Facing the final stretch before the NCAA East Region Championships, Goranson and the Blue Devils broke three school records this weekend at the Virginia Challenge in Charlottesville, Va.
Goranson entered the finals of the 100-meter hurdles, qualifying third with her time of 14.06 seconds in the preliminary round. Competing in the finals just an hour later, the senior reclaimed her school record with a final time of 13.85 seconds. Her teammate Teddi Maslowski had broken Goranson’s 2011 record of 13.93 seconds by two one-hundredths of a second in the heptathlon at the ACC Championships in April.
Earning a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy Studies, Goranson joined 24 other track and field athletes at the undergraduate commencement ceremony Sunday. Juliet Bottorff, Mike Moverman and Audrey Huth earned graduate degrees in Management Studies.
Despite the graduation of 27 talented athletes, Duke forecasted the depth and strength of the team’s future leaders with two additional school records falling at the feet of freshman Madeline Kopp.
Kopp improved upon her own record of 54.08 seconds in the 400 meters Friday, finishing second among collegiate competitors with a time of 53.79 seconds. The Rochester, N.Y., native finished just one hundredth of a second behind Jody Ann Muir from Jamaica and earned fifth overall.
The freshman joined juniors Lauren Hansson, Elizabeth Kerpon and Abby Farley to break the Blue Devils' 4-x-400-meter relay record Saturday. Hansson led off for the Duke squad, turning in a split of 54.40 seconds and passing the baton to Kopp, whose 53.5-second split gave the Blue Devils the lead. Although Farley maintained the lead with her 54.91-third leg, Kerpon's anchoring split of 53.12 seconds was not enough to hold off Notre Dame. Duke placed second overall with a time of 3:36.18, breaking the 2013 school record by more than a second.
In the women’s pole vault invitational, sophomore Megan Clark placed first among college athletes with her mark of 14 feet, 5 1/4 inches. Clark finished third overall behind professionals Katie Nageotte and Janice Keppler.
Redshirt senior Michele Anumba earned second in the women’s shot put, throwing 51 feet, 10 inches on her first attempt. North Carolina’s Sarah Howard won the event with her mark of 53 feet, 5 1/2 inches.
Maslowski took second overall in the women’s heptathlon, unable to catch Tar Heel Tory Kemp after North Carolina's win in the penultimate event, the javelin. The sophomore recorded a personal best time of 2:14.23 in the 800 meters to close out the two-day, seven-event competition with her fourth win. Maslowski recorded a score of 5,335 points—just 31 points short of Kemp’s winning total.
Fellow heptathlete Karli Johonnot competed in the first day of the heptathlon and earned individual wins in the high jump and shot put. Her mark of 5 feet, 9 1/4 inches in the high jump and 38 feet, 11 3/4 inches in the shot put set Johonnot in second place at the end of the first day before she elected to withdraw from the remainder of competition.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.