Duke Men Place 7th at ACC Championships; Rivera ACC Freshman of the Year

Friday, November 1

Blacksburg, Va.

10 AM

Duke University

ACC Championships (M)

Photo by: PrettySporty/Cheryl Treworgy

Duke Men Place 7th at ACC Championships; Rivera ACC Freshman of the Year

11/1/2019 1:59:00 PM | Cross Country

Results

BLACKSBURG, Va. – The Duke men's cross country team placed seventh and freshman Sam Rivera was named ACC Freshman of the Year at the ACC Championships at the 8k Buford Meredith Cross Country Course on the campus of Virginia Tech Friday morning.

The Blue Devils totaled 162 points out of the 15 team field. Syracuse took first with 68 points, followed by Notre Dame in second with 73 points and Virginia and Virginia Tech, who tied for third with 100 points each.

"We ran as great as a group in terms of running as a team today," said head coach Norm Ogilvie. "I thought the guys ran pretty tough. CJ and Paul bounced back big time for what they did at Pre-Nationals so that was great to see.

Junior CJ Ambrosio led Duke with his third team first place finish of the season, placing 26th with a time of 25:02.6. Classmate Alex Miley finished two spots behind Ambrosio in 28th, clocking a time of 25:06.8.

Juniors Josh Romine, Paul Dellinger and Rivera rounded out the top-five for Duke. Romine crossed the finish line in 35th (25:14.8), Dellinger 36th (25:16.3) and Rivera 37th (25:16.4). Rivera's finish was the highest among true freshman in the field of 127 runners and is the first Duke men's cross country runner ever to win ACC Freshman of the Year.

"We are going to continue to get better," said Ogilvie. "We are very optimistic that good things are going to happen when we add on 2k at the end of the race. We still feel that the NCAA's is a goal we are going to take into the regional meet in two weeks. So we have two more weeks to get a little bit better but this was a really good bounce back from Pre-Nationals."

Freshman Zach Kinne and senior Tom Sullivan finished sixth and seventh, respectively, for Duke as Kinne finished 56th with a mark of 25:35.3 and Sullivan 62nd with a time of 25:39.7. Junior Cole Hoff, freshman Rory Cavan and junior Michael Ungvarsky rounded out all runners for the Blue Devils, as Hoff placed 72nd (25:48.3), Cavan 76th (25:56.3) and Ungvarsky 94th (26:31.9).

The Blue Devils improved their placement by one spot from last year's 2018 ACC Championship, and the eight wins improved their overall record to 65-30 and 12-10 in the ACC.

Duke returns to action in Blacksburg a week from today as it takes part in the Hokie Open starting at 4:30 p.m. on November 8.

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