Pleased but not satisfied. That’s the mantra for Duke cross country coming out of the Pre-Nationals Invitational in Tallahassee, Fla.
The Blue Devil men and women placed 13th and 15th, respectively, Friday morning—not a bad showing for either squad in the teams’ biggest and most competitive meet so far this season, but also not quite their goals coming into the race.
“I think my initial reaction is a positive step in the right direction for us,” head coach Angela Reckart said. “I think both teams walked away definitely unsatisfied, and just from seeing their training, I think we were capable of just a little bit more. Obviously, both teams didn’t run poorly—I think there were some teams that we could have beat for sure.”
Both the Duke men and women are right on the edge when it comes to teams that could qualify for the NCAA Championships, and unless they earn an auto-bid with a top-two finish at Regionals they’ll each have to rely on an at-large bid to make it back to Tallahassee Nov. 20. Thus, when the Blue Devils get the opportunity to defeat other bubble teams head-to-head, it’s essential they take advantage.
The men did that to some extent, defeating three top-30 teams including regional rivals Wake Forest and Charlotte. However, they still fell short of their top-10 goal entering the meet. The Duke women, meanwhile, defeated zero top-30 squads, though they did take down two fellow members of the “Also Receiving Votes” club.
“As a team, I think we were okay with it for this point in the season, but we definitely think we can do better as a whole,” graduate student Michaela Reinhart said. “Definitely hungry for a bit more.”
Nevertheless, the Blue Devils aren’t going to let one disappointing race cloud the bigger picture.
“I think it's really easy for us to hang our heads low and be like, ‘Oh, we didn't execute exactly how we wanted,’” senior Chris Theodore said. “But I think our heads are high because we know where we can be in a month and we know how to build off of this. All the teams ahead of us had a great race, and it's called Pre-Nats for a reason. These teams are ranked for a reason. And so we now can go back to Durham and get the work done to just be able to get those teams when it matters again.”
Furthermore, some standout individual performances show promise for a program that’s been known to kick into gear during the second half of the season.
Theodore especially impressed on the men’s side, placing second on the team and 66th overall in the eight-kilometer, 299-person race. His performance exuded flashbacks from his breakout showing at this same exact course this past February, when Theodore led the men with a 13th-overall finish in a crucial final meet before last season’s unique NCAA Championship qualification—he said the team joked that it was his “home course” during the week leading up to this meet.
On the women’s side, sophomore Charlotte Tomkinson continued her breakout campaign, leading the Blue Devils and placing 25th overall in the six-kilometer, 243-person race. Her finish marked the best showing by a Duke runner (man or woman) at Pre-Nationals since Shaun Thompson placed seventh in 2015.
Tomkinson has now paced the Duke women in each of her three races this year, and is looking like a star in the making for the program.
“I mean it's been incredible,” Reinhart said of Tomkinson’s growth between this year and last. “She's such a beast, such a competitor, just super gritty in the middle of those races…. And I mean by her senior year, she's gonna be unstoppable. I'm so excited to continue following her career.”
Reinhart didn’t do too shabby herself, going back and forth with Tomkinson throughout the race en route to a 31st-place finish. The Kentucky native, who finished fourth overall at last year’s ACC Championships, said it was the most pleased she’s been with her individual performance so far this season.
Outside of Theodore, graduate students CJ Ambrosio, Josh Romine, Michael Ungvarsky and Nick Dahl rounded out the Blue Devil men’s top-five in 53rd, 76th, 85th and 87th-place, respectively. Seniors Elizabeth Reneau and Clara Savchik as well as junior Emily Cole rounded out the top five for the Duke women at 89th, 99th and 135th, respectively.
Now, the Blue Devils enter the postseason, with the first of two big races before NCAA Championship qualification coming Oct. 29 at the ACC Championships. Duke has some ground to make up if either squad wants to make it back to NCAAs, but it’s under pressure like this that the Blue Devils have seemed to perform their best.
“We're just going to take it one race at a time and just execute,” Theodore said. “We're doing something special here, and the national polls will sometimes say differently, but we know exactly what we're capable of. I think we're gonna surprise some people.”
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