The women's track and field team was once again led by its youth, as several athletes performed well for Duke at all three meets the team traveled to this past weekend.
Sophomore Kim Voyticky led the Blue Devils, breaking two school records over the weekend. Voyticky first participated in the Duke-UVa pentathlon at Fork Union Military Academy on Thursday, where she broke the school record in the pentathlon with a total of 2,931 points. The event consists of the 55-meter hurdles, the high jump, shot put, long jump and 800 meters. Voyticky had personal bests in both the high jump and 800 meters on her way to the new record, improving her previous best point total by 450 points.
Freshman Jeanie Minton was right on Voyticky's heels, setting a new freshman record with 2,924 points, just seven points behind Voyticky. In her first pentathlon ever, Minton broke Voyticky's old freshman record by 440 points.
The two then traveled to George Mason University, joining the rest of the Blue Devil squad to participate in the Winter Invitational. Voyticky came back on Saturday to break the school record in the 500 meters by 2.1 seconds with her time of 1:17.71. She had missed breaking the record a month ago by a tenth of a second, but this time, she was determined not to leave any room for doubt. In addition, Voyticky anchored the 4x400-meter relay team that ran the fifth-fastest time in Duke history in 4:02.42.
"What Kim did over a 48-hour period was pretty amazing," assistant coach Scott Yakola said.
Last weekend's weather was more suited to the name of the meet, and because of the weather, training was difficult for the Blue Devils, who were not able to run on the icy track for several days.
"The weather conditions changed the scopes and parameters of the workouts we were doing," Yakola said. "It was not the normal sequence [of workouts] we'd do for the week, but we had to make due with the facilities available."
The people who were affected the most were those involved in field events because there was nowhere for them to adequately practice. Despite this, senior Megan Mitchell threw 38-11 in the shot put. This was significant because Mitchell has been working to overcome an injury she sustained in the fall.
"Things are finally starting to come back together for Megan and she threw well," Yakola said.
Yet even though there were three new records set and 13 personal best performances, the weather clearly had an effect on several athletes.
"The conditions didn't allow us to keep going forward," Yakola said. "We're frustrated because we know we can do better. We're a little impatient and we're being hard on ourselves at this point. But we'll work through it-there's no doubt about that."
While most of the team was in Virginia, two distance runners-sophomore Erin Fleming and freshman Kim Folk-took a trip to King's Island, Ohio, to run at the USTNF cross country trials. The top five people at the meet represent the U.S. at the world trials March 18. Head coach Mike Forbes felt it would be good experience for them to run against the high-caliber athletes at the race, including those representing Nike, New Balance and Reebok.
Out of the 32 runners at the meet, Fleming placed 20th with her time of 27:06 in the six-kilometer race. As evidence of the quality of the field, the winner was over five minutes ahead of Fleming. Folk did not run in the meet after waking up the morning of the race with a fever.
"Erin gained a lot of valuable experience running against that type of competition," Forbes said.
The Blue Devils are now tuning up for the Atlantic Coast Conference indoor meet in two weeks in Greensboro.
"Everyone is ready to work hard to step up in Greensboro and perform well," Yakola said.
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