After competing in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark. last weekend, senior pole vaulter Jillian Schwartz and sophomore distance runner Sheela Agrawal were both honored as All-Americans for their finishes in their respective events. A third Duke competitor, junior Katie Atlas, also contended for a national ranking at the meet, but she was unable to finish her one-mile run due to sickness.
"[Having two All-Americans] is so helpful to us on a national level," women's track and field coach Jan Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "It helps us not only as far as the team goes, but it helps us in recruiting and in a variety of other ways."
Schwartz placed the highest of all Duke participants, recording a top vault of 13-1.5, tying a previous Duke record that she broke two weeks ago at the ECAC/IC4A Invitational and earning her a seventh-place finish. Samuelson-Ogilvie was pleased with the senior's performance, even though the Illinois native was unable to eclipse her vault of 13-5.25 at the ECAC event. In addition, she felt that Schwartz's indoor season was very successful, despite the slight blemish at the end.
"The bottom line is that Jillian jumped higher and higher every single weekend this season and she won every single competition she was in this season, with the exception of one meet," Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "The pole vault itself is growing in leaps and bounds, and in any other year previous to this, she would have scored much higher than this in the NCAAs. On this particular day, five women had personal bests and jumped over 14 feet. Jillian could have done that."
Agrawal, who entered the 3,000-meter run ranked 10th in the country, registered a ninth-place finish with a time of 9:24.92. Samuelson-Ogilvie was pleased with Agrawal's NCAA performance and expects her solid finish to carry over into the outdoor season.
"This was a good performance for her," Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "She ran right at where she ran to qualify. We've used her sparingly indoors because she wants to be at the top of her game outdoors and it's extremely hard to come off a tremendous cross-country season and run strong indoors and outdoors. She'll go after the outdoor field with gusto."
While Agrawal prepares for a promising outdoor season, Atlas hopes to recuperate from an illness that has plagued her for much of the past three weeks. Coming off a solid outing Feb. 17 in the 800-meter run in the ACC Indoors where she broke an ACC record, Atlas was forced to withdraw from the one-mile event last weekend with only one lap remaining because of her sickness.
Despite Atlas' disappointing conclusion to a record-breaking indoor season, Samuelson-Ogilvie feels that her team is in good shape heading into the outdoor season, which commences this weekend at the North Carolina Quad Meet in Chapel Hill.
"I think we're in much better shape [going into the outdoor season] than we were going to indoors," Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "I think we've had a tremendous amount of sickness and a number of injuries in our freshman class. There are people that did not compete for us at all indoors that are healthy again."
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