Blue Devils Set for Virginia Invitational

DURHAM – The Duke cross country team heads to the Old Dominion state this weekend where the Blue Devils will compete at the Virginia Invitational, which is slated for Saturday, Sept. 22 at Panorama Farms.
 
MEET INFORMATION

• Along with Duke, the meet field includes Air Force, BYU (men only), Butler (men only), Charlotte, Colorado, Columbia, Eastern Kentucky, Elon, Georgetown, Iowa State, James Madison (women only), Michigan (men only), Michigan State (women only) Navy, North Carolina, Northern Arizona, Northwestern (women only), Ohio State (women only), Princeton (men only), Providence, Stanford, Syracuse, Utah State, Villanova (men only), host Virginia, Wake Forest (men only) and Washington.
• The men’s 8K opens the morning at 8:45 a.m., followed by the women’s 5K at 9:30 a.m.
• Live results will be available on PTTiming here.

 
WHAT TO KNOW

• The Duke men look to collect their third top-five placement in as many meets while the women aim for their second top-five finish of the season.
• 21 athletes will don the Duke uniforms this weekend. Representing the Blue Devil women are Emily Cole, Anna Corcoran, Julia Fenerty, Karly Forker, Hope Frost, Ella Johns, Amina Maatoug, Charlotte Tomkinson and Kelli Wilson.
• On the men’s side, Ryan Banko, Rory Cavan, Zubeir Dagane, Carter Dillon, Owen Drometer, Nick Falk, Austin Gabay, Michael Keehan, Jack Kovach, Jared Kreis, Sam Rivera and Jake Winslow will take the course for Duke.
• Maatoug makes her season debut this weekend. She looks to build off an incredible inaugural Blue Devil cross country campaign that saw her post four top-10 finishes – including three in the top five – and become the 12th Duke woman all-time, and first since Juliet Bottorff in 2013, to be tabbed a USTFCCCA All-American.

 
 LAST TIME OUT

• The men’s squad earned another top-five placement, coming away with a third-place finish at the Adidas XC Challenge. The Blue Devil men completed the 6K course with 86 points while having three runners place in the top 20.
• Conor Bohrer and Falk led the charge for Duke as the junior-sophomore duo completed the race in succession of each other while finishing among the top 16 in the men’s field.
• Bohrer delivered a personal-best performance and clocked 18:36.0 to place 15th while Falk (16th) ran his race in 18:37.8
• Sophomore Jeremy…