The men's indoor track team traveled to Pennsylvania for the Bucknell Relays this weekend, braving the floods which have plagued the Mid-Atlantic region.
While the conditions outside merited a national disaster, the Blue Devils prevented a similar debacle on the track by turning in some respecatable early-season performances. The Duke squad was paced by some solid races by its middle distance runners, especially the members of the distance medley relay team, which qualified for the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (IC4A) meet in Cambridge, Mass., on March 2-3 with its 10:15.83 showing on Saturday. The Blue Devils' time was nearly four seconds faster than the IC4A qualifying mark.
Senior Miles Hall, running in his first meet since helping set a school record in the 4x800 meters at last spring's outdoor IC4A competition, led off the relay with his 1:57 showing in the 800 meters. Freshman Jesse Allen took the baton in third place and ran a 49.5 split in the 400-meter leg to move the Blue Devils into second place.
In Duke's final two legs of the event, seniors Joe Crespo and Doug Kling ran 3:10.6 and 4:18.7 in the 1,200 meters and the mile, respectively, to give the Blue Devils a fourth-place finish. Kling ran the first half-mile of his leg of the relay in 2:04 in hopes of gaining ground on the leaders. Consequently, his final 800 meters were not as fast as his start.
"Doug was very competitive," assistant coach Norm Ogilvie said. "We would prefer for someone to be aggressive and try to make a move and then have to pay the price at the end of the race."
Prior to the distance medley, Allen competed in the 500 meters. Allen finished that race in 1:06.8, just one second slower than the IC4A qualifying mark.
"He got boxed in and ran like a freshman--of course he is a freshman," Ogilvie. "Once he got outside, he blew past everyone. If he had used better tactics, he would have run at least one second faster."
Several Blue Devil distance runners also competed over the weekend. Juniors Matt Haywood and Chris Malfant placed fifth and seventh, respectively, in the 5,000 meters on Friday night. Malfant ran two seconds faster than his previous personal best time, finishing the race in 15:48. Haywood, who slowed a bit in the final 1,000 meters of the event, improved 25 seconds on his previous personal record, completing the race in 15:25.
"Matt Haywood definitely seemed fired up," Ogilvie said. "He just needs to get some more experience. He definitely had a lot of run left in him at the end of his race."
Hall also returned to action for the Blue Devils on Friday night, running 8:55 in the 3,000 meters. Hall missed last week's meet because he was bothered by an injured Achilles tendon. Freshman Brandon Busteed finished one second behind Hall on Friday night.
Another distance runner, freshman Tom Becker, concentrated on speed over the weekend, running the mile and anchoring the 4x800 meter relay squad. Becker place third in the mile with his 4:24 performance, and he ran a 2:01 leg in the relay. Junior Danny Schuman ran 1:57 in his leg of the relay, helping the Blue Devil squad finish in 8:01.
A pair of Duke pentathletes, sophomores Rob West and Ekan Essian, also competed at Bucknell over the weekend. Both West and Essian had 6-3 leaps in the high jump, and West ran the hurdles in 8.31 seconds. Essian leapt 21-2 in the long jump.
The Blue Devils head to the U.S. Air Invitational in Johnson City, Tenn., next weekend, where they hope to improve on their performances from this Friday and Saturday.
"We have a lot of work to do," Ogilvie said. "We are not as far along as last year's team was."
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