Duke spent all day Friday organizing its tool box. With less than a month to go before the outdoor track and field ACC Championships, the Blue Devils are putting the pieces into place to defend a title for the women and elevate the men to a top-five finish.
Kentner Stadium hosted the Wake Forest Invitational Friday. The Demon Deacons welcomed schools from all over North Carolina and various parts of the country — Yale, Tennessee and Notre Dame all made appearances. At this point in the season, meets still are not scored on a team basis. Athletes are competing against themselves, fighting to qualify for their respective conference championships.
“We’re trying to solidify the ACC roster,” head coach Shawn Wilbourn said. “So we're giving some of the younger, less experienced students a chance to run and prove themselves. Some others were fine tuning — it just depends on where they were in their progression.”
For Wilbourn, winning gold for the women’s team won’t require much more than this “fine-tuning” and an avoidance of bad luck. The Blue Devil women suffered a sizable loss with distance star Amina Maatoug out for the rest of the season — thanks to a fractured foot — but it is a deficit they can make up for in crunch time with depth on the field as well as on the sprints team. Friday proved that: 16 Duke women placed in the top five of their events, many of whom are not the names typically earning the Blue Devils their points.
More than anything, then, the Blue Devils were competing this weekend to earn their spots on the 60-person roster that Wilbourn will send to the ACC Championship. Katie Hamilton’s third-place finish in the 1500m — amongst a nationally competitive field — might be enough to earn her a spot, or it might not. Wilbourn said her 3000m steeplechase might earn her a spot on the roster instead; Hamilton ran the race for the first time at last weekend’s Duke Invitational in 10:48.84 (through water jumps literally filled with live fish) and placed third. However, it’s still unclear whether or not the junior will get her chance to run in May. The dangerous side of so much depth on one team is that there isn’t always somewhere to put the talent.
It’s the same story for Hailey Williams and Maddy Doane, both seniors on the sprints team, whose performances this weekend put them in the running for the championship roster. Williams ran a 23.95 in the 200m, good for third, while Doane ran a 24.33 and placed fifth. Then they finished neck-and-neck in the 400m, with Doane in third and Williams in fourth, en route to personal bests for the pair.
Junior Meredith Sims is also running her way into contention. At the Duke Invitational a week ago, she improved her personal record in the 200m by a smidge. This weekend, she did the same with her best in the 400m hurdles. Wilbourn, however, remains ambiguous about whether or not she will qualify for ACCs.
He’s less vague when it comes to the men’s team. Wilbourn called Beck Wittstadt’s sixth-place finish in the 800m invite race the “highlight of the weekend.” The junior ran the race in 1:47.19, cutting ahead of a standing program record which hasn’t been reset since 1982.
“He’s getting better and better in the 800 every time he runs it,” Wilbourn said. “So just really happy to see him breaking out here in the past few weeks. But he'll be one of the top guys — he'll be in contention for a title at ACCs.”
The 800m also gave sophomore Jeremy Kain a chance to shine. Kain finished in 1:49.28, good for fifth in the non-invite category.
“Really love to see how he's progressing. He's got a really bright future for us,” Wilbourn said of the sophomore.
Where Duke is starting to look most consistent is on the field. Both the men’s and the women’s teams stood out all over in various throwing and jumping events. Freshman Gemma Tutton placed second in the pole vault but first amongst collegiate competitors; sophomore Gianna Locci took second in the long jump; senior MaKayla Mason placed second in the shot put and in the discus; seniors Moorea Mitchell and Zoe Waddell took third and fourth, respectively, in the hammer throw.
Graduate student Beau Allen’s fourth-place finish in the high jump was first amongst college students; senior Ezra Mellinger’s 7.48m leap landed him second in the long jump and senior Myles Schreck earned third in the hammer throw while freshman Christian Toro cleared the event with a first-place mark that was over four meters farther than No. 2’s performance. The field is where Wilbourn can survey his depth of talent and relax.
“They’re looking really good,” he said, “and we’re starting to see some depth across the board.”
At Penn Relays starting Thursday, the Blue Devils will look for one of their last chances to make that conference championship roster.
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Sophie Levenson is a Trinity sophomore and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.