On Monday, Duke’s cross country teams raced for the last time this season at the NCAA Championships. And after a surprisingly successful stretch to close the regular season, the Blue Devil men headed into Terre Haute, Ind., with confidence.
Yet the Duke men finished the race in 21st, leaving the team feeling disappointed with a result that was still a full seven places higher than last year’s.
“[We] could have run a better race,” men’s head coach Norm Ogilvie said. “We were a bit timid early in the race.”
James Kostelnik—a junior who placed third for the Blue Devils behind Bo Waggoner and Andrew Brodeur—said strong winds could have contributed to Duke going out slower than desired. However, he also mentioned that the initial strategy for the Blue Devil men was to go out a bit conservatively, since that had been successful during the Regional meet.
“We gave it everything we had,” Kostelnik said. “We just didn’t do as well as we wanted.”
On the other hand, the Duke men are rounding off what Ogilvie described as “the best season Duke has had in at least a decade.” And with two members of the competing team still in their junior year, the Blue Devil men have earned valuable racing experience for next season.
“We had five seniors run top seven,” Ogilvie said. “And watching them improve from where they were freshmen year until where they are today is extremely satisfying. They never quit.”
Although Kostelnik, like many others on the Duke team, felt that his performance left something to be desired, the junior was also willing to look on the positive side.
“I think one of our captains, senior Bo Waggoner, said it best,” Kostelnik said. “He said, ‘It’s been a successful season if we’re disappointed with 21st at nationals.’ We’ve improved tremendously.”
The women’s team was also disappointed with the way the meet played out, as it had hoped to perform at least as well as it did the preceding year. However, the Blue Devil women dropped to 17th this year, a tie with Oklahoma State.
Junior Carly Seymour came in first for Duke and was closely followed by sophomore Juliet Bottorff and junior Esther Vermeer, who took second and third, respectively.
“I think they ran as hard as they could,” women’s head coach Kevin Jermyn said. “We had higher hopes but they ran their hardest, and that’s where we ended up.”
As with most meets this season, the coaches met with each runner before the meet and went over an individualized race plan. Despite the personalized strategies, the women did not cross the line where they hoped to be. However, both Seymour and Bottorff were still able to finish in the top 100 at the meet.
“My mentality was to enjoy the last race of the season,” Seymour said. “To stay relaxed in the first half and then pick up the intensity.”
Looking back on the 2010 season, the women realize the need to be more aggressive, and as their coach put it, “be more consistent.”
“We had a lot of great races across the board,” Jermyn said. “We just lack the ability to have five or more athletes consistently have good days at the same time. We are a good team; we are learning how to become one of the best.”
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