Even after its most competitive meet so far this season, the top-ranked women's cross country team still has an undefeated record.
Duke swept the top three spots and also claimed sixth and tenth to win the Penn State National Cross Country Meet at State College, Pa. Saturday. The Blue Devils scored 22 points to beat 33 other teams, besting second-place Providence, the nation's 20th-ranked team, by 81 points.
The Friars finished third at the 2004 NCAA Championships-20 points behind second-place Duke.
At the same meet, the men's cross country team finished seventh out of 38 teams with 217 points.
Senior Shannon Rowbury earned her second straight individual title this season and led the team with a 20:34 time in the 6K race. Senior Clara Horowitz finished one second behind Rowbury to take second place, and senior Sally Meyerhoff finished in 20:42 to take third.
Senior Laura Stanley crossed the finish line in sixth with a 20:52 time and freshman Whitney Anderson followed in tenth at 21:06 to score the Blue Devils' final points. Only 32 seconds elapsed between Duke's first and fifth finishes.
"I'm happy with just about everything today," head coach Kevin Jermyn said. "We were tighter right down the line."
The team ran the same course at last year's Penn State Invitational and the runners' combined times were 97 seconds quicker this season.
"This is a strong indication that we really are a stronger team," Jermyn said. "All our girls ran faster or very close to last year's times."
With its 32-second gap between its first and fifth finishes this year, Duke eliminated 21 seconds from its one-to-five spread on the same course a year ago. At this meet last season, the Blue Devils had a 53-second gap between their first and fifth finishing runners.
With the ACC Championships around the corner, Jermyn is in the process of selecting which team members will run at the meet.
"We have a pretty good idea," Jermyn said. "This meet is more important than the last one, but it's not the only factor."
The men's team also showed improvement in their one-to-five spread from this season's earlier meets, head coach Norm Ogilvie said.
"We can be really proud of our five-man spread," Ogilvie said. "This is the tightest we've been all fall."
Sophomore Chris Spooner was Duke's top finisher for the first time this season with a 19th-place finish of 25:53 in the 5.2 mile race. Spooner, a Lewisburg, Pa. native, ran the race in front of his parents and high school coach.
Ogilvie said the Blue Devils were aiming to beat Providence, a team that is usually nationally ranked. The Friars, whose top two runners took the first two places in the meet, placed fifth and beat Duke by only 16 points.
"We're where we want to be," Ogilvie said. "We wanted to knock off Providence, but we'll build from here. We've got two weeks to go and we're demonstrating a real consistency."
The men's team will run at the ACC Championships, Oct. 31 in Tallahasse, Fla., but the Blue Devils will not compete against Providence again until the NCAA Southeast Regional meet in Greenville, N.C., Nov. 12.
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