Although Hurricane Matthew pushed their last event before the ACC championship back a week, the Blue Devils came up with their best performance of the season.
The Duke women won for the first time this year and the men took second at the VertCross Invitational at High Point in Kernersville, N.C., Friday afternoon. Three Blue Devil women finished in the top six despite competing without freshman star Sophia Parvizi-Wayne, and three Duke men placed in the top 20 to bounce back from a tough outing at the Roy Griak Invitational in late September.
“This was a great confidence booster for the girls. Running fast and running as a team,” Blue Devil women's head coach Rhonda Riley said. “Throwing Sophia into the mix in two weeks is going to be outstanding. I feel really good going into ACCs with the girls that we have, and they feel confident as well.”
With Parvizi-Wayne resting leading up to the ACC championship in two weeks, Gabrielle Richichi paced Riley's squad Friday. The sophomore finished the 6,000-meter event in 21:27.4, and was quickly followed by freshman Lindsay Billings and Sheridan Wilbur.
Billings and Wilbur placed fifth and sixth less than 10 seconds after Richichi, and sophomore Liz Lansing earned a top-20 finish by taking 18th with a time of 22:08.7. Although sophomore Olivia Gwynn was the Blue Devils' fifth runner with a 23:15.7 and 55th-place finish, Duke's top three runners Friday worked together well enough to earn the win and take plenty of confidence to the ACC championship.
The Blue Devils' final team score of 70 was just enough for Duke to beat out Appalachian State and best the 22-team field, with their pack-running style helping the top three runners.
“Being patient and working together as a pack was the key ingredient,” Riley said.
The Blue Devil men also stood out among a 22-team field thanks to their trio of top-20 finishes.
Fourth-year junior captain Alec Kunzweiler led the team with an 11th-place finish and a time of 25:27.1 on the 8,000-meter course. Sophomores Stephen Garrett and Nikhil Pulimood were seconds behind Kunzweiler, emulating the women's team's pack-running by finishing within 12 seconds of their captain to take 15th and 17th.
Freshmen Cole Hoff and junior Josiah Hanko rounded out Duke's top five, propelling the Blue Devils to the second-place finish behind George Mason, which won the event with 67 points compared to Duke's 87.
“Many of the guys ran their best races of the season, so that was encouraging," men's head coach Norm Ogilvie said. "We still have to improve between now and the ACC, but definitely the hour was up instead of down.”
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