Just before the season’s start in early September, the Blue Devils were excited about the opportunities that lay before them, voicing their commitment to taking the season ‘one day at a time.’ Although their optimism was cautious and both head coach Kevin Jermyn and his runners refrained from setting specific goals, they did admit to a desire to improve upon the previous year’s results. After the end of a difficult season, however, Duke will have to walk away knowing that it was unable to accomplish its goal.
The 2010 season was one that did not live up to its potential, Jermyn said during the 2011 preseason. But after last week’s NCAA meet ended a season that has been characterized by performances that were consistently worse than those of the previous year, the same can be said about the 2011 season.
“Looking back, it’s a disappointing season just knowing we didn’t make nationals,” senior Esther Vermeer said. “That’s kind of the overarching disappointment.”
The Blue Devils opened the first few races of the season with success but ran into setbacks once they entered more competitive meets. At the ACC meet, despite goals of improving on a third-place finish in 2010, Duke crossed the line in seventh. Shortly afterwards at the NCAA Southeast Regional meet, the Blue Devils finished fifth, two places worse than the previous year. Only one runner, junior Madeline Morgan, was able to rise above the disappointing result and make it to the national meet as an individual. For the rest of the team though, that fifth-place finish represented an unsatisfactory end to a frustrating season.
“We came into the season with pretty high expectations,” Jermyn said. “But unfortunately we had a couple injuries to our top people… and continued to find too much adversity… to go out and compete at the level of our original goals.”
Duke, which expected to return its top six competitors from the previous season, including NCAA 10k champion Juliet Bottorff and 2009 All-American Carly Seymour, was disappointed to discover that four out of those six were unable to compete due to injury. As a result, the incoming freshman class was forced to make up the difference, going straight from high school competitions to top-level collegiate meets. The lack of experienced runners traveling with the team also minimized the amount of upperclassmen leadership that Jermyn identified as a necessity for success.
Despite the multiple setbacks, however, there were some highlights as a few runners proved themselves capable of stepping up under pressure. Seniors Suejin Ahn and Vermeer led the team throughout much of the season and a few freshmen, including Chloe Maleski and Julianna Miller, also showed rapid improvement and were able to contribute successful performances.
“Personally I ran, in the races before regionals, better than I ever have any season,” Vermeer said. “So it’s kind of disappointing. It’s just really hard to be proud personally when the team doesn’t perform as well as we had hoped.”
But even though these few successes were not enough to bring the season around, both Jermyn and his runners agree that the difficulties they faced have helped the team grow. And despite the fact that upperclassmen such as Ahn and Vermeer were hoping for a successful ending to their collegiate cross country careers, they are setting their sights on the future and trying to take the frustration in stride.
“Even though there have been disappointments along the way I have learned a lot about myself and about myself as a runner,” Vermeer said. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world even though it didn’t go quite as I had planned…. We learn from our mistakes and try to move forward. We’re working harder this track season and hopefully it will pay off.”
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