After a tough finish to the season Friday afternoon, neither Blue Devil team will be satisfied as they enter the offseason with a bright future and a hunger to improve.
Duke wrapped up the fall at the notoriously difficult NCAA Southeast Regional in Charlottesville, Va. The Blue Devil women, led by impressive top-30 performances from freshmen Amanda Beach and Michaela Reinhart, finished in 10th place. The men placed 15th in the 32-team field and were paced by freshman Alex Miley and junior Nikhil Pulimood.
Only the top two teams in each of the nine regionals advance to the NCAA championships, with 13 additional at-large teams receiving bids.
“There are a lot of things we can take away from this performance and a lot of learning,” women's head coach Rhonda Riley said. “I’m proud of the effort today.”
Beach and Reinhart have been the model of consistency this season, finishing as the top two Blue Devils in every race they ran. Beach finished 27th in 21:10.6 Friday, and Reinhart was right on her heels, finishing 28th less than six seconds later.
Sophomore Sophia Parvizi-Wayne was right behind the top two in 37th with a time of 21:30.6. Junior Sheridan Wilbur completed the six-kilometer race in 22:02.0 as the 63rd finisher. Rounding out the scoring was Lindsay Billings, who clocked a time of 22:21.5 and finished 86th.
On the men's side, Miley and Pulimood finished 61st and 64th, respectively, in the 10-kilometer event, with only 1.5 seconds separating the two. Sophomore Tom Sullivan had an impressive showing of his own, coming in 85th and crossing the finish line in a personal-best time of 31:17.8.
“We didn’t have a great day today, but they gave their best effort,” men's head coach Norm Ogilvie said. “We have a very young team, and four of the seven runners ran their first 10K of their careers. Sometimes you can misjudge a new distance, but there are no excuses. I didn’t think we ran as well as we were capable of running.”
In his regionals debut, sophomore Matt Wisner came in 92nd with a time of 31:28.0. Junior Stephen Garrett wrapped up Duke’s scoring with his 112th-place finish in 31:54.7.
Despite the disappointment of not advancing to nationals, the future is bright for both squads. Of the 14 Blue Devils who ran in the regional championship, 13 will return next fall to complement a new crop of promising recruits.
"This program has made the NCAA meet quite often, and we need to get back to it sooner rather than later,” Ogilvie said. “And these guys need to think that way. We have enough talent to be better and we need to start doing that.”
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