FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. - Led by juniors Bo Waggoner and Cory Nanni, the Duke men's cross country team claimed third place out of 18 teams in an extremely close finish at the 24th Annual Roy Griak Invitational held at Les Bolstad Golf Course.
No. 25 Iowa State took home the team title with 71 points, while Oklahoma collected 74 points for the second-place finish. Duke placed seven runners in the top-35 and totaled 94 points to edge No. 17 and host-team Minnesota for the third spot. The Golden Gophers ended the day with 101 points.
The race was closely contested throughout, evidenced by the mere four-second difference in five-man average between the top three squads. Iowa State averaged 25:11 for its top five finishers, followed by Oklahoma at 25:12 and Duke at 25:16.
Saturday's results marked the first time Duke, an annual participant at the Griak Invitational, has cracked the top five at this event in the program's history.
After setting a course record at the JMU Invitational two weeks ago, Waggoner continued to impress this weekend, finishing the rain-drenched, 8K course in 24:53 for the third-place finish and becoming Duke's highest finisher ever at the Roy Griak Invitational.
Minnesota's Hassan Mead, an All-American in 2008, took the top spot out of 167 finishers. Another 2008 All-American, Iowa State's Guor Majak, finished second in 24:50.
Nanni also turned in a career day in cross country with a 13th-place finish in 25:08. Sophomore James Kostelnik (25:22) in 24th place, junior Josh Brewer (25:24) in 26th place, senior James Osborne (25:27)in 28th place, sophomore Stephen Clark (25:27) in 29th place and sophomore Andrew Brodeur (25:33) in 33rd place rounded out the top seven Duke finishers. In addition, the Blue Devils had the lowest-finishing seventh man of any of the 18 teams competing in the race.
"Our guys ran extremely well on a very soggy course," said head coach Norm Ogilvie. "Bo (Waggoner) had an All-America type performance today and this was the best cross country race of Nanni's career. We our very excited about the depth of our top-seven men."
The Blue Devils now stand at 23-2 on the year and will race again on Oct. 2 at the Great American Cross Country Festival in Cary, N.C. The Duke women's cross country team returns to action on Oct. 3 at the Wisconsin Invite.
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