The Duke women’s cross country team built on its already strong momentum Saturday when it finished second at Penn State’s Pre-National event. Coping with adverse weather conditions and injuries, the Blue Devils relied on the depth of their lineup.
“It was a lot colder than we’re used to,” said junior Shannon Rowbury, who led the Blue Devils, placing third overall in a time of 20:36 on the 6-kilometer course. The 44-degree temperature and the strong headwind on both the start and finish straight-aways did not stop four other Blue Devils from placing in the top 20.
Juniors Sally Meyerhoff and Natasha Roetter followed Rowbury with fifth and 15th place finishes, respectively, while freshman Tiare Ferguson had a break out race, finishing 17th in her first-ever 6-k. Senior Phebe Ko solidified the team score with a 20th-place finish.
Although Saturday’s results were not entirely unexpected, the team seemed slightly shocked by the extent of its success.
“It has usually been a tough weekend for us after midterms and fall break,” head coach Kevin Jermyn said, whose team finished within 11 points of second-ranked Providence. “We usually don’t run our best, so it was a little bit of surprise that we came close to beating the second best team in the country,”
With the weekend’s race behind them, the Blue Devils turn their attention to the NCAA Championships in November.
“There’s still a possibility for us to get better,” Jermyn said.
The team should benefit from the return of Allie Henderson, who pulled out of Saturday’s race because of injury. Once the team is healthy, Jermyn’s goal is to minimize the time difference between the squad’s first and fifth runners.
“We’d like to have the five-person spread under 40 seconds,” he said. “Once we can do that we’re going to be confident that there might only be one team in the country that might be stronger than us—Stanford.”
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