This past Saturday, the Blue Devils walked away from the ACC meet in Clemson with mixed feelings.
After a slow start to their season, the men were finally able to pick up the pace in South Carolina as they raced to a fourth-place finish. Duke tied Virginia Tech for the spot with 116 points, placing four runners in the top 30 and seven in the top 60.
First for Duke was senior Andrew Brodeur, who accomplished his personal goal of earning all-ACC Honors when he crossed the finish line in 11th place with a personal-best time of 23:45.3. Just 23 seconds later, senior Stephen Clark, sophomore Brian Atkinson and junior Domenick DeMatteo finished in a pack to take second, third and fourth place, respectively, for the Blue Devils.
“This is our best team performance of the year so far,” head coach Norm Ogilvie said. “I think it gave the guys a lot of confidence.”
Duke’s fourth-place finish is impressive considering the team has lost many of its experienced and talented runners from the previous year, yet still managed to top its fifth-place performance from last season. The team’s finish also let the Blue Devils keep alive their over 10-year streak of top-five finishes at the ACC meet. And with the regional meet just around the corner, the success could not have come at a better time.
“We had a lot of guys run seasonal-best races, and in two weeks we hope to get even better,” Ogilvie said.
In contrast, the women left Clemson in disappointment after finishing seventh overall. The Blue Devils had headed into the meet with expectations of a top-four finish, but once there were not able to turn their goals into reality.
Despite the unsatisfactory finish, the results were not all bad for the Duke women. The team’s frontrunners—junior Madeline Morgan and seniors Esther Vermeer and Suejin Ahn—ran stellar races to take the top three positions for Duke and finish within the top-30 overall. Like Brodeur, Morgan finished in 11th place overall to earn All-ACC honors.
“We weren’t very happy with the result,” Morgan said. “Top-four for sure would have been an attainable thing, but it just wasn’t our best day.”
The race’s fast start, as well as the pressure that comes with high expectations, contributed to the team’s unsatisfactory performance, and despite a series of promising practices, the women could not transfer that success to the course. Even with a disappointing finish so close to the regional meet, however, the Blue Devils are trying to maintain their confidence.
“We haven’t been racing up to our full potential,” Morgan said. “I think the most important thing right now is to…know that we’ve been putting in all the work and just because it hasn’t shown in a meet yet doesn’t mean that we’re not capable of doing really well.”
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