Blue Devils Take Second at Virginia Invitational

Friday, September 16

Charlottesville, Va.

All Day

Duke University

Virginia Invitational

Photo by: Tom Connelly

Blue Devils Take Second at Virginia Invitational

9/16/2022 7:22:00 PM | Cross Country

UVA INVITE RESULTS | WOMEN (PDF)UVA INVITE RESULTS | MEN (PDF)ADIDAS XC CHALLENGE RESULTS | MEN (PDF)

EARLYSVILLE, Va. – The Duke men's and women's cross country teams each posted second-place finishes at the Virginia Invitational Friday morning at Panorama Farms course. The Blue Devil men ended the 6K race with 39 points, while the women finished with 34 points on the 5K course.

The Blue Devils also had four members of the men's team competing at the Adidas XC Challenge in Cary, N.C., on Friday evening.

HOW IT HAPPENED

On the men's side, four Duke runners finished in the top 10, led by Zach Kinne who turned in a sixth-place finish of 17:49.2.
Chris Theodore (17:53.4), Nick Dahl (17:56.1) and Matyas Csiki-Fejer (17:56.7) secured the other top-10 placements for Duke as the trio finished in succession of each other in eighth, ninth and 10th, respectively.
Owen MacKenzie (11th), Sam Rivera (14th) and Austin Gabay (16th) also attributed to the Blue Devils' final team score – MacKenzie finished in 17:58.4, Rivera clocked 18:01.4 and Gabay ran 18:09.2.
Junior Amina Maatoug commanded the women's 5K field from start to finish en route to winning the women's field with a time of 16:57.3 – 13 seconds faster than the second-place finisher.
Dalia Frias was the top finisher among all freshman and placed sixth overall via her finish of 17:30.6.
Similar to the men's race, the Blue Devil women locked down the final three spots among the top-10 individual runners – Emily Cole (17:40.4) took eighth, Ashlyn Ramos (17:45.8) placed ninth and Karly Forker (17:57.3) checked in at 10th.
Duke's next highest finishers were Anna Corcoran, Katie Hamilton and Anna Keeley. The trio crossed the finish line back-to-back-to-back with Corcoran placing 17th in 18:16.4, Hamilton taking 18th via her run of 18:24.7, while Keeley finished in 18:27.6 for 19th-place.
Beck Wittstadt turned in the highest placement at the Adidas XC Challenge for the Duke men, hitting the tape in 18:16.9 for 10th overall.
Jack Kovach (18:41.9), Connor Wells (19:01.1) and Zach Barry (19:08.4) also competed on the 6K course. The trio finished 25th, 37th and 42nd, respectively.

OTHER MEET NOTES

Maatoug picked up her first individual win as a Blue Devil.
For the second consecutive meet, the Duke women have produced the top freshman finisher.
Nine Duke runners achieved personal bests on the 5K and 6K courses at the Virginia Invitational – The women's side featured Cole, Hope Frost (19:35.5) and Hamilton. For the men, it was Dahl, Kinne, Jared Kreis (18:14.6), MacKenzie, Rivera and Theodore.

QUOTE
"Today was a good early-season effort for both teams. It was important for us to get a better feel for the ACC Championships course, and we learned a lot in the process.

I think on the men's side, we wanted to close it down a little better than we did, but it's early and we have a lot of fitness to continue to gain this season. I'm confident that we will be that much better next time we are on this course at the end of October.

The ladies ran very solid for where we are in our training, and it was nice for Amina to take the individual win. It is a long season and I'm looking forward to continuing to put in some great work with both teams these next couple of weeks." – head coach Angela Reckart on the team's performance

UP NEXT
Duke closes out the month in Pennsylvania, as the Blue Devils travel to Bethlehem for the Paul Short Invitational, hosted by Lehigh, Sept. 30.

To stay up to date with Blue Devils cross country and track & field, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by searching "DukeTFXC."

#GoDuke