A trip to South Bend, Ind., will be the farthest distance Duke has to travel for a meet this season. But luckily for the Blue Devils, when they get there, the race will still be the same 5,000 meters.
Duke will square off with defending ACC champion Florida State Friday at the Notre Dame Invitational, in a field that features five teams ranked in the top 20 by the most recent U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll. The Fighting Irish enter ranked 19th, but the fourth-ranked Blue Devils’ strongest competition will be the Seminoles, ranked second.
Although the race provides Duke an opportunity to face off with challenging ACC opponents, head coach Kevin Jermyn did not choose this meet specifically to race against Florida State.
“We didn’t know they were coming when we signed up,” he said. “Traditionally a lot of good teams go. We knew we were going to get some teams at our level as well as some teams who will do better than us.”
Florida State dominated this 5,000-meter race last year, accumulating only 29 points with their top five scoring runners compared to second-place Notre Dame’s 111 points.
Juliet Bottorff’s new personal best 5K time of 16:28.9 at the Adidas Challenge two weeks ago forecasts provides a promising outlook for Duke. Only Florida State junior Colleen Quigley broke 16:30 in the race last year.
For the past three weeks, both Duke and Florida State have held their national rankings as well as the top spot in the Southeast and South regions, respectively.
The Blue Devils' primary focus for the race will be learning how to run in larger meets. As opposed to other meets, when Duke runners consistently led the pack, such a large and talented field this weekend will force Blue Devil runners to maneuver through the field.
“Most of our kids who were recruited out of high school are used to running out in front of a pack and staying there or even running by themselves,” Jermyn said. “This just isn’t going to happen in our big meets. We have to get a vision, rather than seeing something for the first time.”
At a larger invitational such as this one, many of Duke’s runners will likely fall back to 50th or 60th place. Jermyn stresses the importance of mentally adjusting to the larger stage.
“We want to have the distractions of getting boxed in, tripped up and falling back. That can be a good thing if you are running fast,” he said. “It’s for the experience. Some people can adjust really quickly, but the average person needs to be exposed to things and struggle a little bit, then come up with a better plan for the next race.”
Most of the women who race in the Adidas Challenge will return to competition Friday, with the exception of freshmen Wesley Frazier and Hannah Meier. The pair finished the race at nearly the same time, earning third and fourth place, respectively, and both will not race this week due to illness.
Without their second and third scoring runners, the Blue Devils will turn to freshman Haley Meier, sophomore Anima Banks, junior Julianna Miller and senior Ashley Berry to step up as the remaining four scorers for this race.
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