Duke heads to Clemson in preparation for Saturday’s ACC meet with a simple goal—improving on their previous results.
For the men, that means beating last year’s fifth-place team finish, but to do that they will need to break a recent streak of less-than ideal races. The Blue Devils have been unable to compete at what they view as their true potential due to injuries and unexpected setbacks. According to senior Andrew Brodeur, though, this coming meet will be their chance to change that.
“We’ve gotten a lot of bad luck out of the way in the first few meets,” Brodeur said. “So I feel like something’s got to give now. I don’t know what excuse we could possibly have for not running well on Saturday.”
Brodeur looks to take one of the top-10 spots in an effort to help the team achieve its goal of a third-place finish. The senior has raced in the ACC meet for three years, but has yet to make it into the top-14. This year he hopes to break that barrier and finally earn All-ACC honors.
Brodeur will travel to Clemson with nine of his teammates, including junior Domenick DeMatteo, who took first for the Blue Devils in their last meet, and senior Stephen Clark and freshmen Morgan Pearson, who have consistently been at the front of the pack. To meet its expectations, the team’s frontrunners will have to stay with the leaders of the race. Their main competition for the top spots will come from No. 18 Florida State and No. 30 NC State, but the men are hopeful that if they put forth a stellar performance they will have a chance to take the second-place finish from one of these teams.
“This is the first meet that really matters,” Brodeur said. “From here on out this is where it actually counts. The past few weeks of training have gone really well…. I think we’re ready to do something big in this meet.”
The women share these expectations as they look to improve upon last year’s third-place finish. Several of the Blue Devils, including seniors Suejin Ahn and Esther Vermeer and junior Madeline Morgan, are, like Brodeur, looking to take a top-14 finish and earn All-ACC honors. For a few of their teammates however, tomorrow’s race also represents their first collegiate-championship race.
For the freshmen, though, this is not likely to hinder the team, but rather increases the excitement of the meet.
“I think that everyone is in a pretty good place going into ACC’s,” Ahn said. “Everyone’s really excited about getting out there and showing how well we can do there.”
The women will look to gain experience for the younger members of the team in this meet, as well as prepare for the upcoming regional meet. Since the regional meet determines whether or not the team will automatically qualify for nationals, tomorrow’s race takes on additional importance as it offers the teams a chance to see how they compete at a high level. Despite the added pressure however, the women remain confident they can rise to the challenge.
“We always have high goals,” Ahn said. “We’re always trying to do better than we have last time. And I think we’re capable of it.”
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