The Blue Devils returned from the Three Stripe Red-Shirt Invitational Saturday in Cary after a successful weekend.
For the frontrunners on the women’s team, the 5K meet represented their last chance to earn a spot on the NCAA Southeast Regional roster. Seven Duke runners will compete for their team in the Regional next weekend, and the top-two finishers from Saturday’s meet—freshman Colleen Schmidt and sophomore Gabby Levac—will fill the previously-unclaimed sixth and seventh spots.
“Our coach... had the top-five spots picked out,” Schmidt said. “So the last two spots were just for whoever was going to go out there and give it their all.”
Schmidt took first overall with a personal-record time of 17:57, and Levac crossed the finish line just five seconds later to take second overall. And with junior Adrianne Soo and freshman Chloe Maleski’s respective 18:20 and 18:22 finishes, Duke was able to take four of the top-five spots.
“Our training has gone well for quite awhile,” head women’s coach Kevin Jermyn said. “We’re disappointed with our overall team performance from the last couple races.... But I think between [the ACC championship] and this weekend we have more people going into Regionals feeling pretty good about their fitness and their ability to... go out there just run [their] best race of the season.”
The meet did not hold quite as much meaning for the men’s team, as Regional spots had already been given to the top-seven finishers of last week’s ACC meet. Instead of using the race as a qualifier, the team headed into the Three Stripe Red-Shirt Invite looking to gain some experience for their younger runners.
The Blue Devils combined their efforts to earn a third-place finish, which came in behind North Carolina and N.C. State with a total of 54 points. First for Duke was freshman Shaun Thompson, who took seventh overall. Just eight seconds later, sophomore Christian Britto crossed the line in 15:21 to take eighth place.
Freshmen Nate McClafferty and Brian Schoepfer, and senior Brendon Pierson followed soon after to finish off Duke’s top five.
“It was a solid outing for the young people that we ran,” head coach Norm Ogilvie said. “We always want to give our up-and-coming guys a chance to develop.... They got some experience and we were happy with it.”
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