Wort, Warner place high for track at Penn Relays

The men's and women's track teams had a weekend of extremes in Philadelphia at the Penn Relays, collegiate track and field's most high-profile competition. The women's squad achieved the lion's share of the accolades as they trumped several school records in relays and the steeplechase. The men had strong performances in the vaults, but endured bad luck and poor showings in the first leg of both the 4x800 and 4x1500 relays.

Thursday, the first of Duke's three days at the competition, the brightest spot was Liz Wort, who won her section of the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 10:49.09. Wort set a new Duke record for the event, breaking her own mark, set last weekend at the ACC Championships; every time the freshman has run the steeplechase competitively, she has set a new Blue Devil record.

Friday saw another women's record fall, as the 4x1500 unit of an ailing Sally Meyerhoff, Shannon Rowbury, Meaghan Leon and Clara Horowitz obliterated the previous Duke benchmark. The relay team's blistering time of 18:03.69 was good enough to earn them sixth for the entire meet.

"We felt the record was soft," women's head coach Jan Ogilvie said. "But we didn't know we were going to break it by as much as we did, especially with Sally recovering from food poisoning."

Saturday saw a great men's pole vault effort from junior Brent Warner, who finished in a three-way tie for second-place after clearing 16-5 on his first vault. The mark tied Warner's career high, and was especially remarkable given his lack of preparation time.

"Brent ordinarily doesn't have to do 16-5 so early," men's head coach Norm Ogilvie noted. "He normally does 15, then 15-6,then 16 and so on. But to see them starting at his career best and to clear that level, that's really impressive."

The men's team did not have the luck in the relays that they did in the pole vault, as the team's 4x800 team finished 13th.

"Our 4x800 team didn't do as well, and we were out of the race at the first a handoff," Norm Ogilvie said. "Ian was probably a little awed, and it can be tough to run such a tactical race with 40,000 people in the stands."