Despite the illnesses that plagued several top runners last week, the Duke women's cross country team finished fourth out of 31 teams at Friday's Notre Dame Invitational.
"We ran very well in several positions despite the fact that some of our team was sick," coach Jan Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "We were still able to beat some nationally ranked teams this weekend."
The Blue Devils placed ahead of both N.C. State and Ball State, two teams that had beaten them at the Great American Cross Country Festival in September. Friday marked the first time that Duke has ever defeated a full N.C. State squad. The Blue Devils finished the race with 185 points, one less than the Wolfpack. Only Stanford (32), Michigan (143) and Arizona (145) had fewer points than Duke.
The most outstanding performance of the day came from Duke's star sophomore Sheela Agrawal. She won the 5,000-meter race with a time of 17:05, convincingly defeating her closest competitor by 10 seconds.
"It was an absolutely outstanding race for Sheela," Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "To beat a field like she did probably makes this the best race of her career."
Agrawal, though, remained modest about her success.
"I was pretty pleased overall with how it went," she said. "There was some great competition there."
Around the 3,200-meter mark, Agrawal broke away from a pack of Stanford women-sophomore Erin Sullivan, freshman Jillian Mastroianni and sophomore Lauren Fleshman-who finished second, third and fourth, respectively.
"My plan going into the race wasn't to finish first," Agrawal said. "I just wanted to stay with the leaders and then I saw a chance to break through."
In addition to Agrawal, Duke also received strong performances from Katie Atlas, Megan Sullivan and Maddy Woodmansee, who had all been sick leading up to Friday's competition.
"They had not felt well all week," Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "I wasn't sure where they would end up, but I'm very pleased with their performances."
When the new national rankings are released tonight, Samuelson-Ogilvie hopes that the Blue Devils, currently ranked 24th, will jump into the top 20. Still, she puts more emphasis on her team's victories than their ranking.
"Rankings are nice but they mean very little now," she said. "In order to make nationals, we need to do well in our district and beat other ranked teams."
The Blue Devils have very little time to recover from Friday's race. They are competing in the pre-Nationals next weekend in Iowa where most of the top-25 teams will be competing.
"That race will be crucial for our team," Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "We can definitely help our chances of making nationals by defeating some top teams there."
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