Despite their high hopes, neither the Blue Devil men nor the women were able to secure a team bid to the NCAA championship meet as they finished in sixth and fifth, respectively, at the NCAA Southeast Regional in Louisville, Ky. But for one Duke runner, the results were different.
Junior Madeline Morgan entered the meet confident after her performance at the conference championships, where she finished in 11th place to earn All-ACC honors. She continued her streak of success Saturday when she finished in the top-10 to earn All-Southeast Region honors and become the only Blue Devil runner on either team to qualify for nationals.
“I felt pretty good coming out of ACC’s,” Morgan said. “I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of place…. I was just going to try to stay towards the front and see what happened.”
Although the race went out of the gate quickly, Morgan maintained a conservative pace, picking off the other runners one by one as their fast starts caught up with them. When she reached the finish line six kilometers later, she had moved up to sixth place, 18 spots ahead of the closest Duke runner, senior Suejin Ahn.
Morgan was not the only Blue Devil who performed at a high level this past weekend, though. Ahn, who took 24th overall and earned All-Southeast Region honors as well, came in second for Duke. Freshmen Julianna Miller and Colleen Schmidt followed in 41st and 52nd place, respectively, while senior Esther Vermeer and sophomore Amanda Truelove took the last two spots for Duke.
“I would love to be going out there with my whole team,” Morgan said. “Everyone was very encouraging and… genuinely happy for me.”
None of the Blue Devil men in the 10-kilometer race were able to match Morgan’s success. Although the team finish fell short of its goal, head coach Norm Ogilvie was not disappointed with the individual performances.
“They finished right around where everyone was expecting,” Ogilvie said. “We had a good day, not a spectacular day. We certainly had hopes that we would finish higher, but sometimes that just doesn’t happen.”
The team’s frontrunner, senior Andrew Brodeur, ran the best race of his career to take All-Southeast Region honors with his 21st-place finish. Like Morgan, Brodeur had gone into the regional meet off a strong performance at ACC’s, where he also took All-ACC honors. He was the only Duke runner to break into the top-25 at the Regional meet, but his teammates junior Domenick DeMatteo, senior Stephen Clark and sophomore Brian Atkinson also turned out strong performances, all finishing within two seconds of each other. Freshman Morgan Pearson finished just 12 seconds later at his first NCAA Regional meet.
“We went out there and tried our best,” Brodeur said, “but sometimes your best just isn’t enough.”
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