The Duke cross country teams dominated their competition, as they continued the success of last weeks’ Wake Forest Relays. At the Georgetown Invitational Saturday, the Blue Devils endured the opposition and the heat to capture both men’s and women’s individual crowns and both team titles.
“I’m very happy with the meet at Great Meadows,” men’s head coach Norm Ogilvie said. “It was the first time we had run the course and it was a fairly challenging course, and we faced a couple very good teams in the Georgetown team and the American team. Both Georgetown teams are nationally ranked. It was a good challenge and [our] athletes responded.”
Junior Nick Schneider finished in first place and led a Duke men’s team that claimed four of the top five spots. On the heels of these strong performances Duke dominated the overall standings and the Hoyas finished a distant second.
With a time of 19:49.05, Schneider finished 15 seconds ahead of American’s Pat McCadie in the 4.1-mile race. Ogilvie said Schneider looked comfortable and confident with the lead the entire race.
The senior took the lead early and McCadie challenged, but Schneider pulled away during the third mile. By the fourth mile, Schneider’s win was “all but academic,” Ogilvie said.
The coach remains enthusiastic about what his team has shown in the last two weeks, but with his eyes set on an ACC championship, he understood that there was still much to be done.
“This does huge things for the team’s confidence,” Ogilvie said. “All of the hard work we’ve been doing is putting us right where we want to be.”
Ogilvie said he was confident about his top four runners, but realizes that if Duke is going to challenge for the ACC title he needs a fifth strong contributor.
Equally strong was the solid performance of the women’s team, which, led by Ali Henderson (18:05.48), captured five of the top seven spots in the 5,000-kilometer race.
“Ali Henderson led from start to finish,” women’s head coach Kevin Jermyn said. “I was very pleased with the way she ran. She was the highlight of our weekend.”
Closely following Henderson were Tia Ferguson (18:20.25) and Elle Pishney (18:41.06) who finished second and fourth, respectively.
The women’s spectacular performance was all the more impressive considering Jermyn took a random sampling of five of his 14 runners to Great Meadows.
“I think it was a real booster for us to go out and win like that, not running on the very top of our roster,” Jermyn said. “We have great depth. We can really send any five of our girls and go out and beat any team in the country. Every person on the roster really believes that they can compete at this level and go out and be one of the top teams in the nation.”
The cross country team travels this weekend to San Diego for the Aztec Invitational.
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