By Chris McCree
Sports Editor
Despite strong races by Dave Brown ’12 and the Bison first-years, the men’s cross-country team fell to Duquesne 19-38 this past Saturday in Pittsburgh. The Orange and Blue placed six runners in the top-12 spots, but the Duke squad finished four runners in the top five spots.
“We went into this meet with pretty high expectations,” John Dugan ’15 said. “Duquesne has one of the best teams in the region, but we have been working hard and felt that we would be able to give them a good race. We were looking to beat them and were a little disappointed that we came up a bit short.”
After winning the team’s home opener two weeks ago, Brown recorded the fastest time for the Orange and Blue with a time of 25:34. Brown finished behind a trio of Duquesne runners, claiming fourth place in a field of 32 runners.
Four of the team’s top-seven runners were first-years, Dugan leading the group with a sixth place finish just nine seconds off Brown’s time. Behind Dugan, Andrew Garcia-Garrison ’15 finished 11th in 25:55.
“There are a lot of mixed feelings about the meet,” Brown said. “On the one hand, no one likes to lose let alone have the first three places swept by the other team but, on the other hand, we saw significant individual improvements on the scale of 30 to 60 seconds from last year and our freshmen are rightfully pleased after a stellar showing in their first 8k.”
Much like most of last year, the Bison squad was significantly impacted by health issues.
“Sickness was definitely a problem. There were some minor injuries people were coming back from, but sickness was a significant component to our less than satisfactory team performance. Our top seven from this weekend was almost entirely different than from the Bison Open two weeks ago so that was also a bit of a problem,” Brown said.
Looking ahead, the Bison will have some valuable time to recover before the Paul Short Invitational on Sept. 30 where they will race against Patriot League rivals for the first time.
“We need to keep working hard at practice and doing what we are doing. We know that we have a good team and are capable of running well and are hungry to get back to work and race our best at the Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh at the end of the month,” Dugan said.