Nov. 19, 2001

Duke's Sean Kelly finished 36th out of a field of 244 runners to lead Duke to a 14th-place finish at the 2001 NCAA Cross Country Championships at Furman University Monday morning. The senior also placed among the top-30 Americans in the race, earning All-America honors for the first time in his career.

Kelly, the Blue Devils' top runner all season, covered the 10,000 meter course in 30:06. It was a huge turnaround for the senior, who finished a disappointing 94th in 2000. The Duke squad also made a tremendous improvement from last season, moving up to 14th after finishing 31st out of 31 teams in 2000.

Also scoring for Duke were sophomore Chris Willaims (88th, 30:51), freshman Michael Hatch (109th, 31:05), junior Jared Moore (111th, 31:07) and freshman Robert Smitson (166th, 31:40). Boaz Chboiywo of Eastern Michigan was the overall champion in 28:47.

The overall champion was Colorado (90 points), who edged runner-up Stanford (91) by just one point. Arkansas was third (118), followed by Northern Arizona (fourth, 193), Wisconsin (fifth, 245), Notre Dame (sixth, 248), Portland (seventh, 273), Villanova (eighth, 282), N.C. State (ninth, 293), Providence (tenth, 294), Michigan (11th, 364), BYU (12th, 368), Oregon (14th, 389) and Duke (14th, 410).

Duke finished second among Atlantic Coast Conference schools behind ACC Champion N.C. State. Kelly was second out of ACC individuals, finishing only in back of the Wolfpack's Chad Pearson (31st, 30:04) and Chris Seaton (35th, 30:06).