It didn't match the remarkable seventh-place finish of 1997, but the men's track team was far from disappointed with its 25-point, eighth-place showing last weekend at the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships in Orlando.
Senior Rob West capped his Duke career by breaking the school record in the decathlon to finish fifth at the meet. West's 6,593-point tally shattered Tijan Redmon's three-year-old school record by 77 points and gave West a scoring performance at ACCs for the fourth consecutive year.
West sat in 13th place after the 100 meters, but elevated himself to fifth place by the end of Friday's events and finally to third, with strong showings Saturday in the pole vault and the 1,500 meters.
"Our MVP was Robert West," said Blue Devil coach Norm Ogilvie.
Two of West's fellow decathletes backed him up with strong performances, giving Duke three top-nine finishers in the decathlon. Sophomore Pat Ratz finished eighth with 5,690 points, making this the fourth straight year in which two Blue Devils have scored in the decathlon. Freshman Ted Payne, who scored with an eighth-place finish in the open javelin throw, finished ninth in the decathlon with 5,649 points.
On Friday, junior Tom Becker padded Duke's score with a fifth-place finish in the 10,000 meters, logging a 31:03.98 time that made his coach proud.
Although the top four runners in the 10,000 were seniors who finished atop the league standings a year ago, Becker did not shy away from the competition.
"In the past, he would have run a safe fifth," Ogilvie said of Becker. "But he made a real run for second place, decided he was going to make a shot for it.
"He showed a lot of fortitude by doing that."
Becker and teammate Seth Benson, a freshman pole vaulter, were two of the central reasons why Duke finished Friday's competition with 13 points. Benson, who will compete next week at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, cleared the IC4A qualifying mark of 15-11 on Friday, and followed up that effort with a 16-3 1/4 vault, launching himself into fourth place at ACCs.
The latter vault was the third-best in Duke history and gave Benson the top mark by a Blue Devil freshman.
The Blue Devils also excelled in the 1,500 meters, where freshman Brendan Fitzgibbon finished fifth in 3:52.07 and freshman Mike McKeever and sophomore Kyle Leonard placed in the top 12.
Fitzgibbon, McKeever, Leonard and senior Mike Park will compete this weekend in the Championship of America 4x1-mile relay at the Penn Relays, a race that will be televised on CBS at 1 p.m Saturday.
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