The Duke men's cross country team placed eighth out of 25 teams and finished ahead of two ranked squads in the 50th Annual Notre Dame Invitational Friday.
Seventh-ranked Arizona placed first and No. 6 Notre Dame took second in the race, which featured seven teams ranked in the top 30.
"With [the race being] the first time this season facing teams of such a high caliber, this was basically a test to see how good we were," head coach Norm Ogilvie said.
It was the first race for the men's cross country A team since their second place finish at the Lou Onesty Invitational Sept. 10, and Ogilvie described his team's performance as "pretty good."
The Blue Devils beat two nationally ranked teams, No. 26 Colorado State which finished tenth and No. 30 Butler, which placed 15th.
Junior Keith Krieger crossed the finish line in 30th with a time of 24:30 in the 8K race to lead the Blue Devils. Most of the runners went out fast, Krieger said, but he passed many of his opponents and finished 1:09 behind the winner.
The rest of the Blue Devils' scoring runners finished within a minute of Krieger. Running in their first race of the year, sophomore Chris Spooner and junior Dan Daly finished within a second of each other to place 52nd and 53rd, respectively, with times of 24:53 and 24:54. Freshman Devin McDaniel ran a personal best of 25:15 to place fourth for the Blue Devils and 74th overall, and junior Alex Romero filled the last scoring spot.
The Blue Devils placed ahead of three ACC teams-Wake Forest, Miami and Georgia Tech. No. 18 Florida State was the only ACC team to beat Duke.
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