The women's track and field team had seven first-place finishes and 16 personal bests this past weekend at the Wake Forest Easter Classic in Winston-Salem.
The Blue Devils competed against athletes from Wake Forest, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Asheville, Campbell, Brevard and Davidson, and if the meet had been scored, assistant coach Scott Yakola feels that Duke would have won.
"We had the best team there," Yakola said. "We had the most depth, scoring at least three places in almost every event."
Although the teams Duke was participating with were not the highest quality schools that the Blue Devils have seen this season, it did allow many of the younger runners on the team to compete.
In her first collegiate open 800-meter race, freshman Stephanie Thomas won the event, leading from start to finish en route to her 2:18.64. Junior Megan James-who moved up from running the 200 meters last year-finished second in the event in 2:19.9. Freshman Ali Balfour finished in third with a time of 2:22.
"All three [800 runners] had limited college experience in the event, but they did very well," Yakola said.
Sophomore Kim Voyticky also had a busy weekend, running a personal best 58.64 to win the 400 meters, placing second in the 200 meters, third in the 100-meter hurdles, and fourth in the javelin. In most cases, the only people to do better than Voyticky were her own teammates, as sophomore Kim Hay won the 200 in 27:04 and junior Kirsten Johnson won the 100-meter hurdles in a personal best 15:04.
"Kim Hay had a couple down weeks, but she has worked really hard in practice and it's starting to show," Yakola said.
In the 1,500-meter race, senior Betsy Keever continued her strong racing this season by winning the event in 4:34.94. In addition, the 4x100-meter relay squad of freshmen Tara Cyre, Kelley Martens and Misty Farrell, and Hay won with a time of 50.94. Farrell then won the high jump with a personal best jump of 5-2.5.
Although she was just short of winning her events, senior Megan Mitchell finished second in both the shot put and the discus.
"I was really pleased with Megan," Yakola said. "She is always out there to compete and her two [second-place finishes] helped our cause."
Although the Blue Devils had been running in larger meets previous to this one, the smaller meet gave the younger runners a chance to compete and it gave the coaches the opportunity to put athletes in events that they might potentially run in the future, as in the case of Thomas in the 800 meters. As evidence, a majority of the personal bests on the team were set by freshmen and sophomores.
"This is the first meet where the underclassmen have felt most comfortable running college track, and they showed great maturity as a team," Yakola said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.