Men's cross country grabs 11th place

The men's cross country team ended its season this past weekend at the NCAA District III meet in Greenville, S.C., with its top finish in decades.

Duke finished 11th out of 42 teams--a substantial jump from last year's 22nd- place finish. Tennessee won the meet with 61 points and had the individual winner, senior Tony Cosey, who finished in 31:02. Duke totaled 370 points to finish as the fifth-best Atlantic Coast Conference team at the meet.

The weather the morning of the race was the worst the coaches said they had ever seen. Runners competed in steady rainfall and cold temperatures and had to deal with water buildup and thick mud on the course. The weather resulted in times that were at least a minute slower than usual.

These conditions, however, did not seem to have a negative effect on the performance of the team's top finisher, junior Matt Haywood who placed 49th in 33:14. Haywood had been steadily working his way up in races throughout the season.

After a hard summer of training, Haywood contracted a virus early in the season and had to take a week off, causing him to miss the first meet. He then came back as Duke's top finisher at a B-team meet in Maryland on Oct. 7, worked his way up to No. 7 on the team at the State Championships on Oct. 14, and he was the team's No. 3 runner at the ACC meet two weeks ago.

"I had to change my mind set and run like I should be up there," Haywood said. "That's the difference in how I've raced previously in my college career."

Assistant coach Norm Ogilvie said it was the best race of Haywood's career.

"We thought he'd excel in these conditions," Ogilvie said. "He wants to be a steeplechaser during track, so it bodes well when conditions are like they were."

Sophomore Mike Park was again closely behind Becker, as he was at the conference meet, finishing in 67th place in 33:36. Ironically, this time was almost exactly the same as what Park ran in the District meet last year, but this year he moved up 90 places and was running in much more adverse weather.

The next two Blue Devils to cross the line were running in their final collegiate cross country races--senior Pat Neville came through in 83rd place with a time of 33:48, and senior Joe Crespo had a strong showing by running a 34:04 to finish in 107th place.

"[Neville and Crespo] have put in four outstanding years," Ogilvie said. "Joe really saved the day in his last Duke [cross country] race.

"Pat has been super-consistent in his four years here. He didn't have any bad races this year--every race he ran this year was solid."

Neville completes his cross country career having run in every race but one.

An exceptional fact to the meet's results was that three of Duke's top-five runners were not in the top seven just a month ago. Haywood, Park and Crespo have all made significant strides in their running over the last several weeks.

"They showed that you can never give up," Ogilvie said. "Despite having a slow start, you need to keep training hard and things will gel in the end."

Duke ends its season with a 61-18 overall record against Division I teams, and the team should only get better as most of the team will be returning next year and only two seniors will graduate.

"We went in thinking we could finish in the top 10 or 11," Neville said. "We accomplished what we wanted to do and had top performances from everyone which is a good sign for the future."