After a disappointing end to the regular season, the Blue Devils will look to rebound at the first of their championship meets.
Duke will head to Charlottesville, Va., for the ACC Championships Friday at 10 a.m. for the first of two championship race weekends. Both the men’s and women’s squads will have to give their best performances of the year on the Panorama Farms course to keep hopes of competing at the NCAA Championships alive.
If the Blue Devils can outscore some of their nationally ranked opponents this weekend, they may increase their chances of an at-large bid to the national championships.
“ACC Championships have a lot more at stake and there will definitely be that feeling of having to get it done on game day,” women’s head coach Christine Engel said. “I know our team is really looking forward to rising to the occasion.”
At its last competitions in mid-October, Duke gave disappointing performances. On the men’s side, the Blue Devils placed 41st out of 46 teams at the NCAA Pre-Nationals event Oct. 17. The women did not fare much better, finishing 35th in a field of 38 squads at the Wisconsin adidas Invitational the next day.
The Blue Devils have struggled to get off to strong starts as a team and to establish their presence at the front of the pack, making passing later in the race difficult. On the women’s side, a few runners tried to aggressively take out their races at the Virginia Duals and the Battle at Beantown, distancing themselves from teammates but wearing themselves out as the race progressed. The men’s squad has not seen a harrier take to the front of the pack this season.
With confidence battered by recent performances, turning the season around and attacking Friday’s race from the start will be a challenge for Duke.
The women have also focused more on running as a team this season, closing the gap between the first and fifth Blue Devil across the line. Despite the disappointing finish, Duke was able to decrease the time gap from races earlier in the season to 29 seconds for the 6,000-meter race in Wisconsin, with the sophomore Meier twins bookending the scoring runs. Haley Meier paced the Blue Devils—finishing first for the squad in 21:39—and Hannah Meier was the fifth Duke harrier across the line in 22:08.
For a strong performance at the conference championships, the team will need to start and finish the race as a unit.
“They are all ready to have that breakout race,” Engel said. “I would like nothing more than for this race to be a perfect storm and have everyone have their best race. All of mentality and training is geared toward that. Now, we really have to go into the race a lot more fearlessly in our execution and getting out there and racing at a high level.”
The Blue Devils will enter a competitive field Friday, with six competitors ranked in the top 30 on the women’s side and three on the men’s side.
For the women, Florida State leads the field at No. 12, followed by No. 13 Virginia, No. 15 North Carolina, No. 16 Syracuse, No. 18 N.C. State and No. 30 Boston College. The Seminoles are favored to claim their seventh straight ACC title. Duke finished fifth at the meet last season and will be challenged to repeat that result.
Last season the Syracuse men claimed victory in their first season in the conference. Poised for back-to-back titles at No. 3, the Orange will be challenged by No. 15 Florida State and the No. 28 Tar Heels.
The Blue Devil men’s squad finished sixth last season, with a significant contribution to the team score coming from a fourth-place individual finish by Shaun Thompson, who has redshirted this season. Despite racing without last season’s standout runners, Duke will strive to finish in the top half of the conference.
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