In her last race, freshman Sophia Parvizi-Wayne earned All-ACC accolades with a 15th-place finish.
At this week's NCAA Southeast Regional, the London native has a different goal—earning a spot in the NCAA championship.
Parvizi-Wayne leads the Duke men and women to Charlottesville, Va., for Friday afternoon's race at Panorama Farms. With only two automatic team qualifiers and a few other teams and individuals selected to qualify, Parvizi-Wayne is the only realistic shot Duke has at advancing to next week's national championship event. The Blue Devil men are unranked in the region and the women are unranked nationally,
But after running 6,000 meters in 20:28.2 a few weeks ago, Parvizi Wayne has a legitimate chance to qualify with a fast finish at the same distance Friday. The top four individuals qualify for the NCAA tournament in Terre Haute, Ind., but for each individual on a team that has already qualified, another qualification spot opens up.
"It's not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination. There are a handful of girls that are between five and 10 that are very deserving and very quick and have every opportunity to go," Blue Devil women's head coach Rhonda Riley said. "It's not going to be easy, but I don't put anything past Sophia."
The 13th-ranked team in the region, the Blue Devil women are coming off an 11th-place finish at the ACC championship even with Parvizi-Wayne's top-15 individual finish. A lineup laden with freshmen and sophomores will look for more personal-best times Friday, with freshman Lindsay Billings and sophomores Liz Lansing and Gabrielle Richichi having normally been the team's second through fourth finishers.
Duke has a chance to build more momentum for the future in what will likely be its last team event of the year, with all of its key pieces returning next year along with incoming recruits.
"We have nothing to lose," Riley said. "Two out of six have run this course before, they individually would like to get a PR on this course."
On the men's side, the Blue Devils will also be trying to build for the future with the whole team returning next season. Duke has had veterans Stephen Shine and Daniel Moore go down with injuries, but led by sophomore Stephen Garrett also placed 11th at the tournament nearly two weeks ago.
Garrett ran a personal-best 24:15 in the 8,000 meters in that meet, and men's head coach Norm Ogilvie said his goal is to earn All-Southeast Region honors with a top-25 finish Friday. As a group, the Blue Devils hope to beat a majority of the 30-35 teams that will race on the difficult 10,000-meter course that features a hill in the last mile.
Ogilvie said Garrett and junior Jordan Burton are confident they can run their best races of the year after seeing the challenge a year ago, when graduate student Shaun Thompson finished second as part of his illustrious career.
"It's one of the toughest 10,000-meter courses in the country. It's definitely the toughest regional course in the country," Ogilvie said. "Last year, Shaun Thompson had a fabulous race, but that course is so tough, he had a tough bouncing back a week later at the NCAA meet, as well as other runners in the Southeast Region."
Sophomore Nikhil Pulimood and fourth-year junior Alec Kunzweiler finished near Burton at the ACC championships and will look to finish the season on a high note this week. Josiah Hanko and what Ogilvie called Duke's B team continued its historic dominance at the Adidas Three Stripe Invitational with its fifth straight win at the event last week, so Hanko also earned a spot in this week's lineup.
The junior was the top collegiate finisher in the 5,000 meters and will run twice as far Friday along with senior Brian Benesch, who will race for the final time as a Blue Devil.
Duke hopes all of its runners can put their best foot forward late in the year, with Parvizi-Wayne hoping the team has an NCAA championship representative once again.
"Sophia is just great. If you put a goal in front of her, she seems to attack it, and that's something we're going to go for—just putting it all out there on Friday and try to get her qualified for nationals," Riley said.
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