Last season, both cross country teams opened the season by sweeping the top five spots at the Pembroke Invitational. The coaches decided to give their runners a tougher test this year by opening the season at the Fordham Invitational, which featured tougher competition from the northeast.
Tougher test. Exact same grade: A+.
The Duke coaches could not have scripted a better way to begin the season, as the Blue Devils won the men's, women's and the freshmen races and had two individual winners in those three races.
"It was the best weekend for Duke cross country in the last 25 years," said Al Buehler, Director of Duke Track and Field. "We saw some serious quality racing."
Sophomore Terry Brennan blitzed the men's field in 25:47, but his teammates weren't too far behind. Duke runners took places three through six en route to a stellar 19-point performance, easily outdistancing second-place Harvard, who finished with 64.
"The difference between me last year and me this year is night and day," Brennan said. "The end of my track season didn't go so well, and I took some time off to recover. I had a really good summer, and I've been running the best I've been running ever."
When your two-time cross country MVP finished fifth on your team, it's not hard to imagine how the team fared so well. Having led the team across the finish line in virtually every race the last two years, Tom Becker ran his usual solid race, finishing only eight seconds behind the second-place runner, but four teammates ran even better.
The top seven runners all entered the final stretch of the race in the lead pack, but that's where Brennan made his move. Charging up the steep "Cemetery Hill," Brennan left the rest of the pack behind and finished the race 20 seconds ahead of the rest of the field-not bad for a guy with sore feet.
"He complained about having sore feet," Buehler said. "When he went by me with a quarter mile to go, I said, 'I wish everyone had sore feet like you.'"
Three Duke runners who apparently didn't suffer from sore feet were Brendan Fitzgibbon, Charlie Kelly and Tim Schaefer, who finished third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
"We're a lot better than we were last year," Brennan said. "If the same team from last year had run at the meet [Saturday], we wouldn't have the performance we had [Saturday].
"Our goal really isn't to win the Fordham meet right now, our goal is to make NCAAs, and have a good showing there-this is the first step. We're excited, we're happy with how we ran, but it's more like the excitement of how well we are going to do as opposed to we're so thrilled about winning [Saturday]."
In the women's race, Duke's reigning MVP, Megan Sullivan, led the Blue Devils and finished second overall, no surprise since Sullivan led the Blue Devils across the finish line in every race she ran last season.
But Ellie Culp, a sophomore who sat out all of last season with an injury, and Katie Atlas, a freshman, threw a coming-out party for themselves as they joined Sullivan in the top group, finishing fifth and sixth, respectively.
"It's just that we have a much stronger team this year," Sullivan said. "Anybody can finish at the top this year because of the tight team. Everybody is just looking very strong."
The results certainly agreed with Sullivan, as Duke bested second-place Brown, 36-74, to win the Invitational title. What bodes even better for Duke is that five of its top nine finishers are freshmen.
"That shows all the effort [women's head coach] Jan [Samuelson-Ogilvie] has put into recruiting," Buehler said. "The big thing is that the ones that performed well last year are back to performing well this year, and the newcomers bring a lot of talent in here."
Speaking of newcomers, the freshman men's runners completed Duke's sweep of the meet by placing five runners in the top seven of the men's freshman race. Sean Kelly won the individual race in 26:26, a time that would have put him in ninth place in the varsity race.
So just how good is this freshman class?
"It's probably the best collection of distance runners Duke has had since the Bob Wheeler era when we were dominant in cross country," said Buehler, referring to Duke's reign during the early '70's.
And from the looks of it Saturday, it appears that the Blue Devils might be primed for a return to the elite of cross country teams again.
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