After traveling to Chapel Hill for the North Carolina Quad Meet Saturday, the men's and women's track and field teams found out just how tough their neighbors can be.
Duke rounded-out a four-team field including North Carolina, N.C. State and St. Augustine, a small school in the Raleigh area that has won several Division II track and field championships.
The men's team faired better than the women's, as six men placed first or second in their events. Most impressive was senior pole vaulter Seth Benson, whose vault of 16-5.5-the second-highest of his outdoor career-gave him first place by a healthy margin. Adding to Benson's accomplishment was his narrowly missed try at clearing 17 feet, the first such attempt of his career.
"If you can vault 17 feet, that pretty much labels you as a national-class vaulter," men's coach Norm Ogilvie said. "That would be one of [Benson's] goals."
Ogilvie's distance runners also met success at the meet. In the 3,000-meter run, Sean Kelly's time of 8:33.73 and Brendan Fitzgibbon's mark of 8:33.81 earned them first and second places, respectively. The two Blue Devils blew away the rest of the field, beating their competition by over 14 seconds.
Further adding to the team's accomplishments were senior Terry Brennan and junior Bill Spierdowis. The duo took the top two spots in the 1,500-meter run, finishing less than a second apart. Jim Martin took second place in the 2,000-meter steeplechase, finishing five seconds ahead of his teammate, Chris Graber, who placed third.
"We were pretty happy with the way people competed...." Ogilvie said. "We were very happy with our key people."
The women were slightly less successful on individual levelsin comparison to the men, as only three female Blue Devils managed to place second or better.
Equaling her men's team counterpart, senior pole vaulter and All-American Jillian Schwartz also took first in her competition. Her vault of 12-9.5 made her the only Duke woman to win her event.
In the 400-meter dash, sophomore Janay McKie managed to squeak out a second place finish; her time of 57.02 was less than half of a second behind of St. Augustine's Shakirah Rutherford.
"For Janay, that was a big step up," women's coach Jan Ogilvie said. "She ran extremely well through 300 meters. It was very windy in the last 100 meters, and she's not a big woman, so it was tough for her to come home in that sort of wind. She really indicated that she is really ready to run well outdoors, so that was exciting."
Also placing second was Kim Hanauer in the shotput. The junior continued to build on her tremendous indoor season, throwing 40-9.75 Saturday.
"In the shot, [Hanauer] has single-handedly rewritten the [Duke] record books indoors and outdoors," Ogilvie said. "She has worked very hard, and now she is reaping the benefits."
Most of the Blue Devils will stay local again next week, competing in the Raleigh Relays at N.C. State. A few of the team's top athletes, however, will participate in the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.
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