In just the first 100 meters of Saturday's 6K race, the women's cross country team seized the lead, held on and didn't let go.
Second-ranked Duke secured the top seven finishes of the meet to win the San Diego Invitational in San Diego, Calif., with a perfect score of 15 points.
Senior Clara Horowitz led the Blue Devils across the finish line with a time of 21:14, but only 45 seconds elapsed between Duke's first and fifth place finishes.
"We had a really good spread from one to five, much better than last year at this time," head coach Kevin Jermyn said. "One of our goals this year is to be tighter from one to five. We're on our way."
Although the competitors began to spread out after the second of three 2K loops around the hilly course, the Blue Devils were able to maintain their superior control of the race.
In what Jermyn described as "absolutely fantastic" performances, freshmen Whitney Anderson and Maddie McKeever found spots in the Blue Devils' leading pack during their first collegiate race. Anderson turned in a third place time of 21:33, finishing only six seconds behind senior Shannon Rowbury, a cross country All-American in 2004. McKeever finished seventh with a time of 22:11, rounding out Duke's block of top finishers.
"They really proved that they could run with the older and more experienced girls on the team," Jermyn said.
Point Loma, which finished in second place behind the Blue Devils, totaled 76 points during the meet. But even Point Loma's top runner, Deanna Sick, did not place higher than the last Blue Devil, who finished in eleventh place with a 23:42 time.
Despite Duke's domination of the meet, the team's overpowering performance was not unexpected, Jermyn said. The Blue Devils elected to attend the San Diego Invitational as a precursor to other key meets this season.
"We took a really low key approach to the beginning of the season," Jermyn said. "We didn't want to race the best teams in the country right away. We did expect to do pretty well. We just wanted to get back in the swing of things."
The Blue Devils' next race will be the Raleigh Invitational in Cary, N.C., Saturday, Sept. 17.
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