Duke will head back to Virginia to compete in the James Madison Invitational Saturday. The 18 athletes’ performances will determine the roster for the Panorama Farms Invitational later this month.
After losing five of their top seven runners from the 2013 season, head coach Norm Ogilvie will use this weekend to assess where the Blue Devils stand. With the team’s top scoring positions open, the results from New Market, Va., will be Duke’s first glimpse at the new leaders who will rebuild the squad.
“In other years we knew more about our team going into the first meets of the year, but sometimes it is fun to find out, too,” Ogilvie said. “The JMU Invite will be the real first time we will get a look at how good the team can be and who our best guys are.”
Only a few athletes will miss this race to rest and heal minor injuries. The rest of the healthy roster will toe the line Saturday morning, but with one notable exception.
Senior Shaun Thompson will watch his teammates from the sidelines this weekend because he will also be using the season’s early meets to make a decision about his place on the 2014 roster. Considering Secondary Teacher Preparation in Duke’s education program, Thompson could save the remainder of his of collegiate eligibility for his graduate year.
“The thought is if I’m already going to be around, then staying another year means I would be older, more mature, stronger and better able to reach a higher level and hopefully help the team reach a higher level,” Thompson said. “I’m just going to wait and see right now. For redshirting, you can always jump in again, you can’t jump out.”
Ogilvie hopes that the junior class will step up to fill the shoes of Mike Moverman and Brian Atkinson, who, along with Thompson, were the Blue Devils consistent top-three finishers last season. Weighing the benefits of his potential senior leadership this season with the benefits of an additional year of training, Thompson, the fourth-place finisher at the 2013 ACC Championships, will look for his younger teammates to step up.
He believes that William Hague, Eddie Merenda, William Rooney and Blake Udland all have the ability to lead Duke’s squad, and that Daniel Moore—who missed the 2013 season due to injury—should not be counted out as a potential scorer this year.
“I think that whole group can really step up,” Thompson said. “They are a bunch of talented guys and are really driven right now. I can see them doing exceptional things this year.”
When the Blue Devils last competed in the James Madison Invitational in 2011, they swept the top six individually and averaged 25:09.24 over the 7,900-meter course with their five scoring runners. This year, George Mason will pose a threat to Duke’s chances of repeating this result.
The Patriots, led by Michael Conway, finished 13th at the 2013 NCAA Southeast Regional Championships with Duke finishing eighth. Returning as a fifth-year senior, Conway will lead George Mason’s squad featuring one true senior, two redshirt juniors and a host of underclassmen.
Saturday’s 8,000-meter course will wind through the Civil War battlefield of Newmarket Battlefield State Park, which commemorates the 1864 Battle of Newmarket. It is most famous for the participation of the entire Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets in a Confederate victory.
“It’s definitely a different place to have it,” Thompson said, recalling his experience on the course as a freshman. “It lends a cool element to it. The cannons are still out there on the hills. I’m not sure if they are replicas or not, but there are definitely big, long barrels out there.”
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