin on the situation.
"This is a very realistic check of where we are right now," Ogilvie said. "The guys may think we are a great team. We are not a great team, we are a good team, but we can be a great team if we pull together now."
The best news for the team this weekend may have come out of the Campbell Invitational, There, Charlie Kelly, Duke's No. 2 runner last year, returned to action with Duke's 'B' team after a long layoff resulting from a stress fracture.
The team finished second, behind Campbell, at the meet, but beat four other Division I teams there. Freshman Kyle Leonard paced Duke with a fifth-place finish in 26:06. Kelly was only two seconds behind, placing sixth overall.
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