It is safe to say that the men's cross country team's performance this weekend at the Fordham invitational was a resounding success.
The Blue Devils won the meet by 60 points as they placed eight runners in the top 10.
"I thought [Duke] dominated the meet," coach Norm Ogilvie said. "We've won the Fordham invitational three years in a row, but that's as dominating a performance as we've had."
Duke was paced by Sean Kelly and Terry Brennan, who finished first and second in the race with times of 25:46.9 and 25:47.2, respectively.
"The thing that was really satisfying about the race was that Kelly and Brennan went one-two," Ogilvie said. "Either one of those guys could have won the race. They had it pretty well under control. They didn't really go into oxygen debt. They can be a lot better than they were this week."
The third Blue Devil across the line was a bit of a surprise. Freshman Chris Williams, running in his first collegiate invitational, finished fourth overall at the meet.
"I knew the potential was there," Ogilvie said. "I was penciling him in as top seven. It looks like he is going to be top four.... We're just trying to bring him along. He is certainly one of the better recruits we've had."
In addition to having three of the top five, and eight of the top 10, all 13 Duke runners that made the trip to Fordham finished in the top 18.
Ogilvie felt that the weather might have been a contributing factor in the impressive result.
"The weather was quite warm," he said. "It was around 85 degrees at race time. Normally that's great for Duke because we train down South."
There was only one thing missing from this Blue Devil victory-Brendan Fitzgibbon.
Fitzgibbon, one of Duke's top three runners, had to pull out of the race at the two-mile mark due to pain in his Achilles tendon.
Ogilvie said that the injury will not present a problem the rest of the season.
"The reason he pulled out was to make sure that it doesn't become a problem," he said.
So despite the absence of Fitzgibbon at the finish line, and the disappointing performances from competitors such as Penn, the weekend proved valuable for the Blue Devils.
"We got a lot of team confidence," Ogilvie said. "It's good to have an early success and have something you can build on."
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