WINSTON-SALEM--The men's track and field team expected to have a strong showing in this weekend's Atlantic Coast Conference championships. But the Blue Devils never imagined a 36-point performance--the school's best since 1978.
And Duke's impressive point total was only the tip of the iceberg.
Junior Miles Hall, who won the 1,500 meters in 3:50.45 on Saturday, gave Duke its first ACC title in any event since 1982. The 4x100 meter relay squad shattered a school record. And, for the first time since 1986, the Blue Devils finished out of the conference cellar--Duke easily beat Maryland to take eighth place in the ACC.
Hall's victory was the biggest highlight of the weekend for Duke. Going into the meet, he was seeded second in the conference in the 1,500, behind Wake Forest freshman Eric Dunn. But in Friday's preliminaries, the Duke junior had the fastest qualifying time of 3:51.78.
And in the finals on Saturday, Hall was able to break up the host Demon Deacons' dominance of the distance events--Wake runners won the 10,000 meters, the 5,000 meters, the steeplechase and the 800 meters. Hall hung in the middle of the pack early in the 1,500 meter finals, and he pushed his way to the front with about 500 meters remaining.
"I wanted to make sure that I was the one who made the first move," Hall said. "I thought if I did that, I'd be stronger than the rest of them. I didn't want them to jump out ahead of me and be behind before I realized it."
Hall's reasoning paid off. He was able to withstand a strong challenge from Dunn in the final 200 meters to win the race. It was the second-fastest 1,500 meter time of Hall's Duke career.
"He raced intelligently, and he raced aggressively," head coach Al Buehler said. "He ran a slow half and held them off with a great stretch drive. That was not an easy thing, but he kept his head and kept his cool, and he just outmuscled them."
"It's certainly the biggest win I've had," Hall said. "Being the ACC champion is a pretty big deal, so I'm very happy about it."
Shortly before Hall's race, four football players contributed four points to the Blue Devils' scoring total--and rewrote the Duke record book in the process. Redshirt freshman Corey Thomas, freshman Desi Thomas and sophomores Charles London and Johannes Brugger ran the 4x100 meter relay in 41.06 to take fifth place in a race against some of the nation's best sprint relay squads. The football players' time obliterated the 22-year-old Duke mark of 41.94
"We're content with what we did," Corey Thomas said. "We're happy to now be a part of Duke history. We're in football shape, and we didn't want to come out here and embarrass ourselves. Right now, we'd like to lower the school record even more."
Another football player, junior Tijan Redmon, became the "Fourth-best Athlete in the ACC" with his decathlon performance. Redmon scored 6,182 points in the 10-event competition, which began on Friday morning and lasted until Saturday evening.
"I was just trying to come out and have some fun and help score some points for the team," Redmon said. "Overall, I pretty much had a solid outing, so I'm satisfied with it."
On Friday night, freshman Jamie Rodriguez gave Duke its first five points of the meet. Despite a sore arm, Rodriguez was able to throw the javelin 210-2, which was good for fourth place, behind three Florida State throwers.
"That was a gutsy performance for Jamie to come through with that," Buehler said.
Junior Doug Kling also added five points to the Blue Devils total. Kling ran the two fastest 800-meter races of his life over the weekend. On Friday night, he finished second in his fast preliminary heat in 1:52.03.
Kling then came back to run a personal best time of 1:51.66 in the finals on Saturday. That race earned him fourth place in the conference and qualified him for the Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association of American championships.
"Doug ran a terrific race," Ogilvie said. "He made a great move on the back stretch."
The Blue Devils 36-point showing comes just four years after being shut out in the ACC meet. In fact, prior to this weekend, Duke had scored just 24 points in all of the conference outdoor meets this decade. And the Blue Devils were as high as seventh place in the standings for most of the day on Saturday before Georgia Tech moved ahead of them in the final few events.
"Everyone gave their best effort," Buehler said. "We showed that we can be competitive. What Miles Hall did is the standard that we should all try to achieve."
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