Senior Doug Kling led the men's track and field team with his two meet records this past weekend at the Lynchburg Track Classic in Lynchburg, Va.
Kling began the weekend with a win in the 1,500 meters. He easily pulled away from the rest of the field and ran his last quarter in 63 seconds to finish with a new meet-record time of 3:56.72-also a personal best. Kling's finish was part of a 1-2-3 sweep for the Blue Devils in the event-junior Danny Schuman finished in 4:04.02, and senior Pat Neville crossed the line in 4:08.66.
Kling then came back later that afternoon to set his second meet record. This time he did it in the 800 meters, running a time of 1:54.22. Sophomore Jeremy Walker, running in only his second outdoor 800 ever, challenged Kling for most of the race. Walker led through the first lap and halfway through the final lap before Kling pulled away at the 150-meter mark. Walker finished in 1:57.69.
"It was a breakthrough race for Jeremy," assistant coach Norm Ogilvie said. "He's a couple weeks short of running a 1:53."
Kling's 800-meter finish was impressive considering he had already run a solid race earlier that day. Next weekend, Kling will run his first fresh 800-meter race of the season when he participates in the fast section of the 800 at the Duke Invitational, a highly competitive race with national class runners.
The coaches expect Kling to qualify for the Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America (IC4A) meet by running under the qualifying time of 1:51.90, and they would like to see him run under 1:50.
In addition to Kling's finishes, Duke had several other strong performances at the meet. Freshman Scott Antoun pulled away from the rest of the field with 400 meters to go in his 5,000-meter race, and had a strong kick to run the last 200 meters in 32 seconds, placing first in 15:18.
The finish was Antoun's first collegiate win. Fellow freshman Mike Caiazzo placed third in the same race, only .10 seconds behind the second-place runner with his time of 15:20.10.
"It was [Antoun's and Caiazzo's] first collegiate 5,000 and they both gave a very good effort," Ogilvie said.
Although most of the team attended the Lynchburg Track Classic-24 Blue Devils competed at the meet-two athletes traveled to Williamsburg, Va. to run at the Colonial Relays. Freshman Tom Becker ran in the 5,000 meters and had the fastest Duke time of the weekend with his 15:08.50 performance against a nationally competitve field.
Freshman Jesse Allen again ran under the IC4A qualifying time in the 400-meter hurdles with his time of 53.11 to finish eighth, but he was nearly a second slower than his time at the Florida State Relays two weekends ago.
Although the competition at the Colonial Relays was strong, Duke was clearly the best team at Lynchburg against several Division II teams.
"We go up against the top schools in the country each weekend, so we used this meet to give some of our runners experience," Ogilvie said.
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