Duke will toe the line Friday at the NCAA Regional Championships for a last chance to earn a berth in the NCAA Championships.
The women’s team enters the race ranked 28th in the nation according to the most recent U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll, and the men’s team sits just outside the top-30. The Blue Devils can earn automatic bids for their spot at nationals with a finish in the top-two in Charlottesville, VA.
Men’s head coach Norm Ogilvie believes that his team has a good chance of finishing second and securing Duke’s fourth national championship in five years.
“We feel like we really need to get the job done by getting an automatic bid,” he said. “Finishing in the top two is very doable for us.”
Although earning an at-large bid is unlikely this year, the Blue Devils could advance because of wins against automatic-bid teams throughout the course of the season.
“Teams in our region do not have a lot of wins against teams that we think will be automatic bids,” Ogilvie said. “There are several scenarios that could work, but Duke needs to finish in the top two. The at-large is a long-shot scenario.”
The Blue Devils will face nationally-ranked opponents No. 17 Eastern Kentucky and No. 18 North Carolina. They also enter the race ranked fifth in the Southeast region behind Virginia and Virginia Tech.
Ogilvie believes that a second-place finish could happen if Duke’s fifth man across the line has a breakout race like senior Clint McKelvey did at the ACC Championships two weeks ago. The team will also rely on seniors Brian Atkinson and Christian Britto and graduate student Mike Moverman to give their best performances so that Friday is not the last race of their collegiate careers.
The Blue Devils have an advantage over the field because of the 10,000-meter training the runners have built up over the season, Ogilvie said. The course will test teams whose runners are primarily track athletes.
“We feel like we caught a break in the way that the course was designed,” Ogilvie said. “There’s a huge hill very late in the race that will separate the men from the boys. People are going to be hitting this hill tired, and we feel that this will help the true distance runners quite a bit.”
While women’s head coach Kevin Jermyn has emphasized racing the course since the beginning of the season, he wants his athletes to focus on mental preparedness for this meet.
“Whether the course is dirt, a track or flat hills, this time it’s a little different focus I’m trying to take,” he said. “In the race we are looking pretty good. But we are letting our emotions control how we compete too much. I hope they focus on improving their process before the race even though the course may have more challenges.”
The women are ranked third in the Southeast region behind Virginia and William and Mary, who are No. 11 and No. 19 in the nation, respectively. Duke returned to national rankings at No. 28 this week after finishing fifth at the ACC Championships.
Jermyn believes that the Blue Devils can secure an automatic bid to the national championships with a first or second-place finish.
“I feel like we can definitely place in the top two,” he said. “Things have progressed well in the last two weeks. We are a team that is getting better and better the longer the season goes on.”
The Blue Devils have struggled this season to meet high expectations after illness, injury and other setbacks have prevented them from performing as anticipated. The ACC Championships showed that the women’s team is getting back on course despite the challenges.
Jermyn hopes this change in momentum will change the team’s mentality heading into the race.
“I want to see us go into the race more excited and more composed,” he said. “We have to learn to control our goals, fears and anxieties, but I think we are getting closer to where we can perform as our natural selves.”
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