CARY—It was an all-ages affair at WakeMed Soccer Park Friday evening in Cary, as little kids all the way up to parents and grandparents lined up at the finish line to watch the athletes as they crossed the 6K finish line. There was an excitement in the air as one thing was fully clear: Cross country is back.
And for the Duke men, it held a little extra excitement. Kevin Jermyn, back at Duke after serving as an assistant coach in years past, was leading the team for just his second meet as head coach. His results, however, were not spectacular in this early meet: Junior Jeremy Kain finished highest among the Blue Devils, in 46th place. Senior Jack Kovach (59th), junior William Skelly (66th), and redshirt freshman Riley Newport (88th) rounded out the squad, and because the Blue Devils did not race five runners, they did not receive a team score for the event.
While the results may not have been eye-popping, Jermyn was not stressed in the slightest about what that could mean going forward.
“We were trying to view this more as a simulation, running 8K pace, so the team looked controlled, and nobody looked distressed,” he said. When the men compete at ACCs, they’ll run an 8K distance, not this 6K course they ran Friday.
Jermyn went on to note that the team was off of a full volume training week, rather than a lightened load in preparation for the race, but was very intent on emphasizing the health of the team at this point in the season. The Blue Devils struggled last season with injuries, so keeping players healthy in the long term was a major point of focus for Jermyn going into the season.
As such, Duke’s new coach was generally pleased with how things have gone for his squad thus far on that end.
“We have really, really good health right now. Training is progressing nicely, and we’ve got eight weeks ago to the regional, six weeks to conference. So I am really excited for the next chapter, to take the intensity to another level… generally, everybody seems to be feeling pretty good, adapting to training and excited for the steps ahead,” he said.
Jermyn was certainly looking ahead Friday night, but there was a strong element of his past present on the course in his former team. Following the race, Phoenix after Phoenix from nearby Elon lined up to receive a fist bump from their former coach. “Hey coach” they all said with a smile — showing that no love was lost on either end after the near-seven years he spent at the university until he arrived at Duke in June.
“Seeing a lot of new faces here, which is exciting. It's always kind of a strange feeling when you run into the athletes that you were coaching just three, four months ago,” Jermyn said.
Duke looks ahead now to both the Sean Earl Lakefront Invitational and the ECU Pirate Invitational Oct. 4th. Jermyn is clear, however, that the real race to look forward to is one that will conveniently take place on the same course as today’s meet — the ACC championships.
“We really use this as a workout, rehearsal, to get ready for the conference championship,” Jermyn said. “Our goal is simply to just go someplace a little bit new effort wise, [one] that we haven't been in the training so far.”
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